As the holidays grow evermore near, your world seems to shrink around one sole idea: spending time with family. Albeit, the holidays are a wonderful time of year for the reason that loved ones tend to make time for each other and everyone is joyful, or at least they pretend to be.

The holidays are meant to be a time of absolute benevolence, one for all and all for one if you will: a time devoted to those you love.

While this is a noble cause that fills many with love, it can also be totally exhausting, often leaving you feeling overwhelmed and way overextended. As you prepare to make it the most joyous time of the year for others, you can often lose sight of taking care of yourself—there are only so many hours in the day.

In the spirit of this totally unselfish time of year, I took an entire week of November to do nothing other than be just the opposite: one hundred and fifty percent selfish.

What does a week of selfishness look like?

It looks a lot like me spending a lot of time alone and not feeling the need to do anything for or answer to anyone—which, if you know me, was an exceptionally hard task to complete.

I took the week to be with myself and to focus on the things that make me sublimely blissful. All my energy was directed toward bettering myself and getting to a place where I felt comfortable in what I'd accomplished that week.

There's a joke amongst college students that it's impossible to have all three: good grades, a social life and enough sleep. That leaves even less room for self care.

Coming out of my week of utter selfishness, I noticed that nearly all aspects of my life had seemed to improve: my relationships, my stress levels, my workload, and my sleep schedule.

After taking the time to myself, I feel more able to give other people the attention they deserve, as I myself feel rejuvenated.

Moral of the story: it's totally fine to go MIA and work on yourself for a bit—you'll feel better for it.