You're allowed to switch off too
It's not selfish to put yourself first
Are you a people pleaser?
If the answer’s yes, this is for you.
Especially if you’re always putting others first through wonderful acts of selflessness, but rarely stop to notice your own wellbeing or achievements.
Now it’s important to stress: selflessness is no bad thing. I’m constantly amazed by people who are able to be so outwardly caring and invested in the lives of others that they remember every moment, big or small.
It really is incredible.
However, it can fall down – particularly at work – when these people spend so much time focused on everyone else, that they never take a moment for themselves. This links to something I’ve written about before, which is the the idea that your worst traits are overextensions of your best ones.
Confidence tips into arrogance. Logic into insensitivity. Diligence into overthinking.
And so on.
The people-pleaser version is spending so much time on others that you start to avoid any situation where you might vaguely consider putting yourself first.
The guilt spiral
Left unchecked, this becomes unintentional self-sabotage.
You stop letting yourself take pride in what you’ve done. You stop taking time for yourself. You start to check your emails on holiday…
You even end up believing that any rest or reward has to come at the expense of someone else.
In fact, this reminds me of a real-life conversation I’ve had several times regarding something that’s essential in working life, particularly in agencies… the annual leave handover.
For those who are so concerned about others, they end up thinking the handover they’ve created is a burden for someone else, not a useful resource for that person to refer to while you’re away.
Plus, if they do get that vague urge to relax, they start to feel guilty – completely unprompted – that they shouldn’t be doing anything if their work colleagues are still putting in a shift.
None of it is true of course. Neither is it radical thinking. But it doesn’t feel untrue when you’re in that moment.
What I’ve had to learn
I’m naturally closer to the logical side of the thinking coin than the people-pleasing side, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never had to learn the same lesson, just that it showed up differently for me.
A few things I’ve had to actively remind myself of, more than once:
You don’t need to be first to reply to look like you care.
We make handovers for a reason.
Your out-of-office isn’t an apology.
Annual leave isn’t optional just because you don’t have plans.
Your colleagues don’t fall apart because you weren’t the one who offered to help, for once.
The project won’t collapse because you took a proper lunch break.
Delegating isn’t the same as dropping it.
It took time, but I now know that occasionally putting myself first is not harming anyone or stopping work from getting done, it’s simply my way of temporarily switching off and recharging.
You’re allowed to do it too.