While scoping your protagonist, write down four or five positive traits--ones that will enable this individual to be likable, active, appealing--and then, only then, mix in a couple of flaws.
— Fantasy Fiction Formula
This works because readers root for competence and warmth before they tolerate mess. If flaws arrive first, a character reads as a problem to be solved rather than a person to follow into danger. Stack the virtues early, and the later cracks feel like depth, not deadweight.
Say your heroine is resourceful, loyal, funny, and brave. Now give her a temper and a tendency to lie when scared. Those flaws land as human because you've already earned her company.
The caution: don't let the flaws become decorative. A temper that never costs her anything, a lie that's always forgiven by chapter's end, is just a likable trait wearing a disguise. Flaws need teeth, or the balance you built goes hollow.
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