How to Be Charming

Every woman must aspire to be charming!!

What is charm?

Is it in physical beauty?

Is it in dress?

In age?

Try to be charming!!

The subject of this study is — how to be charming — but before we take up the matter in detail, we ask: why do we want to be charming? Because charm, as Winifred Rhoades says, is the mirror of personality. Every woman must aspire to develop the power of charm in her person, and every woman who fails to make herself charming has failed in her mission in life. To be charming is the goal we must always strive to reach. It requires continuous effort, but it is worth that effort.

Why do we see one person full of attraction and charm, and another who entirely lacks that lovable magic? What makes the difference between them? Is it physical beauty? Many attractive personalities are ordinary-looking people. Is it dress, or age, or manners? Certainly it is not affected manners, for artificial manners beget the exact opposite of charm. Charm is not merely qualities born with a person, nor is it a gift from God; it is a distinction that is the result of thought, practice, and constant care. It is no small thing to reach this ambition — to be a charming woman — for this distinction presupposes intelligence, the ability of a woman to analyze herself and criticize herself without partiality, together with diligence and firm resolve. But when we think of the difference that being admired makes in the life of the individual, we admit that gaining it is worth the effort we expend.

What is charm? "It is a quality we cannot describe. Charm comes from within, to lend ordinary things luster and delight."

Charm is a radiant light that shines from the whole personality and shows itself in the expression of the face, the tone of the voice, the movements of the body, the thoughts that are sent forth, and the way those thoughts are sent. But charm is not in itself any of these things; these are merely the instruments of its performance.

Charm is something inward. It is a distinction: a distinction of thought, of feeling, and of character. It is an overflow of the values of balance and inner impulse that are the foundation of a person's conduct. It is a ray that gives thought, feeling, movement, and state of mind a color and a delight they could never gain without it. It is something indescribable, yet something that makes others feel it.

Some of the habits that have been formed as a foundation for charm are these:

1 — Self-confidence, and the forgetting of self that comes with it. For this is among the most important factors

that make a person pleasant company. The anxious person who is always worried and preoccupied, or who is always thinking of something he may have forgotten, is no welcome companion.

2 — Punctuality, precision, orderliness, and remembering appointments are among the important distinctions that make a person attractive. There are always various excuses on the tongues of women and of latecomers, but their only real excuse is the lack of order and arrangement in their habits. They have no program. The habit of keeping a notebook helps toward precision and attentiveness; it is a necessity for people of business and a precious jewel in social relations.

3 — In order to preserve physical vigor, we must regulate the habits of eating, sleeping, rest, and daily physical exercise.

4 — Likewise mental exercise: it is necessary to keep it up daily, like physical exercise. No one can win admiration if she stops cultivating herself and broadening her knowledge the moment she finishes her schooling. Keeping up with world events is as important as "dressing in fashion..." Every woman should read a daily newspaper, and read it with understanding. Using the mind is one thing, and exerting the mind is another. Every woman, once her period of study is over, should accustom herself to putting her mind to work by reading specialized books on subjects she does not easily understand. For the most part we spend our reading hours on stories and magazines made more for amusement than for benefit. We must train ourselves on difficult reading that truly rubs our brains.

5 — Then the habit of recreation: it is a habit necessary for the rest of the mind, just as sleep is necessary for the rest of the body. Recreation should entertain the mind and divert it from thinking of work, and it is best that recreation be in company, for no person can be attractive to others unless he loves others and must be among them. Moreover, keeping company with many different kinds of people helps the individual to harmonize his conduct with others.

The habits we grow familiar with and live by affect our attractiveness. Life, if arranged so as to lighten the weight of ordinary responsibilities, makes them part of a planned system. The mind is thereby delivered from absorbing trivialities that are of no account to others, and room is opened for taking in what is more important and more delightful in this life.

A woman may be cultured without being charming, and she may be witty without being charming — that is, if her true feeling, in the depths of her heart, is one of indifference, or bitterness, or condescension toward others; then her attempt to become charming is something merely external, more like pretense and deception.

If your feeling toward others is one of sincerity and concern for their good and their happiness; if

you love making friends with people and have a kindled mind, a warm heart, and a compassionate nature; if you wish to make room for others to show themselves and to feel that they are personalities in their own right and an element in life; and if you are gentle in your conduct, alert in your dealings, and cheerful by nature — then you have at least created in yourself the basic distinctions that lead you toward that beloved quality called charm.

The foundations of charm lie in the individual's hidden life — the life of her mind, her heart, and her spirit. Search every day for the best that exists in the realms of thought, feeling, spirit, conduct, and personalities: things with which to delight yourself, ideas and things and people to keep company with and to love — and turn your steps toward that best.

There are two practical ideas to which we must direct our attention. The first is that what we show to others has first been formed in our mind. The second is that we can choose what shall be in our mind, and thereby shape our personality and improve it.

Many of the people we come into contact with in this life occupy themselves all the time in cultivating thoughts, feelings, and conduct that are not only unwelcome but actually objectionable. If you hide unwelcome thoughts and feelings in the hidden rooms of your mind, it will not be long before they show themselves in your personality. This does not mean whatever feelings of criticism or mockery may sometimes pass through a person's thoughts, for such thoughts and feelings may come to each of us at times; I mean rather the thoughts and feelings that dominate our habits of thinking and the qualities of our feeling.

You can select the thoughts you allow the depths of your soul to hold fast to, and you can select the feeling you desire, until these qualities take possession of your personality.

Our first duty in life is to refine ourselves and to cultivate in ourselves, always, practical and original thoughts, a sincere and attractive feeling, and a true sensibility toward the other person, his interest, and his happiness. In each of us there are many possibilities for different personalities. You can select the personality you want as the embodiment of yourself, the personality you find expressive of your true self. And if you select attractive habits of thought and feeling, you will have led yourself to that quality which is called charm.