There is this weird thing that will almost certainly happen in your life when you start working hard on yourself to be better in any way. When you start working out more, going back to school, cutting toxic people out of your life, or pushing yourself to be better generally, people will start to tell you that you are being selfish and self-absorbed. Now hear me when I say this: Taking care of yourself is not selfish. If you ever want to be able to help anyone else in your life then you better be able to take care of yourself in the meantime. I promise you that you cannot pour from an empty glass. If you never focus on yourself and you try to always be there for everyone else then you will crash and burn and it will not be good.
The thing about what people are going to say is that as long as you do not allow it to affect you then it ultimately doesn't matter. People are always going to try and drag you down when you want to better yourself because it makes them feel better about them not bettering themselves. Misery loves company and a lot of times when people have given up on bettering themselves they start to see other people getting better as a threat. So they will try and pull you back down to their level when they see you climbing back up.
The fun thing is that you have control over whether or not their words will stop you from climbing. If people are trying to tell you that you are self-obsessed just because you want to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be then you need to stop listening to them. Now if people are trying to give you advice then that is one thing. But sometimes people are just trying to make you feel guilty so you will stop and come back down to their level. In those cases it is important to remember that you have the power over what you accept in your life. If you do not want to feel guilty about doing something that you believe is the right thing to do then don't feel guilty.
I know that this might seem like a very simple answer, but it is true. Now, just because it is simple doesn't mean that it is easy. It can be really hard to let things go when people close to you are telling you one thing about yourself even if you believe another. But if you can remember why they are trying to pull you down then that can definitely help to realize that it isn't about you in the first place. They are pulling you down because of how you make them feel about themselves. It is not because you did something wrong that you need to fix. So stop taking other people's judgments and letting them control you. Start working on you.
It all starts with you.
