How To Respect Yourself

I have seen and read many articles on the book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k by Mark Manson but I never picked it up from the shelf to read it myself. The gist of it (from what I read in the articles) is basically to care about the things that actually matter to you, and not to care about what most people want for themselves and others, which is quantitated to having more money and luxury. I thought the title of the book was enough to understand it’s message, but if not, this is the simplest way I can define it to you. What you’re going to read next is more gravitated towards respecting yourself and putting your opinions above others when it comes to you. I talked about Mark Manson’s book because the inspiration behind this came from his book, so I thought it would be thoughtful to give him a shout out even though I’ve never read this book and it’s very unlikely he will read this article.
Step 1: Recognize valid opinions
This is the easiest step. We are humans, we share our opinions on everything because it helps us build bonds and we thrive off of forming them. The stronger the bond, the more valuable their opinion is to you. Their opinion is valuable to you because you know their intentions. They will give you constructive criticism when giving you feedback, they also make their intentions clear when forming an opinion on you. They won’t do things to hurt you. These are the opinions you should trust, like your family and your closest friends.
Step 2: Recognize invalid opinions
I lied; this is the easiest step. This should be straightforward because this is common sense. When taking opinions into consideration, we tend to compare it to our own, and many times we value other's opinion over ours. You may think you did yourself a favor by letting them know you don’t care about their opinion, but this just shows that you care more. To show that you don’t care is to not speak against it. Self-respect is when you recognize that there is no one who knows you better than yourself and your opinion about yourself should be valued above someone you don’t know that well or even if you do know them well.
Step 3: Recognize that no one is better than you and you’re better than no one
This is hard. Many of us grew up in a competitive surrounding and were told that life is a race. It really isn’t, it’s up to you to see your own potential and not up to your teachers, friends, or even parents. To see your own potential, you have to forget opinions and criticism from people who don’t want good for you. This can include your teachers too, I had teachers since first grade saying atrocious things about me to my face, but I couldn’t care less because they don’t know all about me and they formed opinions based on one aspect they saw in me. This is how you start respecting yourself, you recognize that no one is really better than you because they are all different than you and you are different than them. So don’t waste time comparing yourself to someone who is doing something completely different than you.
Put these three steps together and now you can officially respect yourself according to someone else’s opinion on how to respect yourself. You listen to those who respect you, you ignore the ones who don’t, and you realize that your true potential can only be seen by you and no one else. Being consistent with these steps will help you become more self-aware and maybe even form a better bond with yourself.