Self Respect and Your Self Esteem - Developing a Worthwhile Direction for Yourself

What story do you want to tell about yourself in years to come?

Your self esteem and the self beliefs you hold about you and your world have everything to do with the way you feel about yourself and choices you make. Your decisions will affect you in the days and years ahead. What is your path? Where are you headed? How does what you do match with what you see for yourself? Identify your passions. Make sure you make a place for the things you love and the things that are most important to you, in your life.

Knowing your passion is the fire in your engine. It is the thing that will be your self motivating love. Passions give us energy and affect our spiritual selves in such positive ways. Leading a meaningful life adds to our self esteem.

You owe it to yourself to pursue your passions. Your daily activities can’t always focus on your passions, but you need to make room in your life to enjoy what you find meaningful. You become, to a great extent, what you are loyal to. Your self esteem, your self worth helps you determine how you spend your time. In accomplishing our daily to do’s, we sometimes put our own desires to the side. It is important to be true to yourself. It is just as important to include on your to do list, the things that make you happy.

Know your priorities.Be loyal to your real values. Are you pursing healthy aims? It is important that your aims match your passions. Let your vision guide you. Keep yourself on track. Keep your vision clear so that you can see you are heading where you want to go.

When people request our time and energy we may be seduced into helping others. Ask yourself if your efforts will contribute to the common good. Ask yourself how this is affecting your ego and your self esteem. How does this impact the direction you see for yourself? Does this fit who you are and go easily with your skills and your time? How does it affect the other responsibilities and committments you have going on? Will you enjoy doing this? What are the rewards, good and bad for you to do this? Sometimes we might not gain pleasure from taking this responsibility on, but the importance of doing it may outweigh the decision.

Before you say yes to taking something on, just because someone asked you, make sure you can answer these questions reasonably and logically. It is not worth it to burn yourself out trying to please others and do everything that is asked of you. Having others direct your life will not lead you where you want to go. People with a lower self esteem tend to want to please others, hoping they will feel better about themselves through the approval of someone else.

It is easy to say yes. But giving into the moment, may have lingering affects. If we say yes, we may feel angry afterwards, because saying yes doesn’t fit what we need to do for ourselves. We may even end up not doing a good job because of the resentment we feel. Often people are afraid to say no. We want to please, we want to avoid confrontation, we want to avoid negative feedback. We don’t feel good enough about ourselves, and we respond to our vulnerability, our lower self esteem.

There are ways to say no, create a positive situation, and most importantly hold onto your self respect.

• If you need to say no, you don’t need to explain yourself. You can just say no
• You can say sorry, but I can’t because...
• You can say no, and tell them you will let them know if you can recommend someone else
• You can say not at this moment and explain how trying to do it will be detrimental to you. But be cautious not to ask for their approval.

Having self respect is important for ourselves always. Raising our self esteem within, is important. Other people respect those who say no when it is appropriate. We don’t respect people who yes others all the time. It is important to keep in mind, even if someone else asks you to do something and they wanted you to say yes, on a level they may never show you, they will respect you for taking care of your priorities. People respect people who respect themselves.

It is okay to say yes. It is okay to say no. Ask yourself if saying yes is harmful to you now and in the long run. If it is healthier for you to say no, then do it, even if it is uncomfortable right now. You will gain so much when you respect yourself and show others you respect yourself.

If you do say yes to taking on a task, it is important to know how much time it will take and what is expected of you. If you are afraid to ask, you can be getting into something deeper than you want it to be. If this takes too much of a toll, what are you willing to give up. Your self esteem may even be hurt. And what you give up may impact the direction you want to head.

For brief periods of time, we can handle multiple tasks that demand a lot of our time and energy. But studies have shown that overscheduling yourself will lead to stress and distress.

Time management is an important aspect to juggling the demands in your life. If your time controls you, it may be time to re-evaluate what you are doing with your time. Ideally, you want to accomplish what you can without trying to do it all. Prioritizing and protecting yourself from burn-out is key. Too many tasks, even enjoyable ones will exhaust you. The result may be that we do many or all of them poorly. Protect your ego, protect your self esteem.

Time management and deciding our priorities are choices we make. While we have some obligations, we are also free to choose some of the tasks we choose to do. You owe it to yourself to protect you from doing too many things. The joy in achieving a task is magnified when we accomplish it with realistic expectations and protect ourselves from the stress that we put on ourselves. If someone asks you to take on a task and it conflicts with something else you want or need to do, reconsider what you are really saying yes to.

You have a lot to offer the world. You have needs and these needs deserve for you to pay attention to. Overextending yourself, fear of saying no, lack of prioritizing your time, erode your self esteem. It is important to feel good about who you are and know where you want to lead yourself. Your wants and needs count as much as anyone else’s. The direction you see for yourself and the seeds you sow today need to be parallel. Take care of yourself and your self esteem will grow.

Be in charge of your own life. You self worth, your self esteem is not based on the opinion of others, how much you accomplish, or how many people ask you do something for them. Your self worth, is what you think about yourself. Your inner messages have everything to do with your self esteem. You will feel great about yourself when you know you have made the right decisions for yourself and for what you view as the greater good.

So stop and think before you say yes the next time. If the chore asked of you is not congruent with what you need to do now and ahead, think about the worthiness of the task.

Think about yourself. Think about your self esteem. If you do say yes, get specifics about what you need to do, time, money and energy wise. Encourage yourself to drop commitments if they become too burdensome or if other priorities emerge. Make time for yourself.

Reinforce through your actions and thoughts that you are a worthwhile person. If you say yes, and it doesn’t feel good, you are eroding your own self esteem. It will feel okay to say no, when you feel okay about yourself.

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