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What is self respect?

Question:

Throughout your replies to your correspondents, you mention ’self respect’. Could you tell me, and others who may be unsure of what is meant by this term:

1. What is self respect?
2. How does a person lose self respect?
3. If someone has lost their self respect, what can be done to regainit?

Thank you in advance, and keep up the good work.

Answer:

I teach my students that being treated with respect, and giving the other person respect, are key elements in any healthy relationship. So, before I can explain what self respect is, let’s start with a definition of respect in general.

When you respect someone you recognize and acknowledge their worth and their value to you as a human being in some way on some level. How much you value what they have to offer is in direct proportion as to how well you treat them. The more you value what they have to offer, the better you treat them. That’s just common sense.

For example, you respect your boss at work because he has the power to fire you. In your romantic relationships, you value your partner because she has the power to make you happy or miserable.

Now let’s turn that toward ourselves. How much do you value yourself as a human being? How much do you value what you bring to the table professionally? In a friendship? In a romance?

As you can see, there are different levels of self respect. Just because someone has a lot to offer professionally, whatever his or her chosen profession is, doesn’t mean they have that same value to offer in a friendship or a romantic relationship. Just because you’re good with computers doesn’t mean you’re a good lover, father, or husband (or mother or wife).

Problems arise when you’re good professionally and you think you deserve to be treated well in your romantic relationships just because you’re good professionally. Most people don’t realize the two aren’t connected. You worked very hard to get good at what you do professionally. Some people went through over twelve years of college (brain surgeons, etc.).

Did you put that same amount of time, energy and training into being good as a friend, lover or boyfriend (girlfriend)? You aren’t born a good friend or a good lover. They are acquired traits, just like you had to learn a skill or craft professionally.

And, just because you respect someone on one level doesn’t mean you respect them on another level, or as a whole person. For example, take a person who is brilliant in one field who also happens to be a liar, a cheat and a thief. Take a doctor or a lawyer who is in the top five percent of his profession but he beats his wife and molests his children. You admire his ability in his particular field professionally but are repulsed by other areas of his life.

Respect can be divided into two major categories: Professional and Personal.

Professional relates to any interaction connected to business. It could be your job, your skills, your experience, your interaction with your boss, fellow employees, or the people who work under you. Maybe you’re good in front of an audience so you give good presentations and seminars.

Personal relates to any interaction connected to your private life, which can basically be divided into six categories: Family, Friends, Romance, the Church, and Acquaintances and Strangers.

Respect can be further divided into three more categorize:

A) Respect you give to yourself. B) Respect you give to other people. C) Respect other people give to you.

Why do I break it down into these three categories?

Just because you give other people respect, doesn’t mean they give it to you. Just because you give it to other people, doesn’t mean you give it to yourself. And just because you get respect on one level, say professionally, doesn’t mean you get it personally. And, just because you get and give it to your friends, doesn’t mean you can get it and give it in your romantic relationships.

Let’s move forward.

2) How does a person lose self respect?

The only way you can lose self respect is to consciously know what it is and how to command it in your relationships and then stop commanding it. Every time you intentionally abuse yourself, or allow someone else to abuse you, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically or sexually, you lose a measure of self respect.

Why would you allow this to happen? A lot of possible reasons: Guilt. You don’t feel you deserve it. Or you may be punishing yourself for some real or imagined thing you said or did.

...most people don’t lose respect because they never had it in the first place.

My belief is most people don’t lose respect because they never had it in the first place. You can’t lose something you don’t have. And most people have very little, or no, self respect.

Why?

Because they were never taught what it is by their parents or in school. Why didn’t their parents or the school ever teach them? For the same simple reason they were never taught what unconditional love is: You can’t teach something to someone you don’t know and understand yourself.

Of the people who know what self respect is, very few of them know how to command it or put it into practice. The same is true with unconditional love: Lots of people love the buzz word, "unconditional love" and they’re all looking for it, but they don’t know what it is, where to find it or how to give it in a relationship. But they’ve all heard how great it is.

But that’s a different story. The point is, the only way you can teach it is to know what it is. You can’t learn how to speak fluent French from someone who doesn’t speak the language. So, for most people, it isn’t that they’ve lost self respect, it’s that they never had it in the first place. You can’t lose what you don’t have. As a result, they get treated poorly because they don’t know any better.

3) If someone has lost their self respect, what can be done to regain it?

If they’ve lost it, it’s been something conscious on their part and they know how to regain it. It’s like a non smoker who decides to pick up the bad habit of smoking: He consciously made the decision to start smoking so he can consciously make the decision to stop. He knows what he’s doing and what he did. He also knows how to stop. You just stop putting cigarettes in your mouth (yeah, it’s a little more complicated than that but you get the point).

Rather, I think your question is: How does someone get self respect and command it in all of his relationships when he’s never had it before? And how does he get it across the board rather than in just one area of his personal or professional life?

To start with, you won’t get much respect from other people if you don’t respect yourself. So the basis of getting respect from other people, in all areas of your life, is to respect yourself in those areas first. Self respect is the basis of getting respect from others. It’s when you get treated poorly and you say, "I deserve to be treated better than this." Whatever "this" is, that’s where you draw the line and that’s your level of self respect.

Herein lies an important lesson: The difference between self respect and arrogance is a thin line.

A person with genuine, realistic, healthy self respect realizes, understands and accepts he deserves to be treated with basic human dignity, just as everyone is entitled to be treated with basic human dignity. He simply will not tolerate someone treating him with disrespect, whether it’s in his personal or professional life. He won’t fight or argue, he will simply walk away.

An arrogant person, on the other hand, believes he deserves to be treated better than everyone else. Why? Because he’s a legend in his own mind.

Let’s move forward.

How do you get self respect when you’ve never had it? And how do you get respect from your relationships, across the board, when you’ve never had it before?

To start with, you make it a priority. Self respect, and being treated with respect, isn’t something that "just happens." It takes time.

If you want a nice physique, do you just think about exercising and having a good diet or do you make it a priority and revolve your life around it? You make it a priority. And, if it’s that important to you, you’ll make time for it.

How long does it take to start seeing results? If you work at it and make it a priority, you’ll start to see results in about a month.

If you’re a beginning bodybuilder, you should work out an hour three times a week. And you change your diet, too. Does every bodybuilder have the same diet? Of course not. Some people are underweight and want to put on muscle. Some people are overweight and want to lose weight and tone up their body. Some people want to look like Mr. Universe and others just want to be in good physical shape.

The same is true with self respect. Some people want it a lot and others don’t. Those that do will make it a priority and make time for it, others won’t.

So, assuming you want respect, where do you start? People can’t and won’t respect you more than you respect yourself. So, to get others to respect you, you start respecting yourself.

How?

Start with a pen and paper and make a list of all of the qualities of someone, or of several people, you respect. Make your list as long as you want. Take as long as you want on it. How many of those qualities do you currently possess? What do you have to do to yourself, what changes do you have to make, to gain the qualities you don’t have? That’s where you start.

Once you make a conscious effort to gain the qualities of someone you respect, you’ll start to respect yourself and demand others respect you.

Good luck and God Bless.