¶ What is self-respect?
Okay, most people think that self-respect is something that you earn, but the truth is self-respect is a daily set of behaviors. You don't feel self-respect. You do self-respect. Self-respect is like fitness. You just do it one rep at a time. Every time you choose not to betray yourself. And every time you betray yourself, you lose self-respect. Every time you break a promise to yourself, you're showing the world how to treat you. And you show yourself how to treat you.
So many times that we catch ourselves pointing to the other person. And it's so often in the workplace, we're saying, well, that person doesn't respect me. It's like, well, have I actually learned how to respect myself? Do I even know what self-respect looks like? And it's a loop a lot of people get caught in. Someone disrespects you. It makes you feel small. You know, you feel pissed off, you feel frustrated, you feel angry, and then you think.
I've got to prove everybody wrong. So what do you do? You try harder. to prove your worth. And that's what happens in that cycle. Then you lose more self-respect because you're trying to appease another person rather than yourself. And then you repeat the cycle. Respecting yourself doesn't make you selfish. It makes you
stable because when you respect yourself, your boundaries are clear, you have standards that are non-negotiable, and people around you know where they stand. And trying to earn respect by tolerating disrespect is like trying to get healthy by eating cake and hoping your body's just not going to notice.
¶ Speaking with intention to build self-respect
A lot of people lose respect for themselves because of what they say to other people. And then they walk away thinking, I shouldn't have said that. I think I said too much. I'm not happy with how I showed up. I don't know if I should have said that. And that's because they speak out of impulse and emotion. This is when people speak from unmanaged discomfort.
rather than speaking truthfully in alignment with the results they want. A question that I ask myself all the time is what do I want to have happen? from this conversation. Like what's the action I want this person to take? What would I like them to do when we get done talking? I don't ask myself how would I like to feel? I ask myself what would I like to have happen? And that's a huge one because if you think about it, a good example is if you're mad at your spouse.
because they didn't get you the gift you wanted on your birthday. You say, okay, well why am I mad? Because I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I think about them so much on their birthday that I would never forget this, but they forgot it from me. And so I'm uncomfortable. I don't feel good. Well, what do I want to have happen?
Well, I want them to think of me on my birthday. Then do you think emotionally vomiting all over that person is going to result in them thinking about you on your birthday? Or do you think it's going to result in them liking you less because you made them feel bad for something they didn't even know that was an expectation of themselves?
And so that's why you have to ask yourself these things. And people go around in the workplace, in their friendships, in their relationships, emotionally vomiting because it feels good in the short term and it feels really bad in the long term because you don't build that self-respect.
¶ Why criticism is other people's unmanaged discomfort
Criticism, it can sting, it can suck. It can feel terrible. Even more than praise feels good for the most part. But what is criticism really? Criticism is often when something about you, something you did, makes somebody else uncomfortable. They don't know how to manage that discomfort. They outsource their discomfort.
They blame you, they label you, they diminish you, they demean you, they judge you. Judgment is another word for unmanaged discomfort. So you really think about this. We all judge people. By the way, I judge people too, for sure. Of course I judge people. But what you want to ask yourself is when somebody else criticizes you, what belief does their criticism contradict about what you believe to be true in this world? And then when they're criticizing you, you ask yourself,
What did I do to make them so uncomfortable? And if you break it down like that, it helps so much. Because you see it objectively rather than subjectively just taking the hit.
of whatever emotional blow they're trying to put your way. And that fundamentally changed everything for me. Once I understood that I do something, it makes somebody uncomfortable. When they're uncomfortable and they have low emotional regulation skills, they criticize me, they make fun of me, they demean me, they diminish me.
¶ How to handle criticism: defining your values
A lot of people ask me, how do I get over criticism? How do I deal with all these people judging me? And the truth is you don't. It happens. You just anchor so deeply in your values that it makes all the criticism worth it. And so the reality is this if you don't anchor your identity. Somewhere solid, somewhere that cannot be defeated by what people say about you, whether it's good or bad, you will just drift.
Into becoming a reflection of the preferences and desires of other people. And honestly. I don't think there is any worse place to be than one where you are literally a ghost of yourself that exists because of what other people want out of you. So if you define your values, you ignore everything else, you can be the person that you want to be.
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