Although you may not pay much attention to it in your every day life, how you take care of yourself is crucial to the quality of your life. Self respect is an indication of how you view yourself. And showing self respect keeps your positive feelings about you flowing, growing and glowing. Feeling good about yourself and demonstrating self respect is kind of a chicken and egg situation. It is difficult to tell which of these comes first. Do positive emotions and thoughts about yourself lead to your increased self respect and self-valuation, or is it the other way around? Your personal experience will tell which of these feels most true to you.
Increasing your self respect:
1. Consider your own feelings. To be true to yourself and give yourself respect you must realize that your emotions are at least as important as everyone else’s. So if you’re feeling uncomfortable about a situation or a person, you must learn to act on that information. Take your own feeling into account in your everyday life and in the decisions and choices you make.
2. Avoid making self-deprecating comments. These types of comments are often used as humor to help build up rapport between people. However, if you are uncertain about whether you are treating yourself with the respect that you deserve, stop making them until you’re feeling more secure about yourself. What you say about yourself over and over eventually becomes what you believe.
3. Attend to your emotional needs. Self respect is apparent through the things you do to make yourself comfortable, content and happy. If a relationship constantly makes you feel emotionally drained, upset or out of balance, perhaps its time to do something about it. You are the only person you can count on to take care of yourself emotionally.
4. Tell yourself that you deserve respectful treatment. Why? This is as simple as it gets:
- Because you’re a human being, you deserve to be treated with fundamental human courtesies, including respect.
- Because it is vitally important that you recognize your own value.
5. Avoid allowing anyone else to treat you disrespectfully. Be clear that you expect to be treated with kindness and care, whether you’re interacting with a co-worker, your partner or your children. Sometimes you may think or feel that you’re giving someone a break by not insisting on being treated well. But, when you allow others to treat you poorly, you are neglecting your own self care and enabling them to practice negative interpersonal habits with you as well.
6. Behave in ways that show that you care about yourself. The manner in which you conduct yourself sends a strong message to the rest of the world. Taking care of your body, watching the language you use and refraining from engaging in socially unacceptable behaviors (eating or drinking too much, loosing your temper and speaking inappropriately), show that you have a certain measure and level of respect for yourself.
Think of someone you admire and respect. What is it about this person that earns them respect? Strive to emulate that. You’ll be amazed how your own self respect will grow.
7. Always treat others with respect. In order to treat others with respect, you need to have a clear idea about how to act in respectful ways. Then you can turn these same responses toward yourself. Make showing respect a priority and a way of life.
Conclusion:
Improve your view of yourself, value who you are. Try out some of these strategies for practicing self respect every day, starting today. As you make these practices habitual, you’ll automatically begin to treat yourself and others in more respectful ways. You’ll be amazed at how much the quality of your life will improve!
What other ways can you show proper respect to yourself?
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2. 7 Ways to Use Habits to Reach Your Goals
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bswise/4621075758/sizes/z/in/photostream/
