Self-Leadership: Why Focusing on Yourself isn't Self-Absorbed or Selfish

In a culture that often glorifies sacrifice and self-neglect in the name of love, productivity, or success, taking the time to nurture and guide yourself can feel uncomfortable—even indulgent. But the truth is, self-leadership is anything but selfish.

What Is Self-Leadership?

Self-leadership is the practice of guiding your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a way that aligns with your values and strengths. It’s about taking responsibility for your internal world so you can show up more fully and authentically in your external world. It’s the process of consciously cultivating self-awareness, emotional regulation, and intentional decision-making. For example, you get an email from your kid's school asking if you can help coach a sports team this year. Self-leadership asks you to pause and connect with your values and strengths and ask: "how can I apply my values and strengths towards myself

Why It’s Not Selfish

When practiced genuinely, self-leadership isn’t about placing your needs above others or refusing to compromise. Instead, it’s about understanding yourself well enough to be present, grounded, and effective in your relationships and responsibilities. Think of it like putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others. If you are constantly reacting to life from a place of depletion, frustration, or confusion, you’re not leading yourself—you’re just surviving. Self-leadership allows you to bring your best self to your relationships, work, and community.

The Misconception of Self-Focus

For high achievers, especially, the line between ambition and self-neglect can be razor-thin. You may feel compelled to pour every ounce of energy into your work, your family, or your community, thinking that more effort is the answer AND you have likely received lots of positive reinforcement, things like:

• "[your name] is incredibly capable"

• "You are amazing, always going above and beyond"

• "How do you do it all?"

• Don't forget things like grades, promotions, accolades, etc.

All of this positive reinforcement is lovely and deserved but it can also be addictive and stress inducing when it feels like the bar is always getting raised. Without self-leadership, all that effort can feel like running on a treadmill set to sprint—fast-paced but ultimately unsustainable. Self-leadership asks you to pause, reflect, and approach life with intentionality. It’s not about you at the expense of everyone else. It’s about making sure you have the clarity, energy, and resilience to engage meaningfully with everything and everyone that matters to you.

The Power of "Good Enough"

For high achievers, the pursuit of excellence often comes with an underlying pressure to be perfect. Self-leadership involves recognizing that striving for perfection can be a barrier to growth, connection, and fulfillment. Instead of holding yourself to impossibly high standards, aim to be "good enough." Allowing yourself to be "good enough" doesn’t mean settling for mediocrity—it means embracing your humanity and recognizing that progress, not perfection, is the goal. When you give yourself permission to be "good enough," you can show up more fully in your relationships, work, and personal growth. It creates space for creativity, resilience, and authentic connection.

Take The Helm

If you’re feeling internally out of alignment as you reflect on your relationships, your work, or your own self-talk, it may be time to explore self-leadership more deeply. This work will likely be harder than anything you've done in a while. You do hard things all the time, but are they really that hard for you? I'm guessing you're reading this because something doesn't feel right and you just can't get yourself out of it. I challenge you to do the truly hard thing and look inward and develop skills to support "good enough" self leadership. There will still be many days where you totally neglect yourself, you aren't going to suddenly transform into a Zen master and never lean in to the skills that got you where you are today. However, you deserve to feel aligned and self-leadership can help. This one is on you, and who better to lead the charge and tackle an important project?