Summary

Lack of self respect comes from a deep inner belief that you are not respectable or deserving of respect.
Take yourself seriously and followthrough with your own promises.
- If you don’t even respect your words, commitments, and boundaries, why should anyone else?
- If you say to yourself “I’m going to eat any sweets today.”, then don’t eat any sweets that day.
- Start by trusting yourself and honoring your own promises even if it’s small. You are proving to yourself your own trustworthiness.
- When you trust yourself more, your own standards and self-respect will follow.
Protect your boundaries with others. Don’t cave in.
- People naturally try to figure out each other’s boundaries to know how to behave around each other.
  - A friend might be testing to see how long he/she can borrow something before you get angry.
    - A child might be throwing a tantrum to see if you will give in.
  - Or even you might be pretending to forget about something to test your partner if he or she remembers.
- When your boundaries are challenged, don’t cave in.
- Your boundaries are your walls of defense. If it breaks with a tiny push, people will push it every time.
- Know what type of boundaries to put up. Flexible boundaries and firm boundaries both have it’s proper place.
Understand the non-verbal message you are communicating.
- This is more to create an environment where it’s easier to get self respect.
- There is respect given to behaving, dressing or acting appropriately to the occasion.
- Awareness in how to act in social context communicates intelligence.
  - If you wear swimming trunks or bikini to a wedding [unless that is the theme], people won’t respect you because it feels like you don’t know what’s going on.
- To making the process of increasing your self-respect easier, don’t dig yourself into a hole by not understanding the social context.
- Sometimes this might be even more subtle. Like you might be acting friendly to other people, but they see it as being too flirty. [Physical boundaries are vague]. Or not speaking up during a discussion, so people just assume you don’t have anything to say and will naturally not give you space to speak.