All throughout middle school and high school I was known as the people pleaser. The one who would bend over backward to do just about anything for just about anyone. Who’d say sorry even when I was not in the wrong.

I was the absolute biggest pushover.

I was known as the nice girl. “Wow, Arianna is so nice.” This led to me and my niceness being taken advantage of, a lot. I had the "yes" mentality. The word "no" was barely in my vocabulary, so when I would have to use it I struggled a great deal. It would cause me to feel anxious and guilty — as if I was disappointing that person.

Which is 100% not the case.

I cannot stress this enough, you should never ever feel guilty for putting yourself first. We human beings, we physically cannot continuously spread ourselves thin from helping others and expect to grow. Similar to how on airplanes the flight attendants tell you to put your oxygen mask on before assisting others, we cannot help other people if we are not primarily helping ourselves. Taking a break from the negative forces in your life, whether it be habits, people, or quite literally anything else that you feel is holding you back is a great place to start.

Removing someone or something from your life does not in any sense have to be forever-- just long enough to give you the time to recover and grow.

I can’t really remember an ‘ah ha’ moment when I realized I needed to change. I think it got to the point that I was oblivious to what was even going on, so my subconscious took over and implemented the change for me. I always kind of knew I needed to alter something, but didn't really know how to go about following through with it. Looking back, I feel as though I had an irrational fear of not being liked. Therefore I compensated by being overly nice and wanting to make sure everyone around me, well, liked me.

Now I just want to clarify, over the course of putting myself first, in no way have I become a mean person.

I have grown to love being ‘the nice girl’ and see it as being a good thing instead of bad.

Putting myself first is the best thing I have ever done for myself. I will never apologize for putting my self-worth above anyone else's.