November 16, 2024

Read Time — 5 minutes

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What if I told you that the key to a good life is to lean into your selfishness?

You’ll probably say something like:

“That’s not who I am. I’m not a selfish person. I’m a good person.”

And what if that’s exactly the mindset that’s keeping you stuck?

Because what ends up happening is you always sacrifice your needs for others.

You overextend yourself to prove your worth.

And you always put everyone else first and leave little for yourself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s noble and respectable to put others first before yourself from time to time.

But doing that all the time is just unhealthy.

What that shows is a lack of self-love and appreciation.

I’m sure you’ve heard that it’s important to love yourself.

But here’s the thing, for you to truly love yourself, you need to be somewhat selfish.

You need to be willing to prioritize your needs, set boundaries, and say no to things that drain you so that you can say yes to what really matters to you.

The problem is that the term “selfishness” carries a lot of negative connotations, and so people avoid doing things that would be seen as selfish.

As a result?

They become people pleasers.

They always make sure that they meet other people’s expectations, and they become afraid to say no to other people’s requests — even if it’s at the cost of their own well-being.

Which leads to your mental and emotional health declining.

Here’s what that looks like:

You feel drained all the time.

You feel like you’re always saying yes to everyone else’s needs except your own.

And you just feel like you need a 3 week vacation away from it all.

Sound familiar?

In this letter, we’ll explore how leaning into the good kind of selfishness can help you learn to love yourself more — and, as a result, live a fulfilling life.

And you might be wondering,

“There’s a good kind of selfishness?”

Yes, there is! Let’s explore all about that together.

Let’s get into it.

Exploring Self-Love

Understand that self-love is important to your mental health.

There is a direct link between the way we perceive ourselves (our self-image) and our mental health.

Think of your mind as a garden.

What happens when a garden is filled with love, positivity, and care?

It thrives!

Similarly, when your mind is imbued with self-love, it too can thrive.

It then can act as a natural defense mechanism from:

• Self-doubt

• Self-criticism 

• Negative self-talk

All of these cause inner resistance — the mental and emotional pushback you feel when you’re facing change, growth, or potential success.

When you learn to love and appreciate yourself, it becomes easier to accept and validate your emotions, which leads to better and better mental and emotional health.

Self-love also equips you with the confidence to face challenges head-on.

It cultivates inner resilience so that you can stand tall, and secure in the knowledge that you are capable and deserving of overcoming life’s hurdles.

And you may already even know all of this.

So, where does the good kind of selfishness (or healthy selfishness) fit into all of this?

The Good (and the Bad) Kind of Selfishness

If self-love is the soil in the garden example I gave, then healthy selfishness is the act of taking care of that garden.

It ensures that the garden gets the nourishment that it needs.

Healthy selfishness is about acknowledging our needs and taking steps to meet them.

It’s the kind of selfishness that doesn’t involve harming others or pulling others back just so that you can get ahead.

It may mean letting people down temporarily because you enforce your boundaries by saying no to what doesn’t serve you,

But that doesn’t mean that you’re harming others in any way.

Imagine if you didn’t have this good kind of selfishness and you just said yes to everything other people asked of you.

Imagine you’re at the end of a tiring work week, and all you want to do Friday night is to get some rest so that you can recover.

But your college best friend, whom you haven’t seen in months, invites you to a night out drinking.

You want to say no so that you can rest, but you end up saying yes and going out even if your body is craving rest and recovery.

What’s worse is that you even end up resenting your friend just a little bit for inviting you out — when you could have been just a little bit selfish and said,

“No, it’s been a really tiring week, and I need to rest, how about next week when things are less hectic for me?”

Healthy selfishness is about carving out time for yourself and your well-being and not being afraid to set boundaries.

It’s through the value of healthy selfishness that you learn the value of saying “no” to:

• Overcommitting

• People-pleasing

• Overextending yourself

Learning to say no to the things that drain you is an act of healthy selfishness — which is an important step in your personal growth.

On the other hand, it’s also important to be aware of unhealthy selfishness (the bad kind).

This is what society actually means when you hear it’s bad to be selfish.

Unhealthy selfishness is all about:

• Putting yourself first by pulling others back

• A lack of regard for the well-being of other people

• Taking more than you give in relationships

• Making decisions that harm others to benefit yourself

• Ignoring how your actions impact people around you

That’s the kind of selfishness that you want to avoid.

The key difference here lies in your intention.

Is your intention simply to enforce your boundaries to protect your energy?

Or is your intention to get ahead, even at the cost of harming others?

In Conclusion

When you combine self-love and healthy selfishness, they lead you to a balanced, content, and fulfilled life.

Remember: Saying yes to yourself doesn’t mean putting others in harm’s way — it means creating the space to show up as your best self for the people who matter most.

And personally, I’ve always held the opinion that it’s okay to be selfish — if that is the way to be of help and value to others.

So the end goal can still be to help, serve, and be of value to other people — while the means to that is by being just a little bit selfish and filling up your own cup first so that you can sustainably give the overflow to others.

I call it being selfish (the healthy kind) in order to be selfless.

So don’t be afraid to be selfish if you know it’s the good and healthy kind,

Because to truly love ourselves, we need to be somewhat selfish.

All the love,
All the power,

— Zach Mar

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