Every flight reminds of us of the importance of handling ourselves first.

“Oxygen masks will drop down from above your seat. Place the mask over your mouth and nose, like this. Pull the strap to tighten it. If you are traveling with children, make sure that your own mask is on first before helping your children.”

After all, if you’re out of air, how could you attend properly to your children?

Taking care of yourself first does not mean you don’t care about others. On the contrary, it means you realize your own importance for the people around you.

Would you confidently take advice from someone you look down upon, who has an awful life, not doing anything for themselves and complaining all the time?

Probably not right?

Then, why would other people follow and trust you if you were like that?

In other words, to be able to help others, you need to be able to justify why and how. This takes practice and, above everything else, work. On Yourself.

What does “work on yourself first” mean though?

It means becoming self-aware

Knowing what your values are, what your skills, downfalls, and knowledge are, is the basis needed for any human being to become better.

You first need to discover who you are.

Yes, discover.

You might think you know yourself pretty well, but until you willingly decide to take action and reflect on yourself, whatever you will do will be pointless.

It’ll be pointless because it will be aimless.

It means finding your life goals

Through this self-introspection, you will discover your differences with other people, what you thrive on and what you want to accomplish.

It certainly won’t take you 10 short minutes.

All these articles and videos telling you that “You can change your life in 10 minutes!”, or even in one hour, are simply clickbait and won’t actually be useful.

Our lives are long after all. How do you expect to find what you want to do for the rest of your life in such a short span of time?

If we could really do it that quickly, we’d all have done it long long ago.

Depending on where you are right now, it could take weeks, months or even years (!) to find your true purpose.

Yet, it is crucial to truly be useful for the world around you. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know how to get there and whatever support you try to give will sound half-baked.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to wait until everything is entirely figured out to start helping others. While the process may take years, a path will start to open and, little by little, you will become a better person.

Helping others while in that process has the advantage of being relatable.

Who wants to hear how to get out of poverty from someone who’s never struggled with money after all.

It means always Improving

Looking within and discovering your life purpose is fine and all, but if you do that for a while and consider it as a task checked on a to-do list, then you’re in for a treat.

First, people will notice it and start having negative feelings about the waste of all the potential you’ve found through the above actions.

But then, you’ll start feeling a void inside. Your brain will start wondering what all that work was for. It needs more.

And for that simple reason, you need to develop a thirst for learning and improvement.

Once you notice the small successes you encounter, the opportunities which open to you, along with the happiness it brings you, you won’t even be able to stop.

It means being happy

Well, this is just an extra bonus. To be honest, as I’ve discussed before, self-awareness and taking action are what real happiness is like.

People around you might sometimes notice your overall happiness, but in reality, it is inside you. Real happiness is hidden from the rest of the world.

If you’re able to reply exactly why you have a happy life, then I’m glad to inform you, you aren’t even close to the true happiness you can reach. The moment your reply becomes vague, such as “I don’t really know. Everything is just beautiful and pleasant.”, you’re certainly closer to it.

Can others help?

Well, that is debatable, but I believe they can in a certain way. You definitely cannot rely on others to help you work on yourself though.

If you are in the process of focusing on yourself, trying to become a better “You”, you should be discovering many aspects of your true personality.

But you are also very biased. After all, you’ve been living with yourself for your entire life, experiencing and learning along the way, and creating a certain mindset for yourself.

For this reason, you might miss some aspects of who you are and that’s where others can help.

Other people can contribute, not instigate nor conclude your self-introspection for you.

So why not join me and finally get yourself to start working on yourself? I promise you, it’s a long but mind-blowingly fun journey.