Trait: Self Respect

I have been following Liz Strauss for several years, through both her blog and various social-networking sites. Whilst I rarely comment on her articles, I have printed a few and anonymously pinned to kitchen notice-boards for others to peruse whilst making their morning coffee!

Let me explain how this amazing writer has helped me gain my self-respect with yet another of her amazing stories:

1. How self-respect leads to discipline .

Whilst the whole article is a great read, I particularly like this quote by Clint Eastwood

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.”
~ Clint Eastwood

I like this because for several years I have let a person ‘have free rent in my mind‘ (said by Wil Weaton on TBBT). Their attitude towards life, other people and communication bent me right out of shape. Because I’ve had to deal with them regularly, I found myself thinking about how I was going to respond or react each time I needed to speak with them. I held no anomosity, I just didn’t like having to correspond nor negogiate with them: It was rarely fun, and situations were rarely resolved.

When I recently changed to a new role, I found myself communicating with people who [1] understood I have skills completely outside the duties I am being paid to perform, [2] who are enabling me to learn new skills that will enhance my value to the business PLUS give me greater opportunities for future jobs, [3] who are enabling me to freely communicate, get involved in negotiations, and, most importantly, [4] have given me task-ownership.

With that total responsiblity, I regained my self respect.

With task-ownership alone, I’ve realised and remembered that I have many other skills. I am an organiser, a conceptuliser, a doer. I find resolutions that actually resolve not just perpetuate a task. I resource information to answer queries when I admit to not knowing. And I follow-up on every action with which I am involved. I actually enjoy going back to people to find out if the action worked, if they got what they needed, and ensuring they are happy with the result.

WIth this new-found self-respect, I am no longer backward in coming forward to contribute to conversations. I also refound the writing bug (as displayed herein!) and have restarted my self-analysis. Trust me, this is a good thing: Being able to look inwards helps me to to focus outwards is the surest way to insuring I become and stay an important person in any negotiation.

Enough said.

Because each of my responses are quite lengthy, I’ve decided to break them up into articles each night. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be focusing on (in no particular order)

‘Belonging’ (to a successful team, plus degrees of self worth);
‘Overcoming Fears’ (in life, at work, and of failure and sucess);
‘Uniquaformity’ (Unique yet uniform. This one is interesting and a true self expression with no precedent. All links will be humor laden) ; and lastly,
‘Direction’ (with a subtitle of ‘Focus’. Has many photographic metaphors).

Each will stem from a personal point of view, yet with article linkage to bloggers who have helped me find the right methods to do so. My sixth post after these will link to all of them.

PostScript:
For those wondering why I am doing this: Because the surest way to overcome and conquer any goal is to recognise oneself. This is written for me, to me, but with a slight twist to enable anyone to gain from my ponderings. And whilst my photo-mojo has gone AWOL again, I’ve decided to use the time to find myself through my writing again.

Watch out for the next story, it’s most interesting!