How to fix a bad first impression of yourself. The easiest ways to leave a bad impression about yourself How to fix a bad reputation
Experts say that we only have one tenth of a second to make a first impression, and once an impression is made, it is very difficult to change it. For people closely work-related with others in related fields, a bad first impression can be disastrous, especially if it is made on some influential person.
The past cannot be returned, but you can take several steps to correct it, especially immediately after your mistake. Here are some tips for business people who made the mistake of meeting someone important to them for the first time.
1. Don't assume the worst.
If you said something wrong, it's easy to assume that your mistake is on everyone's mind. In reality, this is probably not as obvious as it seems. Instead of making a big deal out of it, accept the fact that the person might not even notice your mistake and move on.
2. Sorry.
If it's obvious that you've made a bad impression, the best thing you can do is apologize right away. The apology must be sincere pure heart and as fast as possible. If you made a mistake because you're just nervous, tell the person about it. He may be flattered by your respect and would rather forgive you than you apologize without giving a reason, or with some bogus reason.
3. Move in a different direction.
Some professionals believe that The best way to overcome a bad first impression is to show yourself from a completely different side. For example, if you made a bad joke, show how serious you can be. If you feel that you overdid it with the desire to appear businesslike and serious, you can joke a little about yourself. Sometimes, by opening up from the other side, you show that it is impossible to get to know a person well in a short period of time.
4. Find something in common.
It is possible that you may have mutual acquaintances, especially if you work in the same industry. Then you can ask your mutual friend to explain that you are aware that you made a bad first impression and that it does not characterize you correctly. Often the words of a colleague can be more important than the apology of someone with whom you do not really know.
5. Have patience.
After you make a bad first impression on someone, you need eight positive encounters with that same person, according to a Harvard study. This means that even if your apologies and explanations are accepted, it still takes some time to be accepted for who you really are. Keep this in mind and do not force things.
6. Accept that you can't please everyone.
Despite your best efforts, there will always be people you can't make a positive impression on. This may have nothing to do with what you said or did, but may be a matter of personal preference over which you have no control. It is unlikely that there is only one person who is the main key to the success of your business, so in some cases you just need to leave and look for others who can help you. Despite all the efforts that are made to make a positive first impression, failures do happen. However, with the right corrective actions, you can turn a negative first impression into a positive long-term working relationship. However, do not forget that some people just may not like you and nothing can be done about it. The sooner you start moving on and focus your efforts elsewhere, the more successful you will become.
How many times have we heard that they are greeted by clothes. Such a universal warning may seem like a death sentence in a situation where such an important first impression has been hopelessly damaged. If you need to positively represent your firm in the “deal of the century” or coax your blind date partner into a new date, then do your best to rectify the situation after the first attempt. No one promises that it will be easy, but it is possible to correct a bad first impression about yourself.
Steps
Part 1
Bad joke- If you often make a molehill out of a fly, then after a spoiled first impression, show compassion for yourself. Try repeating the following phrase to yourself: "You are only human. You are only human."
-
Show a sense of humor and lightly laugh at yourself. If your bad joke is followed by an awkward silence, then say something like "At first I thought it was funny!" or "Well, not funny at all." Such a remark will show the interlocutors that you correctly understood their reaction and realized the mistake.
Move on. Move on to the next topic as soon as possible. Don't let a gaffe ruin the conversation so you don't get even more upset. Move the situation off the ground and again support the conversation with questions and your own opinion. For the rest of the time, be more restrained to show the seriousness of your intentions.
- There are several ways to cleverly change the subject of a conversation. In this case, it will be enough to return to the previous topic. Talk about what preceded your inappropriate joke. Say "So you were talking about your parents" or "I can't believe the firm's revenue has grown so much in the past year. It's incredible!"
-
Wait a bit and try the joke again. Joking in front of strangers is always a risk. Take your time and feel the character of the person or the atmosphere in the office. If it turns out that others often make unconvincing jokes, then try again to joke on a harmless topic. All rude and vulgar jokes are best left for close friends.
Part 2
Unintentional insult-
Admit your mistake honestly and apologize. Even if now you want to fall through the ground, your interlocutor will be even more offended if you pretend that nothing happened. Only a brave person will point out their incorrect assumption or biased statement. If you confess a mistake, you can return the favor of the interlocutor.
- Calmly admit your mistake as follows: "I was just expressing my opinion. Please forgive me for being so short-sighted." After that, sincerely try to understand the person better: "Would you mind sharing your opinion of X with me?"
-
Do not try to justify or change what has been said. So you will only complicate the situation. Sometimes people realize their mistake and immediately go on the defensive: "I meant something completely different!". Obviously, you would not speak in a way that you do not think is right. Refrain from making yourself look like a hypocrite, and don't change your words depending on the people around you.
Don't apologize too much. While admitting a mistake and trying to make amends is important, try not to constantly apologize. This will put the other person in an awkward position when they feel the need to console you. It's not the best way out.
