All of my life, I've been an extroverted person. I just love people.
I'm a go getter. I want to move and shake the world.
And yet at the same time, something inside of me has always just had this...hesitation.
I've had so many anxieties and insecurities.
I haven't always respected myself.
The Value of Self-Respect
But once I was able to view myself as a good and valuable person, my influence and my ability to get things done increased dramatically.
I want to share with you today what I've learned about how to respect yourself.
This will give you the keys to transform your self image and to develop your self confidence.
Imagine that. What would your life be like if you liked yourself? What would it be like if you trusted yourself, listened to yourself, or felt confident in your perspective and choices?
I know that you'd make and maintain healthier boundaries,
you wouldn't feel so torn and uneasy, you'd feel calm and whole.
If you respected yourself, you'd invest in your growth and peace consistently.
You'd pursue what you wanted without guilt and hesitation.
Who doesn't want to live like that?
You Need to Respect Yourself To Trust Yourself
Before I get into what respect is and how to respect yourself, specifically, I want to lay out a broad idea of how respect relates to trust. And I start with this because I really want you to be extremely motivated to improve your respect for yourself.
Here's the big picture idea:
Trust and respect are inseparably linked.
When trust between people goes down, so does the respect for each other. They're linked. When respect for someone goes down, so does the trust level.
And vice versa. When trust deepens, respect, does as well. When respect goes up, we can trust that person with more things. And so they're they're just inseparably linked.
Lack of Respect Slows Down Relationships.
We can't trust people with important things if we don't respect them. And because of that, everything slows down in relationships that have low respect levels. And this is why anyone who tells us to quote, just trust them, without first gaining our respect, is asking for an impossible thing. If I respect you, I can then decide to trust you, because I've seen your track record and character, and I've judged them to be trustworthy.
Similarly, you cannot trust yourself Unless you respect yourself, and why does trusting yourself matter at all? Well, because your satisfaction and peace, they rely on your level of trust in your ability to understand things, your ability to judge things rightly.
Lack of Self-Respect Keeps Us From Feeling Valuable
I mean, think about it. If you won't, or can't believe your own opinion of yourself, your own thoughts about yourself or your work, then you can't feel confident that you are valuable. No matter how many people tell you that you matter, and that they appreciate you.
And believe me, you are valuable, you are doing things that matter.
But you have to believe that. You have to trust yourself.
And to trust yourself, you have to respect your opinion, you have to respect your thoughts, your perspective, your intuition, you have to respect your emotions, or you'll dismiss them as unreliable.
So again, trust and respect are inseparable. So if you want to feel confident that you're valuable, that you're helpful, necessary, good--and furthermore--if you want to feel confident, that your leadership is also valuable, helpful, necessary and good, you're going to have to grow intentionally in your respect for yourself.
Understanding Respect is the First Step to Developing Self-Respect.
Respect is to look for, to search for, again. That's its literal meaning.
I think that this literal definition is more useful than thinking that respect is a feeling of admiration or honor. Respect is not just an emotion that washes over you for someone. It's an action.
Respected people get looked to over and over again. There's something about them that causes us to look to them.
And why do we look to someone again?
Why do we respect them?
Because they give us what we're looking for.
And I don't mean that they do things for us or give us physical things; though, they might and often do. But I respect a lot of people who aren't close to me, can't do things directly for me or give me anything like a physical gift or a physical asset.
I look to some people again and again because I see them offering through their demeanor and actions what I want in my life.
Seeing is having.
When we see someone act confidently, we have more confidence. When we see someone honor us, we have honor. When we see someone offer a support or love, we have support and love. When we see someone provide what we need to meet our deadlines to meet our goals, we have what we need to succeed.
This explains why we disrespect people--why we won't look to them again.
We disrespect people who offer things we don't want to see. Things we don't want to have. I mean, every day, we're offered incompetence, rudeness, arrogance, immaturity, or unreasonable expectations. And of course, none of us want any of that.
And a lot of times we disrespect people or we overlook them because we're looking to them to give us something that they never give us. If we think that the only thing someone has to offer us our problems, needs conflict, or discomfort, we find ourselves over-looking them, dis-respecting them.
What It Means to Respect Yourself
So now we can begin to understand how to earn respect for ourselves. Our level of self respect is dependent on how much we look to ourselves for what we want and need.
If you cannot, or will not offer yourself what you need. You will not look to yourself again for that thing. In essence, you end up disrespecting yourself.
Allow me to give you a few examples of this.
Admiration
If you cannot or will not offer yourself admiration, you won't respect any thought or feeling you might have that would praise you. You will seek your praise from everybody else but yourself.
