“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” ~ Mark Twain
Self-respect is a fundamental for a great life. If we lack self-respect we will be insecure and strive to be someone we are not. To develop self-respect means to cultivate the self confidence to deal with whatever life throws at us. The following are some ways we can improve our self-respect. Remember, self-respect comes from an inner belief and not an egoistic feeling of superiority.
1. Be True to Yourself
There is great social pressure from parents, work and society to become a certain person and to achieve certain things. It is a pressure hard to detach from. But, a real self-respect only comes from being true to our inner calling. It is important you have faith in your own values and remember what is important to you. Just because other people think you should behave in a certain way, doesn’t mean they are right. Everyone needs to follow their own path. Even if others don’t respect your decision it is important that you do. Just ask yourself whether you come into the world to please Tom, Dick and Harry or live your own life?
2. Learn to Handle Criticism
We are sensitive beings. Nobody likes criticism and when we are criticized, either directly or indirectly, we feel bad about ourself – even if the criticism is not justified. To maintain a sense of self respect, we need to learn how to deal with criticism. Don’t take criticism personally. Look at it from a detached perspective. Maybe it is false, in which case we should ignore it. If their is some truth, we can use it to develop our character. However, it is important not to take criticism too personally. Just because we are not very good at a particular task, doesn’t mean we need to lose our self respect.
3. Look After Your Appearance, Without Being a Slave to Fashion
Our appearance is important. It can give us confidence or it can make us feel awkward. Take care of our appearance; dressing smart for the right occasion gives us self confidence. At the same time, we don’t want to be the slave of fashion trends. Dress for your own benefit; don’t dress in the expectation of pleasing others and receiving complements.
4. Avoid Jealousy
Jealousy of other people’s success is a common way of losing our happiness and self respect. Jealousy is simply envy of other people’s success. We feel miserable that we cannot enjoy their success. Sometimes it can even lead us to knocking the other person. If we follow this path of jealousy we will definitely lose our sense of self respect. When we are constantly comparing ourselves to others, we are saying our self respect depends on being better than others. But, the truth is, there will always be some people more successful than ourself. The trick to lasting self respect is to be happy through others success. We should never feel that other people’s success in any way diminishes our self worth.
5. Remember your Motivation, Not Results
Sometimes we work with best of motives and the best of intentions only to be disappointed by the outcome. The problem is that we equate our self respect to outer displays of wealth, success and social standing. It is the nature of life, that things will not turn out as we hoped, but, it is a mistake to link our sense of self worth to the achievement of external targets. Self respect comes when we value our attitude to life and other people. Even if things go badly don’t lose your self respect. Work with the best of intentions and gain your self respect from that.
6. Respect Others
If you have no respect for others, how can you have self-respect? Self respect means we have an inner confidence and inner assurance, but this is not a confidence built on superiority. It is the wrong approach to try and feel better by putting others down. If we look for the good qualities in other people, it is easier to remember the good qualities in ourselves.
7. Never Hate Yourself
We make mistakes, we may do the wrong thing; but we should never put ourselves down unnecessarily. If we are not careful we start bitterly regretting things and even disliking ourselves. We should never hate our self, it is very destructive. Listen to your conscience, but, don’t be too hard on yourself and feel burdened with guilt.
8. Forgive
Forgive others and forgive yourself. Don’t live in the past, but, move on from past mistakes and difficult situations. If your mind is occupied with problems from the past, you will always feel guilty and unworthy. Don’t allow your self worth to be determined by past mistakes.
9. Be Selfless
The way to self respect is not through a bloated sense of pride; this is a false type of self respect. We may think that the praise of others boosts our self respect, but, actually this praise creates a vulnerable ego. If our self respect is based on the praise of others then our self respect will be very tenuous. Self respect should not be dependent on the praise of others; it should be independent of others praise.
10. Don’t Keep up With the Joneses
You will not be able to build self respect if you are permanently striving to impress others with outer displays. People who are impressed with material wealth and social standing are probably the kind of people not worth impressing anyway. Be comfortable with what you have, not what you think will impress others.
