“You ain’t going to get my respect until you respect me.”
Image by Gigi Ibrahim
You couldn’t count the number of times I’ve heard those words uttered. As a youth leader, the recent generations of students have become centered around the idea of respect.
If you watch them closely, you can see how badly they want respect. Every action they take is centered around gaining respect.
From the clothes they wear to the friends they have to the hobbies they participate in, everything is focused on respect.
Yet they rarely know how to gain respect. The first line of this post is an example of how many young people view respect. It’s the me first and then you attitude.
And it’s completely wrong.
The Wrong Way To Gain Respect
There’s a mindset that you only reciprocate respect after it’s been given to you. People have to show you respect and then you return respect.
How perverse and sickening is this mindset? Every time I hear a young person say that you have to be shown respect before you give it makes me sick to my stomach. Where are they getting this attitude from?
Looking at TV, music, and movies, I think I know. Our culture has become one that says respect is reciprocal. It’s not.
We can’t wait for others to show respect to us before we become respectful to them. That’s now how respect works.
Can you imagine what would happen if we all waited for someone else to show respect before it’s given back? No one would respect anyone!
The Right Ways To Gain Respect
We’ve got to get over the me, me, me mindset. Thinking only of ourselves and what we get from others tears us down and prevents us from truly gaining respect.
So, how does a person gain respect? Here’s 4 ways you can gain respect.
1. Be respectable: Do you want to gain respect and have others look up to you? Look at your actions and how you’re living your life. Is it worthy of respect?
If it’s not, you can’t expect others to respect you. They won’t.
You gain respect by doing what’s respectable. That means owning up and taking responsibility. That means you do what you say you’re going to do. That means doing what’s right.
2. Dress appropriately: Our clothes say a lot about who we are and what we think about ourselves. Our appearance also shapes the opinions others have about us.
When you’re wearing your jeans below your crotch or you’re in a shirt that hasn’t been washed in 3 months, you’re telling others you’re not respectable.
This sucks but it’s also life. People judge others by the way they appear. Make sure you’re making a good impression.
3. Take action: People gain respect by taking action. These are the people who go out and take big risks because they know there’s a big reward waiting for them.
Rarely will you see a couch potato gain respect. They’re not doing anything that’s worthy of respect.
The people who garner respect are the ones who are doing something. They’re fighting for what they believe in. Are you?
4. Be kind: It’s amazing what a little bit of kindness will do for others. The world is filled with not with mean people but people who are waiting to be treated with kindness.
When these people are treated with kindness, they look upon those people with a sense of respect. They begin to realize people are good.
Kill people with kindness and you’ll soon have more respect than you can handle.
Respect isn’t hard to gain. It’s just that people don’t know what it takes to gain the respect of others. Do these for actions and become respectable.
Question: What are you doing that’s worthy of respect? Let’s hear about it in the comment section below.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.