Discover how small changes and consistent actions can transform your self-image, make you respect yourself, and filter your relationships. Also discover how to teach people to respect you with the help of several interesting techniques.
Because your question is practical How to respect yourself, I will give you practical, applicable suggestions. I have to explain things a little because everything we understand makes it easier to fight with it. Still, ultimately, these are life-applicable tips that you can use… only if you manage to beat yourself.
Where People Go Wrong With Self-Respect
For people who don’t respect themselves, self-respect seems reserved for others. It’s as if others were given it (in childhood, perhaps), and now they possess it while it’s inaccessible to them.
However, I have good news: like everything else, respecting oneself can be learned, and it involves techniques.
Literally, everything in life comes down to techniques. If we’ve mastered them, we know how to do it; if we haven’t, we assume someone else must be talented.
But first, it’s also helpful to understand the problem and solve it. That’s how problems work: to truly solve them, we must know how they originated and what we’re dealing with.
How Can I Learn To Love Myself: Exact Steps
So, let’s first list a few things about yourself if you don’t have self-respect:
- Your state originated somewhere (maybe in your childhood home, or you decided that you don’t deserve to respect yourself).
- You cultivate (emphasis on “cultivate”) a relationship with yourself that lacks self-respect.
- You do this through a specific pattern: I don’t respect myself—because of that, I do things that humiliate, hurt, or damage me—and because I do those things, I continue not to respect myself.
- You do this due to learned patterns, fear, habit, or simply because you don’t know how to step out of this vicious cycle (here, I’m reminded of an occurrence in nature with ants, who, when trapped in a circle—like around a flowerpot—often die in that circle because they don’t know how).
- When you think about stepping out, it’s such a terrifying and foreign thought that you justify staying in what you’re doing: “Just this one more time,” “It’s not that bad,” etc.
- You may have even gone so far in justifying yourself that you think people with self-respect are arrogant, narcissistic, or rude (because they are the opposite of you, and you must use every opportunity to justify yourself).
What you’re doing are ego defense mechanisms, helping you feel better about something you’re doing.
- Lack of self-respect results from unconscious patterns. It is strongly linked to unconscious and subconscious behaviors (which you’re obviously not aware of and which are driven by fears).
Consciously, you want to respect yourself and people to respect you, and you know that self-respect is the path to gaining others’ respect.
But when you refuse, for example, to do something for an authoritative figure, a fear arises within you—that you’ll be rejected, scorned, or hurt. Or perhaps it’s some imaginary fear, discomfort, etc.
Here, you can see how different our conscious and unconscious desires can be.
And I understand you. I understand that, for some, habits are crucial (they do things out of habit). In contrast, for others, fear of the unknown prevails (for some, respecting oneself is unknown territory).
How The Unconscious Mind Controls Our Conscious Mind
Challenges You Might Face and How to Overcome Them
You will probably feel and experience:
Guilt and Shame When You Stand Up for Yourself:
This is the quickest way to give up on what you’re doing. You’ll feel very uncomfortable when you start to respect yourself.
Negative Self-Talk:
You’ll tell yourself that you’re making a mistake. That you shouldn’t have done it. You might even convince yourself that people will now despise and reject you because you respect yourself. You’ll think you’re foolish for even trying and that it won’t work out anyway.
You’ll have bad days
And you will revert to old patterns, which will feel like proof that you’re incapable of respecting yourself.
You’ll find ways to accomplish what you’ve intended but then disrespect yourself elsewhere.
For example, “I can’t pick you up from work today… but I’ll drive you to work all next week instead!”—essentially punishing yourself for trying to break free.
Doing something good for yourself might happen 10% of the time, and the other 90% will be spent regretting it (don’t worry, this only occurs in the beginning).
You’ll also experience social pressure and criticism
From people telling you you’ve changed, become rude, or become different.
The Impact of Toxic Friendships on Our Self-Love
People’s Reaction to Your Change
1. People may find you strange when you don’t respect yourself, and anything unfamiliar tends to be off-putting. You can read more about this in another article How to become assertive
2. They will test you—to see how far they can push you (this is part of human nature).
3. People may also want to take advantage of you because humans are naturally inclined to do that.
All of this suits people because:
- They have someone around them who makes them look better.
- They can take advantage of you.
They will naturally not want to change the dynamic of your relationship because they benefit from your lack of self-respect. And all of this is part of human nature.
So, how to gain self-respect?
Practical Ways to Start Respecting Yourself
1. Stop Damaging Yourself to Start Respecting Yourself
Start with the most straightforward steps that don’t involve anyone else.
Logic tells us that we respect people we consider valuable.
