How to Stop Putting Everyone Else First
Putting yourself first can feel incredibly uncomfortable when you have spent most of your life prioritizing everyone else’s needs, happiness, and expectations. At 42, one of the biggest lessons I have had to learn is that I cannot keep lighting myself on fire to keep other people warm.
For much of my life, I thought I was simply being supportive, dependable, loving, and strong. I showed up, said yes, helped, and took care of whatever needed to be handled. The people around me were happy, but the problem was that I wasn’t.
Eventually, I found myself looking around at a life filled with accomplishments, relationships, and experiences and thinking, “I hate it here.” At first, I could not understand why I was so unhappy. On paper, there were many things in my life that I should have appreciated. However, I had become so good at keeping the peace for everyone else that I was constantly creating conflict within myself.
Why Putting Yourself First Can Feel So Wrong
Many of us are conditioned to be givers and nurturers. We learn that being supportive, dependable, and available makes us good friends, partners, daughters, sisters, managers, and parents. When people praise us for being the strong one or the person who can always be counted on, that role can become part of our identity.
As a result, doing something for ourselves can immediately bring up guilt. We worry that saying no makes us selfish or that choosing differently means we are letting someone down. Even when we know exactly what we need or want, we can feel completely stuck when it is time to act on it.
The problem is not always that we lack clarity. Often, we know what we want until we start thinking about how someone else might respond. Then we begin searching for an option that allows us to honor ourselves without disappointing anyone, creating tension, or being perceived differently.
Sometimes that option does not exist.
I eventually realized that I was not actually waiting for someone else to give me permission to choose myself. I was looking for reassurance that doing so would not make me a bad person.
Putting Yourself First Starts With Giving Yourself Permission
Learning to put myself first required me to start giving myself permission to acknowledge what was true for me. I had to become willing to say, “I don’t want to do that,” “I don’t like this,” “I prefer something different,” or “I don’t have the capacity for this.”
These statements may sound simple, but they were surprisingly difficult for me to make. I had spent so much time looking outside myself for reassurance that I struggled to trust a decision simply because it worked for me.
Eventually, I had to remind myself that I am an adult. I do not need another adult to give me permission to make decisions about my own life. Neither do you.
You are allowed to say yes or no, change your mind, and choose something different from what other people want for you. None of those choices automatically make you selfish, uncaring, or a bad person.
Learn to Be Comfortable With Other People’s Discomfort
Giving yourself permission is only part of the work. You also have to learn what to do when someone else does not like your decision.
When people are accustomed to you always saying yes, stepping in, or carrying more than your share, they may be surprised when you begin making different choices. They may feel disappointed, confused, frustrated, or even angry. Their reaction can make your inner critic very loud and cause you to think, I knew this was wrong. I knew they would be upset with me.
However, someone else’s discomfort does not necessarily mean you made the wrong decision. Sometimes it simply means that the relationship is adjusting to a version of you who is no longer willing to automatically put herself last.
I had to learn to allow other people to have their feelings without rushing to fix those feelings for them. When I knew a decision was right for me, I practiced holding firm even when someone else did not like it.
Over time, I collected evidence that discomfort was not the same as catastrophe. The relationship could survive. The world would not end. I could disappoint someone and still be a good person.
This may be the hardest part of choosing yourself. The challenge is not always figuring out what you want. It is allowing someone else to be uncomfortable with your choice without changing it, overexplaining it, or abandoning yourself to make their discomfort disappear.
Pay Attention to What Happens in Your Relationships
One of the surprising things I have discovered is that putting myself first has helped me understand my relationships more clearly. When I stopped constantly centering everyone else, I began to see which relationships were genuinely reciprocal and which ones depended on how much I was willing to give.
Some friendships became quieter, and some relationships naturally developed more distance. That hurt, but it also created room for relationships in which I could be more fully myself.
The people who genuinely love you may not agree with every decision you make, but healthy relationships leave room for you to have needs, preferences, boundaries, and a life of your own. You should not have to continually sacrifice yourself to prove that you care.
Pay attention to what happens when you stop overfunctioning. Notice who respects your boundaries, who remains curious about your needs, and who only seems comfortable when you are making their life easier. That information can tell you a great deal about the relationship.
Check In With Yourself
The third practice that has helped me is regularly checking in with myself. I ask what I need, what I want, what I value, and what I genuinely have the capacity to give.
In addition, I have also started spending more intentional time alone. I take myself on solo dates, protect my mornings, and make more choices based on what restores me instead of automatically doing whatever everyone else wants to do.
Rather than beginning my day with social media, text messages, or email, I spend time pouring into myself first. I want to feel fed before I begin feeding everyone else.
That quiet has helped me reconnect with things I had stopped noticing, including what I like, what I do not like, what makes me happy, what I believe, and what I have the capacity to take on. It is difficult to hear yourself clearly when you are constantly responding to everyone else.
Checking in with yourself also creates a pause between a request and your response. Instead of automatically agreeing, you can ask yourself whether you actually want to do it, whether you have the capacity, and whether saying yes would require you to abandon something important to you.
You Don’t Have to Abandon Yourself to Care for Other People
Putting yourself first does not mean that you stop caring about other people. It means that you stop treating yourself like the one person whose needs do not matter.
You can:
- Love people and still have boundaries
- Support someone without rescuing them
- Be generous without giving everything you have
- Build a life that includes the people you love without building one that revolves entirely around their comfort.
Otherwise, you may eventually look around and wonder, “Whose life is this?” You can become so good at giving everyone else what they need that you accidentally create a life that does not feel like your own.
The goal is to build a life in which you can recognize yourself. If you have spent years organizing your choices around everyone else, coming back to yourself may take time. You do not need to change everything at once.
Start by asking yourself, “What do I need right now?” Then see whether you can give yourself some version of it.
Watch the Video
In this video, I share more about my experience with putting myself first, learning to tolerate other people’s discomfort, navigating changes in my relationships, and reconnecting with myself.
As you watch, consider this question: If I were not responsible for managing everyone else’s reaction, what would I choose?
Continue Reading
If you recognize yourself in the pattern of constantly putting everyone else first, start with People Pleaser? 5 Ways to Stop Putting Everyone Else First.
If boundaries are difficult because saying no immediately brings up guilt, read How to Set Healthy Boundaries Without Guilt.
And if you’re wondering how self-care fits into all of this, Self-Care Tips for Reducing Stress and Preventing Burnout is a great next step.
You don’t have to stop caring about everyone else.
You just have to start giving yourself some of the same care you give so freely to everyone around you.
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