11 ways to make yourself more likeable, according to a therapist

“Likeability” is a fascinating concept in the digital era – when to “like” something is simply to double-tap on a phone screen. But what actually makes a person likeable? And how do you increase your likeability across your life, so that people you’re in a relationship with – whether it’s casual or colleague-based, dating or something deeper – like you… like, really like you? To find out, we spoke to a range of experts, including Meera Moore Danowski, psychotherapist and founder of The Nest Club; Lily Jones, a dating and relationship coach who founded Love With Intelligence; and Lee Harding, talent acquisition manager at recruitment company Join Talent. Understand yourself We need to give ourselves more credit, explains Danowski: “We underestimate how much we are liked and one way around this is to enter the arena with an assumption that you’re more welcome than you think you are. “That’s better than focusing on the micro detail of what you might have said that wasn’t quite right, because that tends to make you focus on yourself rather than the other person.” Shorts As Madonna put it in her 1993 banger “Secret”: “Before I learned to love myself/I was never ever loving anybody else.” Danowski says: “It is important to get to a place where you can be as you as you can, because the more you like you, the more likeable you are.” Don’t be smarmy Danowski says: “The key to being liked is less about flattery and charm, and more about being really attentive and responsive, really hearing someone and leaving them feeling understood and seen.” Overdoing it is really obvious, Danowski adds: “When you’re experiencing excessive flattery and excessive charm, it can feel good in the moment, but you can sense that it comes from an insecure place, rather than from someone who is grounded and knows who they are.” Mirror body language – and language “Creating rapport is super important, because it’s making people feel comfortable,” explains Jones. And one way to do this is mirroring them. “When you’re copying other people’s body language, psychologically it makes them feel you’re similar to them.” This, Jones says, helps people “feel seen”. And to help them feel heard, she recommends something called the echo technique. This is where you “repeat the last three words of what they said. So if they say, ‘I went out this weekend,’ you literally parrot back, ‘You went out this weekend?’ It allows someone to go a little deeper than they were originally going to”. Jones says as obvious as this is on paper, “you could do it maybe four or five times and most people won’t realise because the conversational focus is all on them”. Be curious Jones explains that “the more you get someone to talk about themselves, the more they’re going to enjoy the conversation, because people love sharing all the different details about their life, the holidays, the people they interact with. Asking people about their dreams, their goals, what scares them and what excites them, really allows them to feel seen and heard”. The same goes for, say, job interviews, with Lee Harding explaining: “Ask the interviewer what they like about working here – because people love talking about themselves.” When it comes to actually working, Harding stresses the importance of paying attention to others. “There’s nothing more frustrating than speaking to somebody who asks how your weekend was, but you can tell they don’t care.” Respond to emotions A lot of people can be afraid to connect with someone else’s emotions, Jones explains. “When you’re creating a deeper connection with someone where you are becoming more likeable, the conversation is going to become more emotional than your average standard everyday conversation. So it’s okay to label those emotions and respond to them.” This could be as simple as saying “it looks like that’s something that upsets you” or “that looks like something that excites you”. Allow vulnerability The best way to deepen what could be a superficial conversation is to create space for vulnerability, Jones explains, adding that this method of “boosting your likeability” requires you to “show your own vulnerability first, whether it’s a painful memory or something that means a lot to you”. Use “what” and “how” questions Jones says this is an easy way to get deeper into a conversation while also taking some pressure off. “Most people tend to ask ‘why?’ and that will result in the other person giving a defensive answer or just shutting down. But ‘what’ and ‘how’ allow people to open up again.” Don’t people-please No one is actually pleased by people-pleasing. “People-pleasing can be controlling and exhausting for both parties,” explains Danowski. “Often people-pleasers are focusing on themselves and how they are doing things, questioning, ‘am I doing this right?’ and not being present, rather than actually focusing on the other person and being curious about them.” Those with anxious attachment styles can fall foul of this. “When they’re doing a cat-and-mouse, Tom-and-Jerry-type routine with an avoidant, they tie their self-worth to another person and actually, the unfortunate thing is, the harder someone is trying, the further away the other person moves.” Similarly, Harding says that in a work environment, “people like people who help them. You don’t want to be a doormat, but where you can help, do help. And if you say you’re going to do something, do it. Be reliable; that’s the sort of person you would want to work with”. If you’re in a couple, stay curious Danowski says: “Liking is often such a core piece of really lasting love. And couples that do really well together have this deep friendship first.” From her work with couples, she has discovered that “it’s often not the love that gets wobbled too much during big life transitions; it’s more about starting not to like someone, becoming exhausted and resentful”. “A lot of couples I’ve worked with just can’t hear each other because they don’t listen… one thing I tell couples is not to make assumptions about their partners. Even if you’ve been with them for a long time, exploration and curiosity are key, because we do change as people.” At work, don’t tread on toes “A big mistake a lot of people make, the more experienced we become, is walking into a workplace, seeing what could be done better and saying so.” This will often happen, Harding says, “before we’ve even been there long enough to understand why those things happen that way. It comes across as arrogance, like you know better”. Watch out for people pretending to be likeable Jones explains that “dangerous” people will often try very hard to be likeable, so it’s important to remember that “just because someone is likeable doesn’t mean they’re going to be a nice person. So watch how that person talks about other people, because people with low levels of emotional intelligence will see themselves as above other people”. When it comes to relationships, Meera Moore Danowski says that the old cliché is true: just be yourself. “It can be a really hard thing to be, but be as you as you can. It’s really clear to someone when you’re not your real self. It can be exhausting, not only for the person who’s trying to be liked, but for the people experiencing it. “People can tell when they’re being managed rather than being met. The more you can relax and be yourself, the more likeable you actually are.” Jones echoes this, explaining that when it comes to dating, “the more performative you become trying to be liked, the less chance people are actually going to like you”.