Self Respect And Why It’s Important
Self respect is pride and confidence in oneself; a feeling that one is behaving with honour and dignity.
Self respect is the foundation for all of the decisions that you make within your life, how you treat yourself and how you allow others to treat you. Self respect is vital for your own happiness. Although we often hear and read that wealth, health and success is where you’ll find happiness, they’re a part of the process but if you don’t have self respect then you will never be happy with your life.
Life is about growth and learning, and it’s time to put me first. I’ve tried to summarize some of the research I have been doing below, along with a few (not all) of my own personal experiences and the ways in which I have dealt with situations in the past. Learning more about self respect have empowered who I am as an individual, and has helped me make better, wiser and healthier decisions in my life.
When you lack self respect and self love
You’re the doormat
You allow people to simply walk all over you and you just accept it and trudge along with your life. You’re unhappy that you’re taken for granted but because you’re accepting the way other people are treating you you then disrespect yourself.
You lose yourself in a relationship
You become so involved in the relationship and pleasing your partner that you forget about your own hobbies, wants, needs and happiness. You put your partner’s happiness before your own.
You look for external affirmation and approval
You’re constantly seeking affirmation from those around you that you’re unhappy when you may feel that you’re not being seen or heard.
You implode yourself with bad habits
Taking drugs, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, punishing yourself, overeating or undereating. You use various bad habits or ways to indulge and to forget.
You accept and tolerate verbal, mental, emotional and physical abuse
You tolerate abusive partners and unkind people because you remember that one time they really treated you nicely, and you hang on to that feeling of belonging and hope that they may change.
You have desperate, casual sex
You have sex with someone just because you need the attention or feel you need the external validation. The sex isn’t fun or enjoyable and you use sex as a way to feel you belong or to feel loved.
You become untidy and sloppy
Your surroundings are in a mess. Your room is scattered with clothing, your lounge is covered in excess amounts of items that have a place but aren’t put away and the kitchen sink is constantly full of dishes. You don’t’ care about cleaning up.
You care for people who don’t care for you
You will go above and beyond for people who wouldn’t do a thing for you, just to try and keep everyone else happy and to avoid conflict.
Self Respect is vital for your own happiness
Self respect shows toughness and standing true to your own morals
By respecting yourself, you will stand firm in your beliefs and morals. This will help you stay focused on the things you want in life, and ensure that you you carry yourself in such a way that is true to who you are.
Self respect makes you a better person
If you respect yourself, you believe you’re a worthy human. And when you feel worthy of yourself, you believe you are deserving of love and respect.
Self respect stops you from comparing yourself to others
When you love yourself you feel good, you value your character, your talents, your skills, and your abilities.
Practising Self Respect
Building self respect is not an overnight process, nor is it a quick fix but the sooner you start the earlier you will start to see results in your life and you will reap the rewards and benefits of standing firm in who you are. Practicing self-respect can benefit your life in many different ways.
Examples of self-respect include asserting yourself in relationships so that you get the love and respect that you deserve, being able to negotiate at work, putting effort into keeping your home neat and tidy, taking care of your body and your health, and simply feeling positive when you look in the mirror.
Most importantly, when you have healthy levels of self-respect you talk to yourself with compassion and are able to feel proud of your authentic self.
Choose Self Respect
We all need to start somewhere in our life’s journey when we want to improve our lives. By acknowledging and accepting that you need to have more self respect that is the first step in the process of getting to where you want to be in your life and finding your own inner happiness.
Figure out what makes you respect yourself
Look within and question what activities make you feel your absolute best and then pay yourself the respect of prioritizing them daily. For example, exercising regularly, starting every day with a healthy smoothie, and getting into bed by 10pm, limiting time on social media, being productive — those are all things that I do that make me feel proud of myself.