If you are damaging yourself, it diminishes your value (and sends the message to others that you are not worthy).
2. Perform Many Small Acts of Self-Love to Develop Self-Respect
Do the exact opposite of what you’ve been doing until now. But don’t just focus on superficial things like buying yourself something nice—although, of course, you can do that too—focus on doing good things for yourself.
Treat yourself as if you are valuable and worthy of care.
Take care of your body, mind, and spirit. There are plenty of resources on how to do this so that I won’t list them all, but you need to send a message to yourself and the world that you are worthy of being taken care of. Wear better clothes, start eating healthier foods, incorporate some physical activity that helps maintain your body, and walk with your shoulders back. These are small things, but they are essential for self-respect.
3. Be Proud of Who You Are to Build Self-Respect
Think about the things you are good at and be proud of them. In addition to the things you’ve accomplished, consider all the things that directly are yours: your family, friendships, genetics, past achievements, etc.
4. Correct What You’re Not Proud Of
Here, you’ll have to honestly admit (to yourself only) what you’re not good at and what you want to change about yourself.
Work on the things that trouble you, no matter how long it takes or how much effort is required to resolve them.
These things can be physical, behavioral, or personality traits.
How To Set Boundaries In a Relationship – 12 Steps
Next, Start Commanding Respect from Others
Or How to Gain Self-Respect:
When you respect yourself, people “pick up” that signal and start behaving in accordance with it. People always do to you what you do to yourself.
1. Talk about the things you respect in yourself and what you’re good at.
Remember that people take what others say about themselves at face value. This means that if you talk about, for example, being well-read, people will believe it. And, of course, they’ll maintain respect for your knowledge.
2. Use critical thinking and express your thoughts.
People respect those who express their opinions non-aggressively and without imposing.
3. What do you want to give people and what not.
However, this is the hardest part of self-respect—standing up to people. So, try one of these methods:
- Use the “sandwich” technique (as I call it 😁) by giving that person something good: a compliment, respect, understanding, acknowledgment. Then, refuse what you don’t want to do. Afterward, provide them with something nice again.
- An alternative solution: “I can’t meet today, but maybe we can next week.”
- Offer something you’re comfortable giving: “I can’t meet up, but we could talk on the phone.”
4. When people are rude to you, stop them stop them first with something good, then with something rough.
“Pierce” the person with something good, and then aggressively protect yourself. An example would be: “Look, I respect you. I think you’re a decent person, but you won’t talk to me like that. You can’t keep doing ______.”
How To Build Self-Confidence: Tips From a Professional
5. If you’re afraid of others’ disapproval:
Remember that people fall into three categories, two of which are positive and work in your favor, while one is harmful and unnecessary:
- The first group will immediately start respecting you because you respect yourself.
- The second group will try not to respect you for a while but will eventually be forced to change their attitude toward you. So they will respect you later on.
- The third group will never respect you and must be let go.
So, using simple logic, we can conclude that you’re afraid of offending or hurting people who, in any case, need to fall out of your life. Essentially, you’re wasting time on this.
It’s much better to try self-respect, which will filter who should leave your life and stay. The people who should remain are those who align with your new self-image.
6. Don’t be afraid of pressure and aggression.
These are just forms of manipulation meant to make you abandon your intention of respecting yourself.
7. Reflect on what you’re afraid of, and you’ll often see that these fears are irrational.
Irrational in that there is no real danger, but you are still afraid as if the threat is present.
I always tell my clients, “You have to revise everything.” You have to analyze everything at the first opportunity and see if your reaction was automatic or rational.
8. Understand that your behavior follows a pattern from the past.
Perhaps from your primary family, where you had to retreat or form a belief that you’re not worthy.
Big Talk With Ourselves About Our Parents
9. Remember, when the same trigger occurs, you always react in the same way.
Until you start reacting differently.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”― Viktor E. Frankl
- Recognize that built-in mechanisms are driving what you’re doing. It’s possible to develop new mechanisms. You need to decide how to behave when the same trigger occurs and apply that behavior immediately. Yes, you need to plan.
- Apply what you’ve planned on the spot, no matter how much resistance you feel or how difficult it is. In this case, “fake it till you make it” is good advice.
- Be persistent with these things—they will start working. Things take time to work, and people often make the mistake of giving up too soon.
- You’ll have bad days when old patterns return, but always come back to the new patterns when you can.
These are ways to start respecting yourself. And not just self-respect but also the respect of others. As I’ve said, people always follow your relationship with yourself. What you think of yourself, others will follow. What you do to yourself, what you show about yourself, what you say about yourself—people will take all of that at face value and act precisely as you’ve guided them.
I hope you found this text helpful. Dee
