He that respects himself is safe from others;
he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.
How you take care of yourself is essential for your quality of life. Self-respect strongly reflects how you see yourself. Showing self-respect helps maintain and boost your positive feelings about yourself. Feeling good about yourself and showing self-respect are interlinked; it’s tough to tell which one starts first. Do good feelings and thoughts about yourself lead to more self-respect, or does having more self-respect lead to feeling better about yourself? Your own experience will reveal which of these resonates most with you.
Here are a few tips about how to increase your level of self-respect.
1. Assess your own feelings. Your emotions are at least as important as everyone else’s. So, if you’re uncomfortable, act on that information. Take your own feelings into account in your everyday life and in all of the decisions that you make.
2. Stop putting yourself down. Try to avoid making self-critical comments. These kinds of remarks can be used as humor and may help connect with others. However, if you’re not sure you respect yourself, hold off on making them until you feel more confident. What you repeatedly say about yourself can shape what you truly believe.
3. Emotionally support… yourself. Take care of your own emotional needs. Self-respect is apparent through the things that you do to make yourself comfortable, content, and happy. If you find yourself in a relationship that constantly makes you feel emotionally upset or out of balance, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to do something about it. You are the only person that you can be absolutely assured will be there to take care of you emotionally.
4. Expect and accept nothing less than respect. Acknowledge to yourself that you deserve respectful treatment. This is as simple as it gets. Because you are a human being, you deserve to be treated with fundamental human courtesies, including respect. Recognize your own value. Avoid allowing anyone to treat you disrespectfully. Be clear that you expect to be treated with kindness and care, whether you’re interacting with a co-worker, partner, or your child.
Sometimes, you might think you are cutting someone a little slack by not insisting on being treated well. However, when you allow others to treat you poorly, you are slacking on your own self-care and enabling them to practice negative interpersonal habits as well.
5. Act like you care. Behave in ways that show that you care about yourself. How 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 (such as drinking too much, losing your temper, or speaking inappropriately) show that you have a certain measure of respect for yourself.
6. Model behavior. Look at your role models. Think of someone you admire and respect. What is it about the person that earns your respect? Strive to emulate this person. You will be amazed how your self-respect will grow.
7. Show respect, 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 those same responses toward yourself. Make showing respect a way of life.
If you have not been treating yourself very well, try out a few of these strategies for practicing self-respect today. As you make these practices habitual, you will automatically begin to treat yourself and others in more respectful ways. You will be amazed at how much your quality of life will improve!
Thoughts?
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