Leave the person for a while. This will show that you have realized the mistake, and also allow the participants in the conversation to pull themselves together. Excuse yourself and go get some water or go to the restroom. Take a deep breath and exhale any embarrassment or anxiety. It is possible that you see the situation in more gloomy colors, so after returning, behave calmly and confidently.
- During presentations or interviews, you will not be able to leave. In this case, you need to move on and turn the conversation into a less stressful direction. Ask a question about a proposed position or provide an opportunity to outline an idea for you.
Part 3
Additional measures-
Show humility. If at the first meeting you showed yourself not from the best side, then it is recommended to behave modestly. In moments of awkwardness or embarrassment, people can often blurt out too much. Explain this to the interlocutor. This shouldn't sound like an excuse. It is possible that a person was in your place and perfectly understands what you are talking about.
Change behavior. Sometimes the mistake is not very obvious and you may not get a chance to apologize. In such cases, it is best to radically change your behavior in order to neutralize the insult.
- If your shyness is taken for rudeness, then try to smile more, start a conversation and ask questions. The interlocutor does not have to understand that you have made a 180-degree turn. He may think that he hastened to conclusions, and subconsciously change his idea of \u200b\u200byou.
- And vice versa, if you often behave arrogantly and inadvertently hurt the interlocutor to the quick, then quickly adjust your behavior. You can lean back in your chair and not respond to every statement, but nod your head, smile and listen carefully. In the same way, you can stop and not interrupt a person (in some situations this may be taken as an insult). Acknowledge the gaffe with "Sorry to interrupt" and make sure to take turns talking and listening to the end afterwards.
-
Seek advice. Some people wince at the mere thought of asking others for help. Considering that you did not make the best impression on the interlocutor, the situation may further become more complicated. It can be assumed that the person will reject your request and only laugh at you, but try to risk it.
-
Don't beat yourself up. Accept the fact that everyone makes mistakes. Sooner or later, any person says words or performs an act that he later regrets. Try not to escalate the situation in your head and not get hung up. Anyone can become a victim of social conventions. Focusing on a small mistake can only make things worse.
The director of the “School of a Real Lady” Olga Freimut on the New Channel told what rules you need to follow in order to be remembered in a negative light. Just remember: these rules should be read - and vice versa!
Rule 1. Always be late
- If you want to be thought badly of you, be sure to be late. In general, people who are late are not taken seriously. Now we can say in solidarity: “I was late because I was stuck in a traffic jam.”
And so I thought, what's wrong with being truthful? For example, say: “I did styling, the hair dryer caught fire, I had to put out my hair.” Or: "Sorry, please, I'm late because I stopped at a cafe for coffee, because tea in your office is not very tasty."
Rule 2. Always arrive early
- Arriving early is worse than being late. Here is an example from my life. I have three children and two have nannies. We are constantly looking for and looking for these nannies: sometimes they don’t suit us, sometimes they don’t look like that, sometimes they are not too erudite, sometimes they sleep on my bed. Since the nannies arrive before eight o'clock in the morning, they have the keys to our house.
Once, with Evdokia in my arms, at seven in the morning I go down from the second floor to the kitchen to make myself coffee. I'm wearing underwear. I look - and a nanny is sitting at the table. And, unlike me, this nanny is dressed. My impressions of her were ruined forever.
Now you understand why arriving early is worse than being late.
Rule 3. Give out vowels and strange sounds.
- Nothing irritates others so much, especially at the first meeting, as when a person laughs out loud. Not smiling, but laughing. Shows not just the front teeth, but all the molars and even fillings on the wisdom teeth. NOT culturally, not politely.
Rule 4
- The fourth rule, how to completely spoil the impression of yourself, is at the first conversation, constantly “Yakat” and talk about your achievements. Even if you have just returned from the Month, received the Nobel Prize or saw all the saints - be silent.
Rule 5. Use obscene language and speak illiterate
Speech is your passport. Here are my boys can't even happy birthday to each other without
congratulations to mom. This is also a problem. Keep your negative language in check and don't say stupid things. I recently flew to the States and I really liked how American colleagues who don’t really like each other make compliments. They pay attention to the shoes and say: “Ooo, you have a so nice shoes” (eng. “Oh, you have very good shoes”- approx. ed.). And these slippers, honestly, were already worn out. But one second said it so sincerely that it seemed to me that they became friends.
When a person makes a bad impression at the very beginning of a relationship, then unpleasant, negative feelings are much more difficult to overcome than betrayal and betrayal, which can happen after the relationship is firmly established.
“The first impression is extremely important if you want to build a long-term relationship based on trust,” says one of the researchers Robert Launt. “If the first impression of you turns out to be unsuccessful, it is unlikely that the relationship can be built in the right direction. It is much easier to force the person again believe you after you once won his trust and lost it for some reason.
"I believe, I do not believe"
Launt and his colleagues rounded up student volunteers and challenged them to play a blindfold game with an unknown partner (who was in fact computer program, developed by scientists, but the students did not suspect about it). As planned by scientists, the "partner" undermined their trust either at the very beginning or in the middle of the game.
