Do You Respect Yourself Enough?

Psychologists know self-respect is very important because their research shows it is essential to achieving a healthy and successful life. I didn’t realize how important it was for most of my life, but I now consider it as essential as breathing. What is enough self-respect is the hard part to figure out. When you don’t have enough is when things begin to go wrong. It’s the basic lens you use to define the world and evaluate your work and all the people in your different relationships. If you have enough, you’re calm and objective and much more accurate about almost everything; if you don’t have enough, you’re often needy for appreciation, inclusion, and feeling okay. I know because I was like that for most of my life. That’s why I decided to write a post about this basic need. I hope you find this post helpful in seeing and finding enough self-respect for yourself. I’ll do my best to explain what my research and personal history has shown me.

Why Do Most People Not Respect Themselves Enough?

Psychological studies indicate that only between 15% and 22% of American adults have high levels of “self-esteem”, the phrase psychologists often use to talk about this subject, but I prefer to call it self-respect. The research is very clear about indicating how common the lack of self-respect is—and it’s a startling lack. A 2021 YouGov study found that 14% of adults dislike themselves most of the time, and another study suggests that a significant majority, around 85%, may struggle with low self-respect constantly. Let that finding sink in for a moment. If 85% of all American adults constantly struggle to feel “enough” self-respect, we’re talking about an epidemic.

The first question I think I should address here is why. How can so many adults lack enough self- respect to feel confident or even comfortable about who they are, or what kind of skills or qualities they have? What happened to them? I’ve thought about this a lot looking back and trying to understand my own lack of enough self-respect and I’ve come to one conclusion that I think applies to most of these people; the most important causes are what happened during childhood, all the years before your 21^st birthday. People obtain their sense of self-worth from the reactions of other people, and the most important and influential interactions always take place in childhood. It’s when you’re most vulnerable, and most easily influenced. The likely problematic influencers are probably the important other people in every child’s life (IOPs), whether they realize it later or not. It’s also likely that problematic influencers can also contribute to someone’s lack of self-respect throughout the rest of your life. Here’s one summary of all the major negative influences I found in my research:

• Lack of love or support: Growing up without enough love, affection, and positive reinforcement can lead to a feeling of worthlessness.

• Abuse and neglect: Experiencing emotional, verbal, or physical abuse can deeply damage self-worth

• Bullying or social exclusion: Being bullied or feeling like an outcast in school can negatively impact confidence and self-esteem.

• Criticism: Constant criticism from parents or authority figures can make a person believe they are not good enough.

Parents typically contribute a mixture of both good and bad influences, of course, so we have to learn to be fair and objective about what our parents said and did when we were children. They sometimes had the wrong things happen to them in their own childhood, and maybe they had some bad advice from other authorities they listened to, some of whom may have even been religious leaders.

I loved both of my parents and they were very protective and caring parents; but they grew up in the early 20^th century, a time when even psychologists preached discipline and obedience as primary parental goals. What I find appalling is that even today, some misinformed evangelical leaders like the late James Dobson still preach control is more important than support. Christian churches used to preach what Jesus said about love when I was growing up, but today evangelical preachers talk more about hate of LBTGQs and other disadvantaged minorities.

Overall, here’s the most comprehensive list I’ve found about the many kinds of negative influence you might have experienced to demean or damage your very important sense of self-respect over your lifetime; review it to see if any type of negative influence is something you’re now aware of:

• Toxic relationships

• Discrimination

• Stressful life events

• Mental health

• Negative self-talk

• Unrealistic standards and goals

Negative self-talk above refers to the automatic negative thoughts that the human mind produces regularly for everyone. The reason it happens is that our brains are programmed to often leap to the worst possible outcome of any problem we experience; it’s one way our nature helps us survive—by exaggerating what might go wrong so that we never risk underestimating what might happen. Therapists always talk about challenging our automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). Never just accept them as what to worry about unless you have evidence of what might happen.

What Happens When You Don’t Respect Yourself Enough?

This is exactly the question that most people should focus upon, ask, and try to understand in their own lives. There are many negative outcomes when you don’t have enough self-respect. Think about what often seems to go wrong in your life, and then ask if you have a lower level of self-respect than you really should have. You might be surprised at how relevant your self-respect level is to your happiness and success in life.

In my case, after therapy and many attempts to unhook myself from really bad habits, or addictions, like smoking and bad eating choices, I finally began to see my own lack of self-respect as a common factor motivating me to turn to bad habits as a way of coping. I think it explains why a lot of people turn to the wrong habits like drinking, drugs, smoking, and other abuses of our bodies. All these bad habits made me feel good—temporarily; but then there were after-affects I didn’t like and even began to fear. For example, I most feared getting a chest X-ray after I had been a heavy smoker. But I also didn’t like the way I looked, or how I always seemed to be needy for approval.

