4 Effective Principles To Earn Your Self-Respect
Have you ever wondered how your self-esteem, self-worth, and self-respect were cultivated within yourself?
Ever question how to improve those personal things?
Self-estimation is how we feel about ourselves and what we believe we are capable of. Our self-esteem.
Self-respect is where everything is built off of.
Growing up as a kid, well into my mid twenties, I never gave much thought to self-respect. It was just something I did. I took care of myself in order to live another day. That to me, was self-respect. I never felt a reason as to why I should look deeper, into what I thought at the time was just a word.
Years have passed by and my life lessons have expanded drastically. I found that self-respect plays a vital role within your life.
The more you respect yourself, the more you expect out of yourself.
However, in order to build and cultivate a strong self-respect, you need to do some soul searching and find important things in your life that you are trying to improve on.
Define them.
Make those important things so specific and clear, that you know exactly how to get after them regardless of what obstacles cross through your path.
Once you have them defined, there are a few principles that you should stick to in order to cultivate that self-respect from the ground up.
Here Are 4 Effective Principles To Earn Self-Respect And Develop Self-Discipline:
1. Do Hard Things Daily
One of the most valuable pieces of information I have picked up on my journey, is to do something hard everyday.
That choice for everyone is different.
Moving my body 60 minutes each day is something that I find hard to keep up with. Which is why, I intentionally do it.
Your “hard task(s)” can be different. It doesn’t matter what it is, but there should be a challenge in each of our days.
We don’t grow when we things are easy and going totally awesome for us.
No.
We grow when 💩 hits the fan. When our life gets really complicated, difficult and heavy — THAT is when we grow.
These are the moments where you build self-respect. During these difficult moments, is when your decisions matter the most in shaping who you are and who you will become down the line.
By intentionally incorporating something difficult into your day, you are consciously working on that grit muscle that keeps you moving in the right direction.
Challenge yourself and move yourself to do hard things on a daily.
2. When You Say You Are Going To Do Something, DO IT!
There are no if, ands, or buts here. If you say you are going to do something, anything, you make sure that you see it through.
Most people would read something like this headline and think that this pertains more to saying something to someone else, and carrying it through.
While that is important and says a lot about who you are, the more important take away here is yourself.
Self-respect is built off the promises that you make to yourself — not to other people.
If you really want to respect yourself, you need to earn it. And you earn it, by carrying out all of the promises that you make to yourself.
You must be willing to go to the ends of the earth to complete the missions that you set out for yourself.
If you don’t, all you are doing is tearing yourself down in the process. Every time you say that you want to accomplish something for yourself, and you don’t — you are only hurting yourself.
You begin to tear down your own self respect.
Your mind starts to realize that the things you say you are going to do, is just a joke. This in turn, begins to affect you on a deeper level.
If you do this to yourself, stop. Please.
Create goals, visions, dreams, and aspirations for yourself. Set the bar extremely high and then go get after it.
Prove to yourself that you love yourself enough and are all about increasing your self-respect and self- discipline.
When you say you are going to do something, make sure you do it to the best of your ability AND you make sure you finish it.
3. Gain Control Of Your Emotions
When our back is up against the wall, and we have a hard decision(s) to make, our emotions can run high. This is an understatement for most people.
Controlling your emotions in stressful and difficult situations is a learned skill.
Some people are ice-cold and when moments run high, they maintain an even cool. On the flip side there are people who give into their emotions a little too quickly.
The best way to practice getting a hold of your emotions is to consciously be aware of them throughout the day. Get to a level of self-awareness, in which you can easily identify moments where your emotions get out of control.
Within those moments, ask yourself questions and search for clarity.
Why are you reacting in such a way?
When you can identify these moments with precision, you begin to get a hang of your emotions with far better control.
Moments of adversity and difficulty is when our true character is revealed to us.
We think we are “this way”, but let life punch you in the mouth and that perception of who you think you are goes right out the window and you are presented with who you really are.
4. Stop Quitting When It Gets Hard
The biggest mistakes I made growing up was quitting on the things I wanted most, all because they were too difficult or took too long to achieve. It got to this point where if things required too much effort, I would quit.
I quit college, because it was too difficult.
I stopped exercising, because staying consistent was too hard.
I stopped reading, because it was too tedious and boring.
I turned the other way when things got difficult.
Don’t make my mistakes!
In fact, growing up, you look around and most people are running towards the short-cuts, the easy path and running away from all of the challenging stuff.
You begin to think that this is just normal. But, it’s not.
This is actually a poor mindset, and brings you all sorts of problems later down the road.
It’s so far from the way things are supposed to be. Far from the way that we should be thinking, and framing our mindset.
Conversely, you should be going after every single goal that you want to achieve in your life. No matter what it requires in order to get there.
If it is something that you want, that makes you better, that makes you happier, then regardless of how hard it gets, you need to see it through and never quit.
I say that because, the more that you take on and the more you keep quitting when those difficult moments arise, the more you tarnish your own self-respect.
All I did to myself with this weak mindset was hold myself back. I wasted my time.
I later realized, that all of those things we are running from, due to their difficulty, are actually the things we needed to develop.
We need to run towards those things!
I ended up going back to college when I was older, for 4 years (and finished). Picked up exercise again. Started reading again. I now know that these things are necessary to keep working towards, and so I stay consistent.
In the process of going back to finish school, picking up exercise, and reading daily, I began to build real self-respect and real self-discipline.
The power lies in the things that our mind wants to run away from.
Prove to yourself that no matter how hard it is, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how long it takes — you will finish.
That is the mentality that it takes to earn self-respect and cultivate self-discipline along the way.
It’s our own duty and responsibility to develop, build, cultivate and cherish our own self-respect.
Nobody, is going to build your self-respect for you. It’s yours. You own it.
Too many people talk about how they have low self-esteem, low confidence, low self-respect, low self-worth. The way you overcome these temporary barriers is by following these 4 principles each and every single day.
Self-respect and self-discipline are built and earned through hours and hours of repeated effort.
You must prove to yourself everyday that you can take on challenges, you see them through, you finish what you start, and you don’t give up when things get hard.
That is how self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence and self-discipline is built.
It is earned through the process.
The rest, leave it up to God. 🙏
