Is putting yourself first selfish?
One of the things that I see regularly with my clients is that there is a conditioned belief that putting themselves first makes them selfish. But is putting yourself first really selfish ? I am sure most of us have been on a plane and listened to the emergency instructions of putting your own oxygen mask on first before helping other people, we aren’t going to be much help to others if we ourselves can’t breathe. So lets look at what is really meant when your coach tells you to put yourself first.
Lets first of all define what it means to put yourself first; prioritising activities that increase your own personal wellness; wellness being your mental wellness, your emotional wellness, your relationship wellness, your health wellness, all of these parts of your life which are your responsibility. They have to be a priority because if you don’t take care of them - no one will take care of them.
So does that mean putting yourself is selfish ? It depends on how you define being selfish, but I like teach my clients to think of it as being resourcefully selfish, which simply means that it is important to have parts of your day, not your entire life, but simply parts of each day which are about just you. These are the moments that create an opportunity to recharge.
Society has a conditioned belief that to be selfish means you’re a narcissistic type of person and you just make your entire life about you and that you don’t care about others. I don’t think anyone would want to be like that however, that is a very black and white view, as those are level 5 narcissistic people. We also do not want to end up at the complete other end of the spectrum being a level 5 co-dependent ‘selfless’ person. Co-pendents are the caretakers, people pleasers, someone who only looks after other people’s needs and thinks I’ll look after me one day.
We need to find the grey area in between and that grey area is I look after me. I prioritise my health, my mental wellness, my emotional wellness and my relationships. As a result of doing those things and as a result of taking care of me I am able to really present in the rest of my life.
Love is defined as our ability to be present to the people we have around us. When we are tired, exhausted, don’t look after ourselves and we are on our way to burn out, then we don’t the energy to be present in our life and in our relationships or definitely not as much as we potentially could. When we look after ourselves our ability to connect with others actually increases. The feelings of love we can have in our relationship or the productivity that we can experience in our life increases.
The more we invest in ourselves, time and energy, the more we can actually invest in the other people that are around us in our life. This will increase our overall sense of meaning, purpose, passion and fulfilment. This all happens when we put ourselves on our own to do lists. You are the foundation of your entire experience in life and when you prioritise yourself you increase that experience. You add in more love, passion, more freedom, more growth to your life and therefore to the lives of those around you.
