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These nine basic habits will make self-respect easy

5 min readApr 15, 2025

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Years of awkwardness and self-doubt taught me something fascinating:

Our behaviours reflect how we think about ourselves. Not only that, but how we think of ourselves also reflects our behaviours.

It’s a two-way loop. This means that small actions make a massive difference to our self-respect.

Here are the habits that helped me:

1. Do little things to make others feel better.

Show genuine kindness (you can find it). Chuckle when someone says a joke. Write someone a thank you text.

Take a moment to comment on someone’s blog post. Most people are so preoccupied with themselves they don’t have time to care for anyone else. But this is the problem.

You will feel worse about yourself when you’re focused on yourself.

Focus on others, even in small ways, and you will view yourself entirely differently.

2. Let go of self-critical thoughts.

Yes, how we think is a habit.

There is a direct link between how seriously I took my critical thoughts about myself and my sense of self-respect.

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Alex Mathers
Alex Mathers

Written by Alex Mathers

Helping you develop uncommon confidence and authentic leadership. Triple your productivity today using my checklist when you subscribe: https://alexmathers.co/

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