Tejvan Pettinger lives in Oxford where he writes on issues of self improvement and self development. He updates a blog Sri Chinmoy Inspiration. Recent blog posts include Changing Yourself by Accepting Yourself.
Image by Moriza.
#2 was a big one for me. I went to film school and that really helped me learn how to handle criticism. I don’t know why this is not a bigger part of our upbringing in school, as it is probably the thing Kids deal with most growing up.
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And if you cannot avoid jealousy, at least turn it into something positive by striving to improve your own life so that you are no longer jealous of others. I wrote about how to do this in “Jealous Much? … Make It Work for You!” at http://shanelyang.com/2008/04/27/jealous-much-make-it-work-for-you/
Terrific post, Tejvan!
Your post reminds me of the problem with the scripture that urges us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
One day it struck me that this is exactly what people do. When you don’t love yourself, you can’t love your neighbor. The reason people are hateful, jealous and disrespectful is they are loving their neighbors as they love themselves, not at all.
In addition to what Flora says, I find that sometimes it’s easy to be much harsher on myself than I would ever be on other people!
Some advice I once read helped me: when judging myself, to consider whether I’d say the same things to a friend who was in the same position as me. 99% of the time, I think I’d be much gentler to the friend!
I think that points #1 and #10 in Tejvan’s article are crucial. #1 has been my main problem for most of my life, something I’ve only managed to deal with over the past couple of years — I’m very much the “good girl” who always wanted to please her parents and teachers!
#10 is an issue for so many people. It is hard when friends/colleagues seem to have more money etc, but ultimately it’s about figuring out what really matters to YOU and pursuing that.
Number two is still so incredibly difficult for me. Whenever someone “criticizes” me, I often wonder whether or not they are really trying to help me or if they’re just being hurtful. I realize that no matter how hard I try, I am always going to be an emotional person (much like you stated). However, I think it is important that we balance out these emotions with logic and reason.
I completely agree with Janelle and at times i dont know if peoples criticisms are meant to be helpful or if there just hating…my family criticizes everything i do from how i dress to how i talk and they say they want me to be a better person but I cant help but think that they just dont except who i am i can’t change the way i talk…
Number 5 is very true, and it works. Micheal Phelps put his motivation on the back of his locker.
#8 Forgiveness – I think that so many people harbor around guilt feelings because they can not forgive themselves. We know no ones perfect and usually find it easy to forgive others but when it comes to forgiving ourselves that’s a different story. For some reason we expect ourelves to be perfect.
“Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was.” – Margaret Mitchell
Great post. It’s interesting to know that building self-confidence can be as easy as ABC. Interestingly enough, http://www.confidencebuildingcourses.com offer good tips too. Might be interesting to check it out.
It is difficult to deal with criticism. It’s easy to say ‘be detached’ but much harder to put into practise!
It’s quite funny (although a serious and common problem) in that we don’t respect or give ourselves the credit we deserve. It makes no sense when there are so many other people out there who are willing to put you down.
Great post
Cheers,
Glen
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Lack of self-esteem could be a debi1itating problem. It actually hampers your potential to be successful or even achieving your dreams or in even hampers the ability to dream big…http://www.selfimprovementsguide.com
well its a quite motivating post to change our behaviour and attitudes.Life is always unpredictable and to deal with different realities of life, Self respect plays an important role.
Thanks for sharing the tactics of developing self respect
Great article indeed.
Self respect more or less same as self confidence & positive thinking, don’t let our self to down, provide continues motivation when our estime is down, think positive about the things, when you look positive in the things than you not let your self to get down & find good things, try do always good thing & don’t think about result & be happy even result comes in the way that you thought or opposite but keep satifaction that you done good.
This is a BIGGIE for a lot of people. Great Post!
These are all great words to live by. I like the one that says “Be true to yourself.” When we are true to ourselves we are better equipped to boast in all the goodness that surrounds us.
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If you have not read it, I highly reccomend the essay On Self-Respect by Joan Didion.
what a article i just learnd to forgive myself and that would help me alot.good job
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What a great post.Thank you.