~by Haley Lynn Gray~
I once wrote a post about the people you should respect. My fifteen-year-old daughter read it and pointed out that I’d left someone off the list.
She was right. The most important person to respect is yourself — and you can’t do anyone else much good without it.
Accept that there are 24 hours in a day
Only so much fits. That’s arithmetic, not a character flaw.
Most of the guilt I see in business owners comes from measuring themselves against a day that doesn’t exist — the one where nothing went wrong, nobody needed anything unexpected, and every hour was productive. Respecting your real capacity rather than your imaginary one is the beginning of planning that works.
Don’t beat yourself up for being human
You’ll get tired. You’ll get things wrong. You’ll have days where the achievement is that everyone was fed.
The internal commentary about it is optional, and it’s remarkable how cruel people are to themselves in language they’d never use about anyone else. Take the note; drop the tone.
Set limits and keep them
Respecting yourself shows up mostly as behaviour, not feeling.
It’s charging properly. Saying no to the client who treats your team badly. Not answering messages at eleven at night because someone else left it late. Leaving when you said you’d leave.
Every limit you hold teaches people how to treat you — and every one you abandon teaches them that too.
Take your own health seriously
Sleep, food, movement, the medical appointment you keep postponing. These aren’t indulgences; they’re the inputs.
It’s striking how many owners will service a vehicle religiously and ignore every warning light on themselves.
And keep your own company
Spend time with people who treat you well, and less with people who don’t. As an adult with a business, you have more say over this than you may be exercising — including with clients.
Why my daughter was right
Because everything else on that list — respecting your team, your customers, the people who hold doors — comes out of the same place.
Someone who doesn’t respect themselves tends to either accept poor treatment or hand it on. Neither makes for good leadership.
Start there. The rest gets easier.