Strangely, my need for approval also had some positive outcomes. Everything in life seems to have both a positive and negative side if you look for both sides. In my case, I discovered how I could impress other people, including adults as well as my peers in childhood, by learning to play songs on the piano everyone liked. I had a talent for playing by ear that was developed this way. I also learned I could draw cartoons that people thought were funny. Later in my life, I even sold cartoons to magazines, including some major magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. But I wasn’t focused on becoming professionally skilled at playing the piano or drawing. I chose art as my career when I started college without realizing what my adulthood would eventually require me to achieve in making money. I got distracted by my need to get attention but I also developed some life skills that were enjoyable and worth the work I put into them.

Looking back now, I clearly see two major problems my lack of self-respect caused me to suffer. I looked for self-approval and applause from performing my talents instead of thinking about my practical needs. I never considered becoming a professional musician by getting a college degree in that field; it seemed like it was too much work without enough personal rewards, especially not enough money. I was aware of my ability to sell, probably inherited form my dad, because I sold the most subscriptions to my college newspaper. I just didn’t have the ability or the direction from others I needed to calm down, and look at my future adult needs more realistically. Yes, both my dad and mom, and perhaps even my older brother, Bill, could have helped me see those needs sooner, but I shouldn’t have been depending on them, or anyone else, to manage my life. That was always my personal responsibility even thought I didn’t fully recognize it for a long time.

What I think happened, as I see it now looking back, was that my lack of self-respect lowered my confidence in being able to be an adult like my father or older brother, and led me to continue seeking approval and applause from my artistic performances—especially my piano playing. Here’s what my lack of enough self-respect made happen as I entered adulthood with the growing realization I had a family to support and a future to think about for everyone in my family:

1. By always seeking approval and appreciation I became a people pleaser—and a passive rather than an assertive communicator. This didn’t help me in either my personal life or my business life. Other people, especially important other people (IOPs), began to see me as lacking in my ability to direct or manage my life or theirs or my business. These were negative impressions of me I wasn’t even aware of at first.

2. Perhaps even worse, I tried to cope by finding other ways to feel good or comfortable in everything I was doing. The easiest coping methods I found were smoking, drinking, and eating too much and you know what harm those things do to the human body.

How Did I Overcome the Problems Caused by My Lack of Self-Respect?

I have to admit I’ve been very lucky. After 92 years, mostly dealing with smoking, drinking, bad eating and a lack of exercise, had negative effects, but I’m still here. I slowly began to make real progress when three things happened:

• I finally started therapy, because I was approaching a miserable level and knew I needed help

• I divorced my first wife and found and married my second wife; a woman who could help me gain and achieve a more realistic perspective.

• I quit smoking, cold turkey, and have never wanted to go back. I have emphysema but I’m managing it.

• My eating and exercise slowly improved and today I’m in a normal BMI range.

Changing your life is never a quick fix. What I am proud of now are the many small victories I had in many ways. I found it’s important to remember not only the past problems but also your past success stories with those problems. You are capable of a lot more than you probably realize. I certainly was. But I’m also realizing that I still have more to learn and help myself accomplish. The big difference is I think I have enough self-respect now to make it happen. Self-respect is always at the foundation of how well you deal with the world.

One thing I try to remember is that basic list of types of problems that have damaged my self-respect in the past, because I now use that list as a checklist of what to watch out for; what went wrong before might be what can most easily go wrong again. But I can also add a thought or two from what I’ve learned trying to do the right things. Here’s what I think is important overall:

• Reflect and honestly ask yourself if you lack self-respect too often. If you do, ask yourself why, and consider the list of most likely causes for most people given above.

• Start taking good/better care of yourself. Try to become a person to be respected.

• Become aware of negative self-talk. Challenge it. It’s probably exaggerated.

• Start setting doable/realistic goals to improve

• Try to surround yourself (more often) with people who support you

• Try to see your good side more clearly; you need to remember these things

• Remember you are supposed to make mistakes; that’s how humans learn. Welcome learning.

• Give yourself time off to relax and just enjoy your life: you probably don’t do this enough.

Dan’s Net Take-Away

Based on the available research, you most likely do not have enough self-respect you deserve, you will have to make the effort to see that truth. Why not sit down and write out a simple list of all the things you’ve done that you are proud of? Then think about it. What does it suggest you’re really good at?

Now try to think about what you’d like to improve in your life—at least, generally. If you’re honest, you’ll feel a relief in admitting it, maybe for the first time. Obviously, you can and should do something about improving any of these things. Set some simple goals. Do not try to fix too much all at once. It won’t work.

Above all, start taking better care of yourself. Think of the people you know you’d like to be more like. That always helped me. Real life models are always more helpful than abstract logical ideas or goals. If you need therapy, and that’s always up to you, look for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT); it’s the most recommended today.

Above all, try to stay positive thinking, patient, and persistence in your goal to improve your self-respect. You’ll help yourself by remembering all your small victories. Write them down. Good luck. You can always do more when you just start trying.