ID: 16328508 9C Importance of Self-Respect in an Individual's Life “No one is born ugly, we just live in a judgmental society.” - Kim Jamnoom. Of course, no one is truly ugly so it would be impossible to be born with it. We are, however, born with confidence. As little children, we don’t judge ourselves as pretty or ugly, but we lose confidence quickly because we absorb the judgments around us, and learn anxiety and lack of confidence/self-respect. Keeping your body healthy by taking care of it, making sure you're doing what you want to stay happy, and keeping yourself motivated by boosting confidence and overcoming obstacles, can improve self-respect in an individual's life. If you take your time to learn and grow self-respect in your life, you will be able to respect and accept yourself for who you are. Having good health is essential in a person's life, especially for their self-respect. It is beneficial to have good physical health in your life because taking care of your body, in general, is crucial. You should know how to treat your body and do exercises. However, having good physical health isn't only about exercising. It’s also about sleeping and eating well. You need to make sure that you have an equal balance of everything in whatever physical exercise you're doing, and also make sure that you're enjoying yourself. Also, don’t forget that it is ok if you need to take breaks from exercising every once in a while. Believe it or not, taking care of yourself physically, valuing yourself by treating yourself with respect, and doing things you love like hobbies can also greatly improve your mental health. When you do exercises that you like, it can make you calm and can trigger dopamine in the brain which makes you elated. Being happy is also an important factor for your mental health. You also need to understand your mental well-being. If you're depressed or constantly troubled you should go to someone and talk about how you feel. The most important attribute about health is making sure that you know your body, how to treat it well, and understand your strengths and weaknesses. Doing physical and mental exercises contributes to these actions and can help better your health. Another component of having good self-respect is happiness. When you understand and know how you should treat yourself and others, it can improve your relationship with them. Ultimately boosting your happiness. When understanding yourself you need to have integrity, meaning that you have strong morals, and know what you do and don't like. When you have integrity, you are a lot more honest with yourself and everyone around you about who you are, and what you believe in, even when your ideas don’t match with others. If you live your life the way you want and start to listen to your heart, life will become a lot more simple and you will feel at peace. If you start to live your life only for the benefit of others and do things you don't want to or believe in, you will feel like you're being controlled by others and won't truly feel free, or happy. Another point that can make you feel happiness is having good relationships with others. Whether it be your significant other, sibling, co-worker, or even a friend, you need to make sure that you have a good relationship with them. When you have good relations with others, you feel comfortable with them and respect them. You also challenge and help them do better and help them when they’re troubled. Being positive can also contribute to the relationship because you can be a good influence on them. However, when you feel like you are not getting enough out of the relationship, or when you feel like they are not putting in the effort, you should talk to them about it. If you start to notice that they are being bad influences on you, try to disconnect yourself from them. Set boundaries for yourself to know how you should be treated so that in whatever relationship you have, it's mutually beneficial. Having integrity by knowing what you want in life and having a healthy relationship by setting boundaries can help you feel more connected to yourself and make you a lot happier. Motivation is another key aspect of having self-respect in a person's life. Self-motivation is an important skill that pushes people to move forward even when faced with setbacks. Overcoming those obstacles will make you start to feel a sense of accomplishment and success to boost confidence. Having confidence in your ability makes you more motivated to do something because you feel like you know what you're doing. It also makes you believe in yourself and makes you want to set the bar high and aim even higher. You also need to learn, know and accept your strengths and weaknesses. When you know your strengths, you are more engaged, focused and perform better in them which brings joy into your life. When you know your weaknesses, you know what may be holding you back and can then start to learn how to work around them. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses helps you know yourself better, and as I said before, helps you feel more confident because you know how you function. Another thing that can improve your motivation is setting goals. Setting goals helps organize your time and guides your focus on things, ultimately leading to better performance. It helps to complete your work quickly and efficiently. You need the motivation to help set goals because you need to make sure that the goal is important to you and that there are benefits when you achieve them. It is important to know that you need the motivation to have confidence in whatever you're doing and to set goals that you know you can achieve. Acknowledging and being genuine about yourself by treating yourself with more respect will make you appreciate yourself a lot more and give you more confidence. Tending to your body’s needs, upholding a good sense of happiness in your life, and maintaining ambitions in your life to keep moving forward even when faced with hardships, are key principles to help improve self-respect in an individual. Unfortunately, negative feelings like depression, anxiety, and shame have become a norm in everyday life. These feelings prevent you from truly recognizing the astonishing and wonderful things that a person can do to and for themselves if they respect themselves a bit more. People also do actions they don't want to try to “fit it” or to be “cool” like smoking, stealing, or even bullying. When you do these kinds of things, you feel lonely because you slowly feel like you're not a part of whatever group you're trying to fit in to. To truly have self-respect you need to become more confident and accept yourself as you are and live with it. It's better to displease others by doing something right than please them briefly by doing something wrong. Self-respect is certainly needed to make a person genuinely happy.
