How to Respect Yourself

 First read this in 2009.  I wanted to know if the article's ideas were healthy or not. So I sent to KavinCoach.  He didn't follow all the links but felt the main part was healthy.  I set about working on it.   me This color will be my comments about each part.  To read the entire article follow the link by clicking on the title.

How to Respect Yourself

Having respect for others is difficult if you have no respect for yourself. The idea of self-respect is very closely related to self-confidence, but respect is more about what you do whereas confidence is about how you feel. The two go hand-in-hand. This article, however, will focus on how you can demonstrate respect for yourself. Odds are, when you do these things, you'll find your confidence increases as well.

[edit] Steps

1. Think about what it means to respect someone.   me: I worked hard to figure this out.  I wasn't raised with respect.  I didn't feel respected.  People would show me respect but I would discount it because they didn't really know me.  KavinCoach showed me by example what respecting a person means.  I also liked how he told me more than once that his respect did not depend on my being perfect.  He knew all about me and still respected me.  He also encouraged me to define for myself what respect looks like
   
   
   • You don't steal from, harm, or insult them.
   • You are honest with them.
   • You listen to what they say, consider their opinion, and avoid interrupting them.
2. Practice basic respect towards yourself. Whatever you believe to be respect, apply it to yourself. Don't harm yourself. Don't insult yourself. Don't steal from yourself (like recklessly putting everything on credit; you're essentially taking money from your future self, because you'll have to pay up eventually). Be honest with yourself. And develop your own opinions. See How to Be a Skeptic and How to Think for Yourself.  me: I an leaving this part because I thing it makes some really important points.  I am starting to realize not harming myself also includes taking my medication, exercising and eating properly.  For me, this takes lots of practice. 
3. Recognize when people disrespect you, and take steps to stop it.  me: This one is a work in progress.  I am learning to calmly tell someone that yelling at me is not ok.  I am noticing that my reaction to their rude behavior is key if they continue to treat me rudely.  I finally understand that as an adult it is my responsibility to address unacceptable behavior.  Here are some more article links that might be interesting to explore.  I do not guarantee their content.
   
   
   • How to Recognize a Manipulative or Controlling Relationship - It can be hard to see when a person close to us is being disrespectful, especially if they're subtle and sneaky and it's been going on for a long time.
   • How to Stop Being Needy - Many times in dating or friendships we let people walk all over us because we feel needy.
   • How to Stop Being a People Pleaser - Paying attention to everyone else's needs but your own is a classic sign of low self-respect.  This one was a biggy for me.  I had to learn the difference between giving service and People pleasing.  Motivation makes all the difference in how I feel.  When I give service I feel better no matter how the other person responds.  If I am people pleasing, the other person's response controls how I feel.   
   • How to Practice Nonviolent Communication - When you do confront someone about their disrespectful behavior, try to stick to these communication guidelines. me:  I have a book on this.  A lot of new concepts so I decided to take a break and tackle it again it a month or two. 
4. Take care of your body. A me: This is one of my major goals this year. I know a lot about it but putting it into practice is difficult.  Insomnia is hard to battle when I get the penalty of nightmares when I start getting enough sleep.  I am learning more about exercising, training, eating, drinking water, and other new research to see what the experts say works.  I am allowing myself to be a guinea pig.  I learned that when I drink a little bit of coconut milk every day my knees don't hurt as much.  Very cool to have less pain climbing stairs.   
5. Get to know yourself. The more you understand about yourself, the more you'll see and appreciate how unique you really are, and the more you'll respect yourself. Discover your principles, personality, and talents. Stop pandering to other people's approval and start developing your own standards. Someone else might respect a fancy title, but you might respect creativity. Whose opinion matters more, in this case? me:  This is what I did all last month.  Getting to know myself and recognizing that I have good qualities.  I believed that I had only one talent.  I could fix computers.  I discounted anything else since I didn't get paid to do it.  I did learn that developing that talent led me to work at the university where I discovered my talent for photography.  Then I made wood furniture and then I started trying all sorts of things that I was good at.  It is fun an exciting to learn that I am a good person that can learn new talents.  One of this year's goals is to water color.  
6.  me:  I am making progress in learning to respect myself. 

I love woodworking