“Sometimes you have to try not to care, no matter how much you do, because sometimes you can mean nothing to someone who means so much to you. It’s not pride, It’s self-respect.”

In a nutshell, this quote is everything I’m in the process of teaching myself. I’m the type of person that wants everybody happy and loves seeing a smile on everybody’s face. But I do this so much that I forget about me. I put everything before myself and it’s starting to get a bit unhealthy. Just recently I began putting myself before the people who don’t invest their time into me like I do for them and I have seen significant changes.

Knowing myself I have an extremely guilty conscious, so at first I felt bad, but now that I have witnessed the positive results that guilt is slowly fading. In this journey of caring for yourself I have learned three things:

1) It’s okay to be selfish sometimes
Many times when people hear the word selfish their mind automatically thinks about being egotistical or self-obsessed. This definition is, of course, true as a simple search on Google reveals, but I am here to tell you that selfishness can sometimes be good.
Consider the people who always put the needs of others before their own, or the people who are willing to give an arm or a leg for another person. Think about those people who pause their emotions to help save a friend, or those who give to others and ask nothing in return. Don’t these same people have a right to be selfish at times? They aren’t perpetually
obligated to consider their friend’s or family’s emotional needs over their own at all times. They don’t always have to put their needs aside so they can help others who are in distress, yet they do it anyway. Let’s let them win sometimes.

2) Stop caring and cut off toxic people
I see this step as pretty self-explanatory, but it is not that easy to do, especially if you have known a person who you need to snip from your life for a long time. Toxic people can be physically, mentally, and emotionally
draining because of their lack of self-awareness. These are the people who always find a way to make the topic about them and condemn you for trying to get one ounce of sympathy. Letting go of toxic people means you get to let go of that obligated feeling you have towards them and allow yourself to have more time to spend alone or with others who don’t require so much maintenance.
At some point you have to stop caring about the people who don’t care about you. It’s easy to make excuses for these people, but eventually the excuses have to stop and you have to put your foot down and think about yourself.

3) Move in silence
I had to learn that some people aren’t trustworthy enough to share your dreams with. This taught me that
sometimes you must move in silence. You must make decisions without telling people your plans. Moving in silence is making moves and caring about yourself without letting other people interfere or intervene with your work, your goals, and your plans.
Telling people your ideas and plans makes you more vulnerable to competition, especially if your ideas are off the wall good. Making silent moves gives you time to work on yourself, your empire, and your observant behavior. You make you a priority.