High Caliber Women

I have been mentally evolved in the thoughts of what makes a high caliber woman for a while now. It is no secret, that I am a woman and therefore it is obvious, where my interest in the topic is coming from.

Respect.

I have talked about respect a lot. And I believe the first and foremost quality a high caliber woman has, is respect. Respect for herself, for the ones around her. For opinions she is presented with. She respects the rules of the community she is living in. That does not mean, she has to like them, but she respects them and lives according to them. For instance this applies to respecting speed limits. Not because she thinks that the speed limit itself deserves her respect, but she respects the government who made those rules enough, to believe, that they make those rules with everyone’s best interest in mind, and therefore she will keep to those rules, because she respects others and she will never want to hurt them, therefore doing, what is best for everybody.

Integrity.

While respect is a very big topic and does affect many areas of a human’s specifically a woman’s life, integrity is even bigger. Much bigger. Integrity is about the character of a woman. Of course a woman gets to choose who she wants to be. She gets to choose her partner and she gets to choose to stay single. But once she chooses she makes a commitment. This does not only apply to relationships. This also applies to everything in a woman’s life. She will not make important decisions like how to spend her time lightly. She will make a decision and commit. Which means, that everything a high caliber woman sets her mind to she considers worth fighting for.

She makes those choices out of respect for herself and her surroundings. But it is impossible to make good choices, choices we can commit to, if we are not able to be honest. If a high caliber woman does not want to do something, she will communicate that. Respectfully. But unmisunderstandably. Because she understands that it is more important to commit fully to the things she does want to do, than to commit to a big number of things half-heartedly. A good woman will choose her commitments wisely, because she understands the importance of those choices. This is what separates her from an experimenting Teenager. There is nothing wrong, with trying out new things. We can also commit to trying something out, we can commit to researching how a new style of clothes would make us feel. But while the Teenager thinks this new edgy style is their new style that they will be wearing for the rest of their lives, a high caliber woman knows she is just trying something new. And once she knows how that new style makes her feel she will commit to wearing it sometimes or not. She does not need to commit to always wearing it, but she can do so, if she wishes to.

Integrity is also about the values a woman commits to. Integrity means that she knows and respects her values. She does not compromise them for momentary pleasure. She protects those values. And she will distance herself from anyone who tries to alter her values. Not because she is a coward. But because she is aware, that the longer she is around people who do not respect her values to more likely it becomes she will water down those very values, which is never something anyone with integrity should be doing.

And finally: She cares about her commitments. Which is exactly, why she does not change what she commits to on a whim. She puts effort into her commitments. She cares about them. And they are valuable to her. This includes her social commitments, her commitments to learning new skills and exploring new hobbies, and this also includes her commitment to herself.

Gentleness and Caring.

I have an entire blog post on caring. And this most obviously ties into commitment and integrity. But it is so important on its own, that I could not just skip it here. Not only caring about something is a very beautiful quality in a woman, but also caring for something or someone. This can be the people around her, her family, her friends, her community, or her pets or flowers or even just the things she own. And she does so in gentle manner. A high quality woman does not have the intention, to hurt anyone or anything, therefore she will approaches things with gentleness. This does not mean, she will fake and be sweet just to please someone, when really she thinks that that person overstepped the boundaries. A high value woman is also honest. But she will not try to put that person back into his/her place, as gently as possible.

But from this caring also comes the protective sides in a high value woman. Gentleness and caring does not make the woman weak. They makes her strong. And make her fight for, what she believes in and protect those dear to her.

Communication and Honesty.

In the section on integrity I discussed the ability of a woman to understand, that she is just researching. In order to know what her commitments are, a high caliber woman will always be honest with herself. This ties back into integrity and respect. Without honesty it is very hard, to make the right decisions and the right commitments.

A high caliber woman will always speak her mind, but she will not end up loud and harsh, doing it. She will stay respectful and gentle, but yet firm. She understands the importance of open and honest communication. She understands that her relationships depend on it. And she tries her best to not lash out on someone for telling the truth or get upset by it. She will try to make her surrounding a safe place for the truth.

Appearance.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Looks. Appearance. They say so much about us. And many people put a lot of time and effort into maintaining them. And I agree with the statement that looks are important. But they are not important in themselves. They matter, because they allow us, to know how much a woman (or a man for that matter) respects herself. Looks are not important to tell us, what social class someone is in. They are important to tell us how well someone takes care of themselves.

Do not be fooled: Appearance does not only include our hair and make up. There is so much more to it. Our level of physical activity, our grooming and our nutrition. A high value woman does not need a personal trainer or a dietitian. She does not need to get a professional to do her hair and nails every other week. But she will take care of her hair, such that it is healthy. She will take care of her diet and exercise such that she is healthy.

She does so, because she values herself. Her routines revolve around staying healthy out of respect. This is the direct counter-action of self-harm. This would not be a blog post of mine, if I would not be mentioning mental health at some point. But I am serious. We cannot be truly high value, if we do not value ourselves. It is not necessary to go crazy with self-care. But it is very much crucial, we communicate to ourselves, that we matter, and that we care.

Knowledge.

A high caliber woman does not only look good and has high standards for her own values and commitments. She also understands the power of knowledge. She understands that there is always more to learn. And she never stops learning. She may not have an interest in every subject out there. But she has respect for every subject out there. Therefore she knows a little bit of everything. And if she meets someone from a field she does not know a lot about she will not be too good to be taught some more about it.

A high value woman will keep reading about the things she cares about. And she will keep growing her knowledge in those fields.

Her relationship to herself.

This may be the most important part of all. A high value woman will always respect herself. This means, she will take care of herself. And she understands that it is her first and foremost responsibility to do so. Every other commitment is meaningless if she does not manage to have a healthy relationship with herself.

A high quality woman knows herself, including her feelings, her likes and dislikes and her needs. she is able to communicate those and take care of herself by satisfying those needs. She will also understand when she is reaching her limit and needs some help. And she will ask for that help.

She keeps herself to high standards and keeps improving constantly. She knows, that once she stops improving she will start loosing her qualities.

Relationships.

Allow me to say one thing: Every woman can be high caliber, if she chooses to. It does not matter whether or not she is in a relationship or not. It would be wrong to state that a relationship is just another commitment, because it is a very special commitment. But a woman does not need to be in a relationship to be high value. I would even go as far as to say that a relationship does not actually affect a woman’s value. Maybe it may seem like her value changes. But that is not the case.

For some women a relationship and the perspective of motherhood is a motivation to improve and grow on an individual level. And that is a good thing. Wanting to improve is always good, no matter where that will is coming from. It does not mean, that her improvement depends on the relationship. It just means, that her relationship makes her better and frankly that is, how it is supposed to be.

But wanting to grow is not tied to relationships. It is not tied to how we grow up. It is not tied to our friends or our environment. It is tied to who we choose to be.