Respecting yourself is one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself. Because once you respect yourself, suddenly everyone around you starts respecting you too – and you don’t accept anything less. After all, how can you expect others to respect you if you don’t respect yourself?
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So learning how to value your thoughts, opinions, body, emotions, and every other piece of yourself as a woman is a pretty important thing in life.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where especially girls and women can be very hard on themselves. So how can we gain self-respect?
What is self-respect, and why is it important?
Self-respect is having confidence in yourself, your values, your beliefs, and your opinions. It’s building yourself up instead of tearing yourself down.
It’s giving yourself a break when you need a break. It’s having the confidence to pick yourself back up again after you fall.
It’s treating yourself well and ensuring that the people around you treat you well too. It’s distancing yourself from people who devalue you or don’t treat you with respect.
It’s trusting yourself to make the right decisions in life and pushing yourself down a path of happiness and success.
It’s accepting your strengths, but your weaknesses too, and growing in the face of adversity.
There are many different aspects to respecting yourself, but it’s one of the most important things you can learn in life.
It’s important because it’s what allows us to love ourselves and set boundaries with those around us. It allows us to say, “no, you’re not going to treat me that way.”
It also allows us to grow as women. When we have self-respect, we can accept our flaws and use our mistakes to become better in the future.
When we have self-respect, we know that we have the power to reach our goals and dreams. When we have self-respect, we never give up on ourselves because we know we’re worth it.
How do I respect myself?
To answer this question, let’s ask ourselves, what does self-respect look like? It looks like this:
- Practicing the things that make us happy (reading, exercising, etc.).
- Prioritizing ourselves and making time for self-care.
- Being honest with ourselves about who we are (and who we aren’t) – and then being okay with it (or changing to better ourselves).
- Accepting our flaws and the things that make us uniquely ourselves.
- Defining our boundaries with others.
- Learning to say no.
- Surrounding ourselves with people who respect us and removing toxic people from our lives.
- Loving ourselves and our bodies.
As much as I wish I could say self-respect was something every woman in this world was born with, it simply isn’t the case.
Sometimes respecting yourself takes time and work. But I’m here to tell you the good news – self-respect is well within reach!
How do you begin to respect yourself?
1) Take time for self-care.
As women, we often find ourselves caring for everyone around us but not for ourselves. But it’s time we stop doing this. We can’t take care of everyone around us if we are running on empty ourselves.
So it’s important that you take some time for yourself too. Dedicate a time slot each day to doing things you love. Take a bath if you need to relax. Get a massage. Go for a run. Do whatever you need to do to treat refresh – because you deserve it!
2) Surround yourself with people that respect you.
Building self-love and self-respect is really difficult if the people around you are constantly bringing you down. So it’s time to cut toxic people out of your life.
Surround yourself with people that build you up. People that bring positivity and light into your life.
People that make you feel good about yourself. People that motivate you to be better. And people that you enjoy being around. And leave the others behind.
3) Stay active.
Not only will keeping active help to improve your health and make you feel better about your physical appearance, but it also releases endorphins (or “feel good” hormones) into your system.
So by working out, you will get a natural mood boost which will make you feel more positive towards yourself and everyone around you.
4) Empower yourself in the mirror.
Yes, it sounds silly to stand in front of a mirror and reassure yourself- but it works! We believe what our minds tell us.
So if we are constantly telling ourselves negative things, that’s what we will believe. But if we can change our language, we can change our minds.
Take 10 minutes every day, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself why you are so great. Eventually, you will begin to believe it, and respecting yourself will come naturally.
5) Stop comparing yourself to others.
Women are notoriously known for comparing themselves to others. But I’m here to tell you that there will always be someone out there to outdo you (or so you will think).
Just stop comparing yourself. There is no value in doing this. Understand that just because someone else is beautiful, that doesn’t make you less beautiful.
Just because someone else has a great career doesn’t mean you can’t have a great career too. Let’s all stand up as women and support one another instead of comparing one another! What an amazing world it would be if all women loved themselves as much as they loved their best friend.
So let’s do it! Let’s make it a world where all women have self-respect and love themselves – because we all deserve to be happy!
Looking for more on respecting yourself? Check out these audiobooks:
Honoring the Self by Nathaniel Branden
The Magic of Self Respect by Osho:
Read more:
Self-empowerment and how you can achieve it!
How to Boost Your Self-Confidence with the right mindset!
Letting go is the key to your Happiness and Well-being.
Acceptance of Yourself: A Beginner’s Guide.
