Top 20 Important Personality Development Tips

Gone are the days when a piece of paper could define your future. Today, rather than what you have, what is important is, how you sell it! The content and knowledge can be learnt. Most employers today say, it is the personality and the attitude which demarcates one individual from the other. So in this extremely competitive world, when everyone has access to the same kind of information, how do you stand out of the crowd? Here are 20 tips which can help you develop your personality. Hold on, the ride is bumpy!

20) Firm handshake – Whenever you meet someone, make sure you give them a firm handshake. This is not just limited to a handshake. Ensure that you sit erect, stand on both legs, keep your hands free and make eye contact with people when you interact. In short, mastering the body language would ensure people take you to be talented and smart. Your body language is the first word that someone hears when they meet you for the first time. Make sure it is such that it calls for only compliments.

19) Chin up- I have seen people who look down at their feet when they walk or at the slightly lower altitude. This creates an air of confusion, instability and incapability around you. Rather always make sure that you walk with a steady gait, chin up and stature in your body language. This ensures an aura of positivity, self-confidence and assurance around you.

18) Stay fit – As unrelated as this might sound, a good personality is healthy at the body and hale at the heart. Fitness does not mean weight training or anorexia; it simply means staying fresh, energetic and agile throughout the day. Improve your immunity, eat well, sleep well and you would glow even after a long day at work. Considering that you have to work hard on various aspect every day to build a wholesome personality, you must ensure that you stay fit all the time.

17) Read, read and read – As nerdy as this might sound, even if every book sings a lullaby to you, even if the letters dance and your eyelids get heavy as you turn the cover, make a habit to read. Any successful person in this world, if nothing else, is very well read. There is no fixed rule for reading. Read what you like at first till the time books become your drugs (yes, they do.) Once you get habituated to reading, you will involuntarily read anything and everything that you can get your hands on. Trust me, I have seen people read the airplane magazines during safety demonstrations because that is the most that they can. There will never ever be anything that you read which would not be utilized somewhere or the other.

16) Use the information – Once when I was gorging in a bookstore, getting as many books as I could, one very proficient salesperson asked me – “how much time would you take to finish this 400 page book?.” I said maybe a week or so. He said “what would you talk about in that one week? “ It later hit me that what he wanted to say was make sure you use the information you read. Even if you read one headline in the morning, make sure you use that somewhere in the whole day’s conversation. This has dual advantages. First and foremost, people would know that you are an updated person and you talk about what is happening then, at that moment. More importantly, when you use some information somewhere, you remember that for a longer time than the one you merely read.

15) Curiosity – You can relate with the instances where you tag somebody as dull or boring not because he has different interests than you do, but because he is not interested to explore. Inquisitiveness or curiosity is the most important trait of a vibrant personality. Unless until you are curious about everything around you, you wouldn’t be able to develop a good personality. Curiosity is not a trait that you need to harbor in order to show the world, it is a pre-requisite to building up yourself well. Be curious about everything and anything, about what people think, about how a particular dish tastes, about a different genre of music.

14) Notice – Whenever you enter a room full of people, you face an identity crisis at that very moment. The best way to step out of the “usual crowd”, it is important that you make your mark. The easiest way to do that is notice everything around you. Be it somebody’s dazzling attire or the color combination of the upholstery with the color of the walls, when you keep your eyes and ears open, your words would be appealing and interesting. Many people also call it “words of the moment”, but it is a simple trick of using the environment or background of someone or something to strike an interesting conversation with them.

13) Master the language – When people say that a successful person has very good communication skills, it does not necessarily mean that the skills have to be in English language. As long as you have the command over any one language, that is enough for you to make your mark. Keep learning new words in that language, keep writing to ensure a flow of thoughts and interact with people who share your interests to learn the nuances of the language.

12) Discuss – More often you learn much more and much faster when you discuss with people than when you read alone. When you discuss anything with a group of people, you come across various facets of the conversation that you might have missed. In addition, you get exposed to those new perspectives that you would never imagine to exist. This would either change your perception or give you some additional content that you need to advocate your perception for/against. Discussion is like learning at fast forward!

11) Network well – A good personality is the one who can gel well with people from different backgrounds irrespective of the fact whether the connections are of monetary importance or not. A good, close-knit network makes sure that you stay updated and active in your field of work and at the same time gain information of diverse spheres over general everyday conversations without putting in any time into it. In addition, networking exposes you to diversity.

