10 Signs You Should Respect Yourself More

Jan 04, 2019 by apost team

The ways that we treat ourselves is perhaps more important than the ways that we treat others. This is because it’s hard to have a relationship with another person, including give-and-take and mutual respect, if you don’t love yourself or treat yourself well.

You can set better habits to ensure you are being kind to yourself and establish better limits with others so they won’t be able to disrespect you either. Read these signs to determine if you should treat yourself more respectfully:

Respect yourself by investing the time that you have away from work and chores to be productive and creative. This includes investing time in hobbies and projects around the house that make us happy. We should also make time for friends who build us up and don’t put us down. If we are lacking in our downtime, we cannot be at our best at work or when serving others.

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This means that you aren’t going to go to work or out with your friends or families and make assertions about yourself that you can’t back up. Saying you can fix something in your boss’ office to get ahead would backfire when you try to do it, mess it up, and he has to call a repair man anyway. You would just look like a fake or a kiss up.

It’s easier sometimes to agree with others or to repeat their opinion so that you don’t have to share your own. If it’s an important issue, you should share your views. If it’s something you don’t care about, it’s okay to keep silent. But, don’t be false to yourself because you might offend another person.

We all have relationships that we give sometimes or more often give more to than we get. We convince ourselves that we really love these people and need them in our lives, but they are just emotional drains. If we have a people-pleaser personality, we even act like this with co-workers and acquaintances. Our needs should come first, not routinely behind the needs of others, except maybe our minor children.

If you go to someone about a problem, you are seeking his or her advice. If you hear their advice and ultimately choose not to follow it go about solving the problem your way instead, you shouldn’t feel bad about it.

If someone insults you or makes a false statement about you and then you say nothing, you are disrespecting yourself. Sometimes, we are too upset to address this situation in the moment. Find the time and the place to correct the impression, especially if this falsehood was shared in front of others.

Keeping your feelings to yourself does not do anyone any good. You may have strong feelings that you need to process before putting them out in the open. But, keeping your important feelings inside is just going to eat at you. It will not help you to feel positive and happy and as though you can accomplish what you establish as your intent for the day.

People who don’t feel confident in themselves may need to fill that void. They may overtly seek recognition from those around them, either family and friends or complete strangers. They will take attention wherever they can get it because this helps them to obtain validation, temporarily feeling good about who they are and what they achieve.

If you think that doing something for another person is going to make you feel better about yourself, you could be wrong. If you let others take advantage of you, then you are essentially serving as their doormat. You don’t feel better, you just feel worse. You resent them and do things to please them, which is a waste of time, instead of just saying no.

Some of us would rather hang around with people with low self-esteem or negative approaches to life than to be alone. However, they just serve to drag us down, making us question whether they are true friends or are frenemies. It’s better to choose activities that you enjoy or might learn to like and make new friends than to hang out with people who are bad influences.

Do you feel like you disrespect yourself? Let us know your experiences in the comments and don't forget to pass this along to your friends and family to encourage them to make respecting themselves a priority.