I wanted to make this post because of what happened to me when I decided to put myself first. Before I did that, I was the super nice guy that wanted to help everyone out. There’s nothing wrong with helping people, but it was in an unhealthy way. You know when you put everything down just to be there for someone. That was basically me when I put others first and not myself. You want to always put yourself first in order for great things to happen.
I bet there are many of you out there that never truly put yourself first. You may have had moments where you thought about it, but thought that people would look at you differently. I will say that people will look at you differently, but it’s not in the negative way that you perceive it. People will recognize that you’re just putting yourself first and there is nothing wrong with that.
I’m here to tell you that you should always put yourself first just because of the benefits that you get from it. These are just the 11 benefits that I’ve experienced already.
1. Your Mental Health Improves
I had to start with the best one in the beginning. When you always put yourself first, you will experience some differences in your life at first, but they are for the best. People may look at you differently and say that you’ve changed. You may lose some people along the way, but the people that cared the most will still be there.
You as a person did not change at all, you just decided to prioritize your health and happiness first. When you look at it that way, you can see that there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You will have more energy because you are operating on your terms and not anyone else’s.
There were two studies conducted that looked into prioritizing meaning in your life. Results concluded that prioritizing meaning was positively associated with life satisfaction, happiness, positive emotions, sense of coherence, gratitude, and presence of meaning. Keep reading to see how you’re mental health improves by always putting yourself first.
2. You Get More Things Done
When you always put yourself first, you get more things done. Have you ever had some side projects or activities that you wanted to do, but never had the time for? Well, now you can focus more on those things. For the most part, you couldn’t get those things done because you operated on other people’s terms.
Maybe they wanted to go somewhere and you didn’t really feel like it but decided to go anyways. You were trying to be nice and that’s okay, but you took a backseat because of it. If you want to become more productive, you have to put yourself in the driver’s seat. Let others know that you want to get some stuff done and that you cannot hang out or talk right now.
They’re not going to vanish and disappear. If they do, then you know what their true intentions are, which is a win-win situation.
3. You Satisfy More of Your Needs
When you always put yourself first, you tend to go after what it is that you want. This is something everyone should do, but I see people all the time putting others first. What I want all of you to do is make a list of things that you want in life. Make this list as big as you possibly can. Now ask yourself, “How many of these things have you truly accomplished?”
It doesn’t matter how small those goals are, chip them away one at a time and get what you wanted. I remember when I didn’t put myself first and had low self-esteem. People walked all over me and I just followed their lead because I didn’t have a purpose to lead my own life. It’s like a sheep with its head cut off.
Now that I always put myself first, I am able to go after the things that I never planned on doing and my skills improved. Don’t have to worry about other people’s needs being met, especially if they conflict with yours.
4. You Become Less Distracted
This is an important one that I think everyone needs to pay attention to. For all you social media users, this one is for you. When you always put yourself first, you will restrict the things that distract you.
If someone always needs help with something and they don’t show any effort in trying, it’s no point in being invested in that. If someone wants to hang out with you but you know you have other things you need to get done, you will let them know that they have to wait.
You will start to value your time more and work on the things that really matter in life. Your health is more important now. Your time is more important now. Also, your priorities begin to shift more towards what you want to do with your life. That means you will spend less time on the things that are “distractions” in life.
Less social media, video games, messing around, being childish, and paying attention to things that have little to no value in your life.
5. You Become More Selfish
This may be a controversial one because being more selfish isn’t really seen as a benefit or a strength. Let me just leave you with this quote:
“In order to be selfless, you first have to become selfish.”
What exactly do I mean by that? Well, most people think that being selfless is the way to go and for good reason. You help other people and are seen as kind and caring to others. You enjoy being there for them and lifting them up. That all sounds great. In fact, I do all of that because I am heavily involved in mental health.
I like seeing others grow and I love helping others get to that place in their lives. After I put myself first, I realized that I help people better. How could you help someone if you don’t know how to help yourself? If you never put yourself first, how can you help yourself when you’re stuck in a rut?
That’s the problem that people face when they put other people first. When they get into a sticky situation themselves, they are stuck there. It’s hard for them to get out of it unless they reach out to others. If you make sure that your mental health is good, then you are more than capable of helping others improve their mental health.
If you put your mental health to the side, then it’s hard to help others with theirs because you haven’t been through it yourself. Remember, in order to become selfless, you first must become selfish.