Under the terms of the game, the "partners" earned some kind of reward by joint efforts. The "betrayal" consisted in the fact that the "partner" did not support his partner during one of the rounds of the game. The cooperation of partners at the stages of the game resulted in the reward of both partners, and "betrayal" made it possible not to divide the reward in half. The program for the entire game could make only two "betrayals", after each of which had to be followed by 30 rounds of fair play. It turned out that such "collaboration" did not return students' trust in their partner. Those participants in the experiment who were "cheated" at the very beginning of the game stopped playing honestly and began to "betray" their "partners" themselves: the level of "cooperation" was about 70% in the final rounds of the game.Those students whom the "partner" did not deceive until the middle of the game managed to develop confidence in him and even after the "betrayal" continued to play honestly to the end in more than 90% of cases. 11 or 12 rounds of the game were 40% more likely to "cooperate" with a "partner" in the final rounds of the game than those who were "cheated" at the very beginning.When researchers asked students to describe their "partners", more negative feedback came from the mouths of those participants in the experiment who were "deceived" at an early stage of the "relationship".
“When a so-called teammate immediately started the game by cheating, he immediately spoiled the first impression of himself, which was difficult to change until the end of the game,” Launt explained the results of the experiment, a report about which was published in the December issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Reality
The results of the experiment, according to Launt, do not completely correspond to the plot of how two met, terribly disliked each other, and then, after a long time, ignited with unearthly passion, so beloved by Hollywood producers of melodramas and romantic comedies. How many films are built on this unpretentious plot! However, according to scientists, real life such a plot is almost impossible. On the contrary, the first negative impression about a person can remain so for life. In the game, the participants in the experiment were forced to communicate with their partner, and at the end of the game, he had a chance that the first impression of him would change. In real life, no one forces us to communicate with the person who made a bad impression on us, and more often than not, he simply does not have a chance to correct it, Launt emphasizes.
The scientist suggests that the first impression of a person forms in us a certain stereotype about his behavior, which we adhere to in the future, even if the behavior changes. For example, you went on a first date with a potential partner. If he is late for a long time, you will probably immediately decide that a non-punctual person cannot be trusted. If he arrives on time for the first few dates, and later starts to be late, this fact will no longer be able to shake your first impression of him as a trustworthy person, and you will subconsciously be sure that next time he will definitely not be late. .
Good afternoon, my dear friends!
Flew the first spring holidays filled with pleasant excitements, joyful meetings, beautiful congratulations. Somewhere spring is already in full swing, and here the February rains have been replaced by strong winds and cold weather, low clouds densely cover the sun. However, the breath of spring is already felt, and above all in the mood. I want to update not only in nature, but also in the wardrobe, relationships, both business and romantic.
We are constantly meeting new people. It happens at work, in a club, a sports complex, a store or a beauty salon .... This happens more frequently in warm weather. At this time, we devote more time to trips, excursions, travel. We continue to maintain relations with some of the new acquaintances. And some meetings, whether it's an acquaintance with an employer, partners, a girl or a guy, leave an unpleasant aftertaste.
Breaking the usual order, we will not talk today about building effective, pleasant relationships, about how to make new and reliable friends. As well as others, which have already been considered enough. Today we will talk about how quickly and completely
make a bad impression.
After all, the main thing is that the impressions remain vivid, memorable. For this, there is no need to bother with etiquette. It is enough to start with a delay that exceeds the "royal" fifteen minutes. And when everyone has already reached a certain tone, waiting for you, it's time to appear in a casual suit that matches your mood. It does not matter if it is not suitable for this situation, and today you are inspired by a bright check and red socks or a cozy sweater, so familiar, albeit slightly shabby. Forget about shoes that have never seen brushes. To create an unforgettable impression, do not spend money on an energetic handshake, just stick your hand in one, another, clap someone on the shoulder or pat on the cheek.
After choosing the one you want to chat with, sit closer so that he can feel your breath (do not worry about the smell of onions or garlic, especially during the next flu epidemic). Go straight to "you". To understand who you are dealing with, ask direct questions: take an interest in the age of the interlocutor or interlocutor, position and salary, who is our husband (wife). More intimate questions have arisen, feel free to ask without leaving white spots.
Show off your erudition, criticize, give advice. So what if no one asked for this, and then they will appreciate it and thank you. Do not forget about a sense of humor: joke, tell jokes. If in the heat of emotionality you turn something over, spill it, knock it over, don’t worry and pretend like nothing happened.
Confidently speak about what you know, even if you are not a great specialist in this matter, news of politics, sports do not interest you at all, and you have already forgotten when you were in the theater for the last time. But you have your own opinion, demonstrate your experience, show strength and authority.
Show your independence, do not strain with the answers, if you do, do it in monosyllables. During a conversation, you can look at the situation, exchange glances with other people present. It is not necessary to show a Hollywood smile. Be serious, self-sufficient. Everyone must understand that you are enough for yourself.
Most people can make a good impression, but only a particularly gifted person can show courage and leave a bad impression. Remember this and do not relax.
If, after all the efforts, you are still invited again and want to continue the acquaintance, do not despair, the second impression can be no less memorable and vivid. Dare!