Be honest about who you are and who you aren’t
Once you know what makes you feel good, continue to prioritize it — not only with yourself but with others. Lead with honesty. This means that if you know working with people and helping people is something that brings you happiness and joy, then you should not be working 9 to 5 at a desk job for the next decade. You’re disrespecting your talents and interests, and you’re keeping the desk job from someone who’d actually excel in that position.
Respect yourself by taking action around things that excite you.
Taking a leap into the unknown can be scary and daunting. We’re never guaranteed our ideal outcome, and that can cause us to really withdraw. But the most successful people aren’t afraid to try something new. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, and is now the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, as well as one of the world’s youngest billionaires. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak began Apple in their garage.
Don’t be afraid to take that leap. Don’t settle for chasing peanuts when you could be chasing millions.
Write love notes to your body
Our health, like everything else in our life, is a relationship. The more we pay attention to it and nourish it, the more our body thrives. Often when we consider becoming healthier, we find ourselves in front of the mirror looking at our bodies and wondering what we need to “fix." Rather focus on the many amazing aspects of your body and treating your body with lots of love and kindness.
Instead of analysing things about your body that you may feel you should change, stand in front of the mirror every morning and list three things you love about yourself. Write them down, preferably on sticky notes. Then pick the one or two that make you feel the way you want to feel every single day and leave these love notes anywhere you can read them every day.
Apologise with self respect
We are only human, we all make mistakes but in order to respect yourself you need to acknowledge when you are at fault and apologize accordingly. An important part of apologizing is learning not to make excuses — that’s disrespectful to the other person and to your integrity. So next time you’re tempted to plead your case, lay a hand on your heart and listen to the truth. If an apology is called for courageously, offer one without the excuses.
Your past does not define you
If you were raised in a horrible home life, or did not get treated with love and respect by your family it does not mean that you are your past. You could spend a lifetime untying the knots of your family life — but that’s your choice. Alternatively, you can reflect on our childhood influences and state, “This is not my story. I am not my past nor will I be like them.”
Whatever you do today is enough
We get caught up in to-do lists and trying to make sure we complete all of the tasks we have assigned to ourselves for the day. Take a step back. When you complete each task, congratulate yourself and as you prepare for the next task assess whether it is necessary for it to be completed today or could you do it tomorrow.
Also remember though that procrastination is a form of disrespect to yourself. If you are able to complete the tasks but you’re mind-numbingly scrolling through social media you are disrespecting your work ethic and the way in which you want to carry yourself.
Despite what you do complete for the day, meet yourself with kindness and compassion and say: “I will allow whatever I have completed today to be enough, and I will not beat myself up for it.”
Set your own boundaries
When you allow others to provoke or push your personal boundaries, you are not respecting who you are and what you want. Many people have good intentions, but their advice is often clouded by their own emotions. So when someone tells you “You’ll never be able to do that” or “You shouldn’t” or “You can’t,” ignore them and you have to figure out what is true for yourself.
Accept reality for what it is
Be willing to see things and people as they are. It can be tough to acknowledge that there is a problem with ourselves, our loved ones, or a situation. But if you don’t deal with the problem with curiosity and graciousness, your situation and how you’re feeling towards it will only be prolonged and that is not respectful of your time and energy.
Surround yourself with positive people
The more positivity you surround yourself with, and the more you choose to be around people who have a positive impact in your life the happier you will be. Choose to spend your time with people who respect and love you too — friendships, intimate relationships and family. Choose people that will add value to your life, not people that will drain you.
Self respect means acknowledging your own feelings, behaviour, the way in which you conduct yourself and knowing your own rights. Choose to live a life that you are proud of. It’s all about how you feel about your relationship with yourself.
It’s called “self” respect for a reason, it’s not determined by how much other people respect you, it’s not even about what other people think. It’s all about you — how much you value yourself and how you feel about the decisions you make. Self-respect means that you get to choose what you value and what you don’t. Self respect means choosing to love yourself every day in many different ways that will bring happiness and fulfillment into your life.