6. More Opportunities Come Your Way
It’s obvious that if you always put yourself first, more opportunities come your way. This accounts for any situation that you put yourself in. Do you remember that list that I told you to make? Well, this is where the list comes in handy. Let’s use your job or career as an example.
When you didn’t put yourself first, you probably settled for any job that you could get. You didn’t really search for a job that satisfied your needs or preferences. You just picked the one that you thought was at your level or lower.
When you always put yourself first, you will work harder to get the job that you actually wanted and not settle for anything less. This attributes to anything in life. You would not want to settle for anything less when it comes to friends, relationships, etc. After you’ve worked hard for a while, people will begin to see that.
They will see you as a person with a good work ethic and someone that takes their life seriously.
7. You’ll Be More Confident In Yourself
Confidence is key when it comes to all aspects of your life. If you’re someone that doesn’t have much confidence, you are seen as someone that doesn’t love yourself. You are seen as someone that puts other people first instead of being someone that always puts themself first.
When you always put yourself first, you go after what you want. You have the confidence to go after what it is that you want in life. You won’t settle for things that are below your value. You know that a bigger and better opportunity is heading your way.
If you’re someone that has tried to put yourself first, trust me your time will come. Confidence is a huge benefit that you’ll get from this. The reason that you get so much confidence from this will be explained in the next benefit below.
8. You’ll Feel Like You Have More Control
The reason why you have more confidence when you always put yourself first is that you have more control over your life. That is a huge problem that I see from many people that I counsel. I also see this problem with many people that I talk to on a regular basis.
These people feel like the world controls them. They feel like when bad things happen, it is their fault for it happening. In some cases, this is the case. What some people fail to realize is that some things are not controllable in life meaning that you can’t do anything to change the result of it.
People tend to focus on the events that are outside of their control, which messes up their mental health. When you always put yourself first, you tend to focus on what’s important in life. There’s one thing that happens when you focus on what’s important in life. Go to the next benefit to find out.
9. Other People’s Opinions Won’t Matter As Much
When you focus on what’s important in life, you start to care less about what other people think about you. Take me for an example. I do get some compliments for sticking to my purpose and what is important to me, which is mental health. It’s important to me because of my upbringing and how many people lack knowledge of it.
Besides that, I don’t get that much support from it. In fact, I get comments all of the time saying that what I talk about is wrong and that I don’t know a lot about mental health. For someone that focuses on themselves, I like it when people do this.
If you always put yourself first, you may like this as well because it brings up a topic of debate. When you debate with people about what your purpose is, you get to learn a lot about where people are coming from.
When people bring their opinions upon you, you don’t take it as an offense or an insult. You take it as a constructive criticism you can use to further improve yourself.
10. You’re Able To Help Others Better
Do you remember when I said that in order to become selfless you must become selfish? This is where that saying comes into play. When you have a love for yourself, you’re able to give out so much more than what you had before.
If you’re someone that puts others first, it’s hard for you to help people to the best of your abilities. You will go out of your way for this person and do whatever it takes to help them. However, when it comes to yourself, you anguish in defeat.
Sometimes, the best way to help a person out is by not exerting so much effort. You don’t need to find a solution to someone else’s problems. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is to be there for that person and support them for whatever decision they rightfully choose.
If you believe that it isn’t beneficial for them, don’t be afraid to speak up and say it. Let them try it out for a while and see what happens. You don’t want other people to try something you know isn’t going to work out.
If they ask for your opinion, then it is time for you to speak freely on whatever it is that you think will benefit them.
Let me wrap this up, so you can get a clear understanding of what I’m talking about. When you put other people first, you do whatever it takes to help them out. When you do that, people become more reliant on you for things, which takes time out of your schedule.
They become dependent on you, which is something you didn’t want. When you put yourself first, you help the person become dependent on themselves.
11. You Learn To Love Yourself
I had to save the best for last. When you always put yourself first, you learn to love yourself. You spend more time alone to be around yourself. You get to learn things about yourself that you would never discover before.
All of the things that I previously mentioned lead up to this. Loving yourself is something that people strive for a long time. You look up ways to improve your mental health and for the most part, they don’t work.
The reason why these things don’t work all fall back on the point of you not loving yourself. When you don’t love yourself, it’s difficult to have coping skills and other resources work for you. It is possible for those things to work for you, but it takes a lot of effort to get things going.
For all of you out there dealing with depression or even suicide, try really hard to put yourself first. It may be extremely difficult because you hate yourself and don’t really see the point in trying. If you can’t do it, surround yourself with people that will get you to that position.