10) Listen – Many a time we fail to listen to what is happening around us. We learn way more when we listen than when we speak. Be it a radio jockey, a professor or a friend, just listen with an open mind. You would get to learn at least one thing from each of them. You may ask why do I need to learn the tricks from such diverse people, well the answer is simple. A vibrant personality is nothing if not diverse. Once you can instill the diversity in you, people from all types of background will be able to connect with you and these connections would help you learn even more.

9) Never stop learning – Be it a restaurant, conference room or the roads, never stop learning from anyone and everyone you find. Learn from the office boy to balance 3 files, a napkin, a newspaper and 4 cups of tea together, learn from a child to paint the grass blue and think out of the box, learn from a teacher to remember the complete roll list of her class. Knowledge knows no barrier of degree, specialization, age or occupation. If you keep learning from everything that you see, you would sub consciously gain skills without putting your time in them.

8) Be kind – The best way to build an affable personality is to be kind and polite to everyone that you meet. Generally people ignore or ill-treat the people around them like the watchman, the lift man, the newspaper boy etc. If you make it a habit to wish them a good morning/evening, smile at them, recognize them, it would become a part of your personality and you would be nice to everyone you meet. Sorry and thank you are 2 words which are free to use and yet pave the path to the best relationships. Make sure you compliment people enough and be clean at heart. Undoubtedly you would then have glistening eyes!

7) Be energetic – Who likes a dull, drab, tired person? Right, no one. Be energetic and full of life wherever you go. Make sure you can light up the whole room, a group or a discussion with your presence. So the next time you are not there, people would feel something to be missing. It is important that people value your presence but it is more important that people realize your absence.

6) Prioritize – If you want to build an all-round personality, you will have to work on your language, tone, fluency, body language, knowledge base, dressing sense, hygiene and the list goes on! If you have to do all this in one day, every day, make sure you make the most of your day. Set up a schedule, stick to deadlines, never compromise with work and be sincere. Once you identify any activity to be non-developmental, quit it and use that time to relax, pursue your hobbies or chisel yourself. It is important to know what activities to indulge in, but it is equally important to identify the activities/people/groups that you must quit.

5) Take responsibility – In order to be good at something, it is necessary to take responsibility. Once you are answerable for something, you would automatically learn it well and do it right each time. Raise your hand when the professor asks one person to take charge for the class. If you keep fawning your skills in the nest, you would never know how well you can fly. You need to jump out of the nest, take the plunge and fly hard because that is all you can do then to save your life. Push yourself and take charge!

4) Fail at least once – In order to grow individually, it is very important that you fail at least once in life. You can never reach the height if you have not seen the depth. Falling is not an issue, not getting up back is one. It is very important to fail in life in order to identify your limitations and to know what is not to be done.

3) Do it yourself – Do not know how to make a presentation, open MS PowerPoint and try every tab. Unless you learn things yourself, you would not have the capacity to adapt things quickly when taught to you. This does not mean that you do not take any outside help. Take as much assistance as you need, but make sure that it is you who does it at the end. If somebody does it for you and tells you how it is done, you would probably forget the same in 3 months’ time, but if you learn it yourself and try your hands on it, you would never forget how to tune a radio or how to change the tyre. The difference between our generation and our parents’ is that they used their hands more and we use our finger tips more. Get to the ground and use your hands. You would become a different person altogether!

2) Perfection – Every reason behind making a mistake is an excuse. Extending the deadline even by one day, incorrect date on one assignment or any such trivial mistake. The moment you allow yourself to go wrong or do things incompletely, it would become your habit. In order to have an influential personality, try and make it a habit to do it right the first time and do it right every time. Mistakes are not taboo, their repetition is, casualness is. Try and make every activity as perfect as you can. The day you can say I did this in the best way I could, I know I couldn’t have done this any better, that day even a failure would be a victory!

1) Know the mind – There are certain peculiar facts about the mind, the way it works. The best way to master your personality is to master your mind and the best way to master your mind is to know the nuances of it. The conscious, sub-conscious mind, the muscle memory and the conscious memory, senses which appeal to you the most etc. Once you are aware of the way it works, you can take charge of it and expand your strengths by narrowing down your weaknesses.

As easy and comfortable a person might seem, it takes immense effort to build up an attractive personality. The compromises are considerable in number but the benefits are aplenty. Work hard for a while till it becomes a habit, after that the usual way of life would be the one of perfection. So get, set, go and start NOW! Do not forget to let us know how these tips helped you in the comments!