25 Psychological Tricks to Make Life Easier and Stay Ahead of the Curve
Learn how to use your mind to achieve your goals, build better relationships, and live a happier life.
1) Fake vs. Real - Our minds cannot differentiate between real and fake inputs. If you tell yourself “I am confident.” Sooner or later your mind will adopt this mindset as reality. This is where the Fake it until you make it idea originated.
2) Subconscious Decision Making - Our subconscious mind makes roughly 90% of the choices we make every day. If you develop a great mindset about the world, yourself and others, your subconscious mind will automatically make 90% of all choices you make in that favor. Make your subconscious mind work for you!
3) Get On The Positivity Drug - Positivity, as well as negativity, are addictive. When you walk around smiling all day, other people will adopt similar behavior. This causes them to smile back at you, making you even happier. Start being positive and it will increase itself like Magic!
4) Always Agree First - People want to know they are right more than anything. Agreeing with them first gives them the security of you being on their side. This makes them trust you and then you can tell them what you truly think. They will be more likely to listen and comply to what you have to say if you agree first.
5) Door In The Face - Ask someone for something so outrageous they will definitely say no, and then go in with your actual request. People are more likely to agree to something smaller if they just disagreed with something big.
6) Foot In The Door - If the above technique doesn’t work, then next time try a small request they are likely to agree on, and then throwing in a bigger one. This only works with progressively increasing requests, but people, in general, will comply with bigger requests if they already agreed to a smaller one.
7) Copy Their Body Language - Copying someone else’s body language creates trust. They will feel more connected to you and feel more affection towards you. You encourage them on a subconscious level, that you are like them.
8) Copy Their Tone Of Voice And Energy - Similar to the above point, if you copy the inflection and tone of their voice, and can give off the same energy, they will feel closer to you.
9) Make Making Choices Easy - There is a simple Trick that works every time when you cannot make a choice between A or B. Take out a coin. Give it to your friend and have them flip it. They are not allowed to tell you if it was heads or tails. Instead, while it is in the air, you will have made a wish for the coin to land one way or another. Try this with a friend. This works even when someone has seen the trick before.
10) The Most Interesting Person In The World - Treat your conversation partner like they are the most important thing in the world. What they say will save the entire world. Treating someone like that will make you actively listen and be fully into the conversation. This gives them the feeling of importance and provides them with the signal that you are deeply intrigued, interested and invested in them.
11) Eye Contact For Affection - Holding Eye contact with a stranger for longer than 7 seconds will make them feel uncomfortable. This is because only people that know each other maintain eye contact for longer, giving the stranger the feeling that you know them on a deeper level. That being said, the longer the eye contact is between you and another person, the more affectionate you will grow towards one another. Try holding eye contact for 15 minutes with someone and you will be very likely to deepen your connection.
12) Give A Reason For Something, People Will Comply - Ever stuck in a line? Go up to the person in front of you and give them any reason you want to. Most people will let you go ahead in the line. In the study, people asked to get in front of a line for a printer with the reason “I need to print something”. This caused over 80% of the people to agree, although the reason was not substantial at all.
13) You Are An Extra In Other People’s Lives - Think about how much you care for an extra in a movie. This is the level of affection every stranger has for you. Do you remember what the extras wore? What their hair was like? Neither do others care for your clothes or hair.
14) Be Honest - People can detect liars, even if they cannot determine the lie itself. There is a feeling they get making them distrust you. This comes from millennia of needing to know the traitor in the group to ensure one's survival. Besides, being honest prevents so many problems.
15) Call Them by Their Name More Often - People want to feel important and valuable. Calling them by their name creates the belief that you value them more than others, increasing their affection and trust towards you.
16) Stay Silent For More Information - Unless you have practiced meditation for a while you will want to break silences. Silences create an awkward pause that makes us feel like we are growing distant to the other person. If you stay silent, the other person will try to break that silence.
17) Embodiment Theory - This theory states that we feel emotions as a reaction to our body. Meaning that we feel happy because we smile, we feel sad because we cry and we feel angry because we punch something. Want to feel happier? Just crack a smile :)
18) Wider Stances Cause Confidence - Take up as much space as you can! The more space you take up in a room the more confident you will feel. Sit with your legs as open as you can, put an arm on the chair next to you, and stand widely with your arms open.
19) Choosing A Partner Based On Smell - A big factor in choosing a partner is smell. Our natural body odor comes from our immune system. If we smell too much like our partner they will not like the smell. This is due to natural selection as people with similar immune systems were not able to have children with strong immune systems.
20) Color And Emotion - Every color is attached to a specific emotion. Wearing such colors creates more of those emotions. Want someone to fall in love with you? Wear red. Want to feel more confident? Wear black. Want to feel more at peace? Wear blue.
21) Height Creates Respect - Height is a sign of power. The taller you stand the more people will respect you and listen to what you have to say. Wear high heels or shoes with thick soles and stand up straight to get some extra respect.
22) People Remember The First & Last 10% - Also known as the primacy and recency effect. People will remember the first 10% and the last 10% of any event, presentation or conversation. This is why first impressions are so crucial and why the last image you give someone will stick.
23) Change Your Surroundings - Our mind is affected by EVERYTHING in our surroundings. All inputs come in and get overworked at least once. If you only have positive images and people in your life your mind will be affected by all of them.
24) Misinterpretation Of Arousal - We cannot differentiate between being aroused by fear, excitement, or anger. Being in danger, or being afraid, creates a bigger attachment to another person due to this misinterpretation. Now you know why watching a Horror movie on a first date was always such a great idea!
25) The First Decision Is The Hardest - Having trouble with your partner deciding on a restaurant? Make them decide on something simpler first and then ask them again. The first decision is always the hardest, but once we made one decision, we will easily make another one. Stores use this all the time when presenting small products at the counter to encourage you to agree to another small thing.