Self Respect and How to Earn It

Self-respect is one of the most important things there are for living a truly good life. Without self-respect, you will constantly feel that you don’t deserve anything you get, and thus, you won’t obtain much success if you don’t have any self respect. Now, how is self-respect created? How does one start to respect oneself? I can certainly tell you that it doesn’t come from reciting affirmations in the mirror when you wake up, or before you sleep. I think there is very little that is accomplished through affirmations. Self-respect, in my experience, is created through striving to do hard things, and doing them to the best of your abilities. Only then, you can begin to respect yourself. Of course, it does depend on your objectives. If your objective is to improve, this is the way.

Before telling you a personal story that shows this, I ask you to think about the people who you have so much respect for that you admire them. You don’t usually know them personally becuase they are a rare breed. For me, these people would be the most successful entrepreneurs and innovators: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, etc. The reason that they are universally admired is not their money. Their wealth is a proxy of their success. The reason they are admired is that they’ve achieved what was once declared impossible at a global scale for decades, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and creating a better future. Of course, an achievement of this scale is extremely difficult to obtain. They have dodged banckrupty by only a few days, had to overcome technical challenges, and work all-day every day for decades without taking any days off, literally. They are respected globally because they have accomplished extremely difficult goals. That’s how respect and admiration is earned. It works exactly the same way when it’s towards yourself.

About 4 years ago, I was an extremely fat 14-year old. I was obese and it was physically endangering my health and I was starting to see stretch marks around my stomach and shoulders. Over some kind of trigger, which I suspect was me just having enough, I set out to lose that extra weight. In a matter of a few months, I had become in shape, certainly when compared to my previous physical status. In the process, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for myself. Losing all that weight was a task I deemed near impossible but through hardship I had achieved it. Losing that weight gave me a lot of confidence as well. A few months after losing weight, I moved to Madrid and started going to school there. The confidence I had gained help me perform extremely well academically and in every other way possible. I had straight A’s and got into Principal’s list, was playing in the school’s basketball team, and won the school’s talent show. That was in 10th grade. I continue to believe that 10th grade was the best year of my life in regards to habits and performance.

Towards the end of 10th grade, Covid-19 hit and we were all set to quarantine for 2 weeks that later became 2 years. In this time of quarantine, I started eating bad again. At first, I justified it by knowing that I can afford to eat a bit more now that I’m in shape, After some time, eating junk food and ice cream had now become a habit that continued for the following year or so. During that time, I gained all the weight that I had lost and, in turn, lost the self-respect I had gained by losing that weight. I still performed academically because I still did have self-respect when it came to academics and school, but the confidence for my physique had been demolished. And no amount of affirmations that I can blurt out into the mirror can replace it.

Since about a month ago, I’ve been on a strict diet and exercise schedule, through which I have lost 5kg and gained a significant amount of muscle and look much better. There’s still a lot of weight to lose and muscles to gain but I’ve made astounding progress in a relatively short amount of time. Through this, I am also gaining back my self-respect and confidence regarding my physical appearance.

That’s only one aspect of my life where I saw this law of gaining self-respect come into play. It works exactly the same way in every other aspects of life. Self-respect is earned through doing hard things and accomplishing difficult tasks. I don’t think one can live happily without having self-respect. Without self-respect, you can be dependent on others’ opinions around you and that’s a recipe for misery. So it’s crucial to earn self-respect.