Self Respect

SELF RESPECT

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” – Mark Twain

Self-respect is fundamental for a great life. If self-respect is lacking this may cause insecurity and the strive to be someone we are not. To develop self-respect means to cultivate the self-confidence to deal with whatever life throws at us. Self-respect comes from an inner belief and not an egoistic feeling of superiority.

The following are some ways to improve self-respect:-

* Learn to Handle Criticism – To maintain a sense of self-respect we need to learn how to deal with criticism and not take it personally, but to look at it from a detached perspective. Maybe it is false, in which case we should ignore it. If there is some truth we can use it to develop our character. It is important not to take criticism too personally. Just because we are not very good at a particular task, doesn’t mean we need to lose our self-respect.

* Avoid jealousy – Jealousy of other people’s success is a common way of losing our happiness and self-respect. Jealousy is simply envy of other people’s success. We feel miserable that we cannot enjoy their success, it can even lead us to knocking the other person. If we follow this path of jealousy we will definitely lose our sense of self-respect. When we are constantly comparing ourselves to others, we are saying our self-respect depends on being better than others, but the truth is, there will always be some people more successful than ourselves. The trick to lasting self-respect is to be happy through others success. We should never feel that other people’s success in any way diminishes our self-worth.

* Remember your motivation, not results – Sometimes we work with the best of motives and intentions only to be disappointed by the outcome. Problems occur if we equate our self-respect to outer displays of wealth, success and social standing. Some things will not turn out as we hoped, but it is a mistake to link our sense...