Self-respect is a hugely important ingredient in ensuring that you are living your life to the fullest. As long as you respect yourself enough, you will find that things are much more likely to go your way, and that you are considerably more likely to enjoy life for what it is, too. But plenty of people struggle with self-respect, and a lot might not even consider that it might be something you need to specifically look at. But what with the importance that it holds in all our lives, it might be exactly the kind of thing that you should focus on if you want to make sure you are living life well. Let’s take a look at how you might be able to boost your self-respect, in such a way that you can enjoy all of the benefits therein.
Mindfulness
Before you can make any radical changes, you need to make sure that you are aware of what really goes into the thoughts and actions that you exhibit. That requires a certain degree of mindfulness, and you can only get that by working on it and practicing it wherever possible. Mindfulness is something of a watchword these days, and it is becoming a popular form of meditation practice. But whether or not you practice meditation, you can be sure that you can develop your mindfulness of your own thoughts and actions regardless, and that is something that is going to help you to have much more self-respect.
Once you know what you are doing which might not be helping you along very much, you know what you need to change, and that alone will empower you to be able to make those changes. So being more mindful really can and will make an enormous difference if you start practicing it today.
Determine your values
In order to really respect yourself, you need to be clear on what your own values are. It is only by knowing what you stand for that you can continue to stand for it, so if you don’t really know about this you will probably find that you are going to struggle to do that. Determining your values can take a long time, but it is one of the most important things that you can hope to do if you want to develop a genuine self-respect which lasts forever. It might be that this means you have to make some changes in your life, but so be it – it will be worth it if it means that you are living more truly associated with your own core values. It is worth sitting down and working this out if you really want to make sure of that.
Change your story
If you really struggle with your self-respect at the moment, the problem might be partly that you have a negative story about yourself which is not really helping you at all. If that is the case, then you will want to make sure that you are going to change that story to a more positive one, so that you can start to build up your self-respect in this way. The fact is that this story is really just that – only a story – and you can do whatever you want with it to make it make more sense for you. That doesn’t mean pretending that the past was different to how it was, or pretending to be someone you are not, it means altering the narrative structure of how you think about yourself and your life in such a way that you are happier with who you are. That will inevitably lead to greater self-respect, and you will find it is one of the best things you have ever done for yourself.
Don’t expose yourself to needless danger
One of the surest signs that you have low self-esteem is that you allow yourself to be exposed to danger when you don’t really need to. You might not even notice that you are doing it, until it is too late, but if you are aware that this is something you do then you might want to think about changing it. There are many forms that this kind of exposing to danger can take. It might be that you find yourself routinely going out and getting too drunk, or allowing yourself to go home with anybody. That in particular is something of an epidemic, with 2,700 confirmed cases in the last year alone. The moment you stop exposing yourself to such situations, the more you will find that you respect yourself – and so you will start up a virtuous cycle that is going to serve you very well indeed in the future.
Take a step towards your goals
Whatever it is that you most want to do in life, you will find that working towards it in some way is going to be one of the best things you can do to ensure that you are going to respect yourself a lot more. If you are doing nothing to try and reach your goals, then you will find that you are much less respectful of yourself, and that can begin a nasty cycle which you would much rather not find yourself inside of. Instead, take a step towards your goal, however small, and you will feel a lot better about yourself in no time at all. You will also find that you feel energized about life in a way which is going to be addictive, and that is a good position to be in too.
Exercise & Diet
Finally, you will want to remember to take care of yourself in all the basic ways that you need to, so that you can ensure you are going to be in a much better position with your health. If you do that, you are going to feel much more respect towards yourself, and that is a good position to be in indeed. All of this is going to help you to live a much fuller and better life.
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