1. You’re healthier.
Your mind is a lot clearer. You stop to think about important aspects of a healthy life like sleep, exercise, healthy foods, and you can recognize that these things are essential to your mental and physical health. You also take time to recognize your good relationships with people and remove yourself from the toxic ones.
2. You’re more goal-oriented.
When you’re constantly putting another person, your job, school or an organization first, it’s easy to feel discouraged and stray away from working towards your goals. But by focusing on your own goals from the get-go, you can easily add in those important relationships, work and social events in your life without them fogging up what you want to achieve. It’s all about balance.
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3. You stop living your life for social media.
With our social network literally at our fingertips almost all day long, sometimes it feels like social media is taking over the world. While it can be fun to get ideas for outfits, new restaurants to try or places to visit, sometimes it can make you feel like you're not good enough or not beautiful enough or not fun enough or whatever (which is totally crazy when you think about it). The weird part about social media is that people can portray their lives to be as different and adventurous as they want, no matter how true that is or not. Your life is more than your online presence, and that's really easy to see that when you realize that social media is just for fun.
4. You stop comparing yourself to other people and become more confident.
This goes hand-in-hand with No. 3. Whether it be online or in person, when you focus on yourself and can appreciate others for who they are, you accept yourself for who you are, instead of consuming your mind with what you wish you were.
5. You’re more organized.
This is a pretty easy one. If you’re putting yourself first, everything just feels a lot more clean and simple. You take time to organize your space, your day and your time with others. School is more bearable, your mind is clearer and life is better.
6. You’re happier.
This is probably the first thing that I notice when I dedicate all of my time and energy to myself. You stop overthinking people and situations, which gets rid of a ton of unnecessary stress and emotion and you start to go with the flow. You’re more in-tune with who you are, what you value, and where your priorities lie. You realize that you can’t control every situation, and that’s okay.
7. You’re more supportive of others.
Sometimes it takes putting your own needs before someone else’s to realize that everyone is living their own life, and you can’t change a person to be someone that they’re not. When you focus on yourself and who you are, you can begin to better accept that everyone is different, and that’s the really cool part about life. You can learn so much about the world through people, whether you have the same views or not, which again, is another awesome part about life. We're all designed to look differently, think differently and like or dislike different things, which really is an amazing thing — life is more interesting that way.
8. You’re more independent.
When you view yourself as your main priority, you no longer depend on others for entertainment, your happiness and so on. While friendships and relationships are essential to a healthy and happy life, when you put yourself first, you recognize that you sometimes need that “me time,” and that’s okay. You feel just as comfortable by yourself as you are when you’re with others and can begin to appreciate a shopping trip, a meal or a movie night with yourself.
9. Your relationships thrive.
This might seem contradictory, but putting yourself first can actually help better your friendships and relationships. For example, all of the above help you to be a more well-rounded, positive person, which in turn will allow you to be a better partner in relationships.
10. You begin to live your life for you.
It’s so easy to get caught up in a relationship, a leadership position or your school and forget about yourself. When your daily life is constantly consumed with stress about what you need to do for other people or organizations, it’s easy to feel lost and alone. However, putting yourself first can allow you to live the life you want, and everything else will fall into place. After all, we all only have so much time to experience everything we want to before it’s too late, so stop wasting time on people or things that make you unhappy or stressed, and begin to focus on you and what you love.