You'll constantly feel like you're on a stage performing for everyone craving the next compliment promotion or pat on the back. You'll probably assume that others don't value you enough and overlook you, even if they do value and respect you, because you feel disrespected. So you just start to look to others for your purpose.
Consideration
If you cannot or will not offer yourself consideration, you won't respect any desire that you've got for personal comfort, time, or care. You will put pressure on others to take care of you. Or you'll blame them for not making time for you or giving you the space you need to recoup or think.
Courage
If you can't, or will not offer yourself courage, you will look to others for your courage. You'll wait for others to lead. You'll hesitate to try new things or change systems that are stale or maybe aren't working anymore. You'll drain your friends and colleagues with your constant negativity.
Challenge
If you cannot or will not offer yourself challenges, like education and growth, you will look to others to think and decide for you. You will project an image of someone who can't learn, can't get better, can't be expected to know what's best for you. You'll suffer a lack of self esteem and confidence.
4 Instructions to Improve Self-Respect
I'm going to share with you four instructions that I have found that has helped me to build my level of respect for myself. And if you do these four things over and over, you will grow to respect yourself deeply.
#1 Decide that you can and will give yourself what you need.
Decide it today. Just choose. I can and will give myself what I need.
We're all on a constant quest for resources, because we have needs of all sorts. We're always looking for help and emotional support, especially from ourselves.
If you decide that you have what you need, and determined to make it happen for yourself consistently, you will look to yourself again for that thing, you will begin to respect yourself.
So decide, right now that you have what you need. And that you can give it to yourself.
You can admire yourself. You can love yourself.
You can encourage yourself. You can expect more from yourself.
You're worth it.
#2 Offer yourself what you really want.
You won't give yourself what you don't know you need.
You'll have to investigate what you really want from yourself. Don't assume, investigate.
Ask yourself, what do I need right now really?
What do I really want?
How can I give that to myself?
And it's gonna take a while to get true answers to those questions. Because all of us default to offering ourselves what we think we deserve instead of offering ourselves what we really want.
There's a big difference between what we think we deserve and what we want.
Offer what you want, not what you think you deserve.
Many of us think we ought to give ourselves less time, more demands, and little compassion. And some folks think that they need a ton of "me-time", very little demands or commitments, and excessive compassion.
Both of those extremes are not what you truly want.
Human beings are designed for fellowship with others, coupled with fellowship with themselves. They're designed for reasonable responsibility, coupled with cyclical periods of rest and reflection.
Humans are designed for honest self-assessment and that includes compassion and grace.
If you give yourself less time to reflect when you hardly spend any time in a quiet place, you will not grow and self respect. No matter how much time you spend entertaining yourself. That's not what your truest self demands.
And if you give yourself excuse after excuse for failing to keep your resolutions and promises to yourself, that hyper-compassion will make you respect yourself less. And yet, shaming yourself and beating yourself up won't build your self respect either.
What you need is to find out what your self really wants, what it is really demanding of you, and then offer that to yourself.
#3 Bring yourself what you truly want to view as consistently and excellently as possible.
Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is self respect. Once you identify what you need from yourself, you're going to have to commit to giving that to yourself regularly and with quality.
Something deep inside of you knows when you're flaking out on your goals, your perspective, or your values. So don't skimp on the things that matter to you.
Your conscience is not going to leave you alone when you're just going half-baked into things for yourself.
To be clear, excellence doesn't mean perfection, but rather doing the best thing possible with what you have. It's about striving for quality in every action. So yeah, don't skimp on yourself. But also don't expect perfection either.
And as you maintain your efforts towards your goals, showing up for yourself every day, even when motivation wanes, you will begin to look to yourself more and more to supply what you truly need.
#4 Evaluate your achievements honestly and regularly.
One of the greatest motivators is having an honest look at what you've done for yourself.
I know we're all scared of judgment. We all hate seeing red marks on our tests.
But if we don't evaluate our days, we can't tweak our plans. We can't tweak our ways of doing life.
If we can't show ourselves that we're honestly making good faith changes to improve our lives and calm our fears, we just cannot develop greater self respect.
Respect is only earned when inspection is invited.
Just like I can't respect someone who avoids showing me their work, their life, or their thoughts, I can't respect myself if I don't lay my cards on the table about my motivations, my performance, and my achievements.
If I'm running from those things, I can't grow self-respect.
Create a habit of examining your day, your decisions, and your feelings so that you understand deeply what's driving you, and what's really holding you back. This will allow you to recalibrate your actions to match your core values and ensure that you're headed towards your goals.
With consistent reflection, you'll be equipped to make great choices that align with what you truly want for yourself, and your self-respect will flourish.
Coaching can help you build your self-respect!
I'd be honored to chat with you about your leadership journey.
Contact me HERE to see how coaching can help you grow your self-respect.
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