Self-acceptance And Self-respect: How To Achieve Them

We define self-respect as the degree to which we respect ourselves as people deserving of dignity and worth. Respecting oneself is one of the pillars of self-esteem and is a necessary step if we want to live a life focused on success and optimism.

Lack of self-respect can lead to depression, sadness, low self-esteem and little motivation to achieve our goals.

How do I respect myself?

If you want to know how to work on self-respect, you can do the following exercises:

• Be assertive: Assertive communication is based on being able to express our feelings and needs to other people, in a reasonable and calm way but being clear in our message.
• Accept and learn to deal with criticism from others: As long as they are constructive in nature, criticism from others can help us improve as people.
• Focus your actions towards personal improvement and success: If you must make an important decision in life, think first about what you want to turn that act into and where you want to direct your goals.
• Accept who you are and develop your own virtues: this last tip is closely related to self-acceptance that we will define below.

Another basis of self-esteem is self-acceptance. This concept is defined as the degree to which we not only respect our way of being, but also we accept it and value it positively. According to Carol Ryff, self-acceptance is a positive attitude oriented toward well-being.⁽¹⁾. In fact, one of Carol’s most famous studies links self-acceptance to autonomy and personal growth.

Self-acceptance: exercises

If you want to benefit from the positive consequences of self-acceptance, you can follow these exercises based on positive psychology:

• Make a list of what you “need to change about yourself” and look at it. Now, instead of thinking that you need to change it, try accepting what really isn’t a big problem. For example:

” I need to change my introversion, I have few friends“can be changed to become”I accept that I am an introverted person, I have few friends but I am able to keep them and enjoy their company”

• Remember that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes on occasion, accept our weaknesses and foster our strengths It is a good exercise in self-acceptance.
• Know yourself: doing introspection exercises to know your own temperament and personality can help you in your development process. self-acceptance and self-respect.

Once we know all the secrets about self-acceptance and self-respect and how to work on them, it is important to emphasize the close relationship they have with self-esteem. As we have been mentioning throughout this article, accepting and respecting ourselves is a fundamental step to be able to foster a positive attitude towards ourselves and towards our own self-image.

The concept of self-esteem is very broad; broadly speaking, it is considered the self-value that we attribute to ourselves. This value is mediated or influenced by various factors among which we find the following:

• the self-image
• the self-concept
• intrinsic motivation
• self-efficacy expectations
• and, of course, the self-acceptance and self-respect

In conclusion, we can affirm that our self-esteem can be improved doing the exercises that we have been describing throughout this article, thus promoting our mental well-being and strengthening our abilities to overcome life’s challenges.

Furthermore, once we improve our self-esteem, we will also be able to apply these exercises to the people around us, helping our friends and loved ones to value and accept themselves.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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