Most of us have had that sinking feeling after an argument, replaying the conversation in bed and wondering whether we were the selfish one. If you want to know how to stop being selfish, start with one plain question about the choice in front of you: who pays for it? Looking after yourself is not selfishness, but getting what we want whilst somebody else quietly covers the cost certainly is, and the remedy is a handful of small, outward habits we can practice from today.
Quick pick
Where Should You Start?
Tap the line that sounds most like you to jump straight there.
- Do you feel guilty every time you say no? Take the ‘who pays?’ test
- Has someone told you that you are selfish? Check the signs and examples
- Want one thing to change this week? Start with one small habit
- Is it showing up mostly with your partner? Read the relationship section
- Do you feel selfish all the time? Read about guilt and low mood
Keep reading below Examples Phrases People pleasing Healthy selfishness The 7 habits Questions
Selfish is an accusation we throw at each other far too easily. It gets aimed at people who genuinely take more than they give, and just as often at people who simply said no for once. Both deserve a straight answer, and like most things in our personal growth guides, this one can be worked on.
Am I Selfish? Signs to Look For
Well, asking the question is already a decent start, because people who truly do not care rarely lie awake over it. However, a worried mind is not proof of a considerate one, so it helps to look at what we actually do rather than how we feel about ourselves.
Selfishness usually shows up as a pattern of small moments, each one easy to excuse on its own. We talk more than we listen, we remember our own plans and forget everyone else’s, and we are generous when it is convenient but disappear when it costs us something.
One honest way to check is to borrow someone else’s eyes. If a friend, a sibling or a roommate described a week with us, which moments would they bring up first?
When the same complaint keeps coming from different people, it is worth hearing, even if it hurts a little.
○ Everyday Examples of Selfish Behavior
Most selfish behavior is completely ordinary, which is exactly why we miss it in ourselves. In a group project, it is taking the easy part, missing the meeting and still wanting our name first. In a shared apartment, it is leaving our dishes in the sink for days and then complaining about the mess.
With friends, it is messaging only when we need something, and going quiet when they need something from us. It is turning every conversation back to our own news, or cancelling at the last minute because something better came up.
At home, it can be as small as finishing the milk and putting the empty carton back in the fridge!
None of this makes us bad people. Still, each one quietly hands a little bill to someone else, and the bills add up.
○ Phrases That Give Selfishness Away
Our words often give us away before our actions do. Some phrases sound harmless but carry a selfish message, such as “That’s not my problem” or “You’re too sensitive” when someone tells us we hurt them.
Others hide inside apologies. “I’m sorry, but…” and “I’m sorry you feel that way” both move the focus back to us, away from the person we hurt.
And then there is the quiet classic, “Anyway, enough about you”, which very few of us say out loud and many of us act out in every group chat.
Selfish or Self-Care?
This is where many of us get stuck, especially those raised to put everyone else first. Declining a party because we are exhausted, protecting our weekend for exam preparation, or refusing to lend money we cannot spare can all feel selfish.
They are not, and the difference is easier to see than most people think.
○ The ‘Who Pays?’ Test
We like to call it the ‘who pays?’ test. Every choice has a cost, and the question is simply who carries it. When we skip a friend’s party to sleep, we pay with a little missed fun; when we skip helping them move after promising to come, they pay with the heavy lifting, alone.
Two more questions make the test sharper. Did we tell them honestly and early, or did we let them find out? And would we think it fair if they did exactly the same to us?
Self-care nearly always passes, because it is said out loud, it costs others very little, and we would happily accept it from them.
Selfishness usually fails at least one of these questions, which is why it so often travels with excuses, secrecy or a long explanation of why our situation is different.
None of this is new, and Pirkei Avot, the old Jewish collection of sayings, records the teacher Hillel asking: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I?”
We need both halves, and most of us lean too heavily on one of them.
○ When You Feel Selfish but Aren’t
Some of the people searching am I selfish are the least selfish people in the room. They say yes to every request, keep quiet about what they need and then feel guilty for wanting a single evening to themselves.
Psychologists have studied the extreme version of this. In their 2020 study in Frontiers in Psychology, Scott Barry Kaufman and Emanuel Jauk measured what psychologists call ‘pathological altruism’ with statements such as “I am a total pushover when it comes to requests to help others” and “I need to be needed”.
The finding is the uncomfortable part. Kaufman and Jauk found that people who scored high on it showed more vulnerable narcissism and more selfish motivations for helping others.
Giving out of fear, it seems, is not the opposite of selfishness at all.
So if this sounds familiar, the answer is not more giving. It is a little more honesty about your own needs, and if the urge to please comes from wanting to be liked, our piece on the need for recognition explores where that hunger comes from.
○ What Healthy Selfishness Looks Like
The same study measured the other side too, which the authors named ‘healthy selfishness’. Kaufman and Jauk described it with statements such as “I have healthy boundaries”, “I balance my own needs with the needs of others” and “Even though I give a lot to others, I know when to recharge”.
In Kaufman and Jauk’s data, people high in healthy selfishness reported more well-being and, interestingly, a more genuine wish to help others. The people who look after themselves properly seem to have more left to give, not less!
The study also recalls a 1939 essay by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, whose argument the authors sum up this way: the selfishness everyone complains about is “actually the opposite of self-love”. That reading of selfishness makes complete sense to us.
A person who respects their own needs has far less reason to grab.
Why Are We Selfish?
Well, partly because looking after ourselves first is the oldest instinct we have, and on its own it is no character flaw. A toddler who shared every biscuit would be an extraordinary toddler indeed!
The trouble is that the instinct does not switch off when we grow up. It gets louder whenever we feel short of something, whether that is sleep in exam week or money at the end of the month.
Whoever learned early, in a big and busy family, that the first to grab gets served often keeps grabbing long after there is plenty to go round.
So selfishness is usually circumstance and old habit, not a rotten character. That does not excuse it, but it does tell us where to begin.
For a gentler, deeper look at the parts of ourselves we would rather not see, our shadow work prompts are a kind place to start.
How to Stop Being Selfish: 7 Small Habits
Nobody stops being selfish over one dramatic weekend. What changes us is a few small habits, repeated until they feel like our own, and these seven are the ones we would recommend starting with.
1. Catch the Moment, Not the Label
Calling ourselves ‘a selfish person’ feels honest, yet it rarely changes anything, because a label gives us nothing practical to do on an ordinary Tuesday. Moments are far more useful.
Each evening, think back and name one moment where someone else paid for your choice, like the friend left waiting or the chore you dodged. Before long a pattern appears, and a pattern is something we can genuinely work on.
2. Ask One More Question
Most of us listen just long enough to find a gap for our own story. The simplest antidote we know is to ask one more question before saying anything about ourselves.
If a friend says their exam went badly, the selfish reflex is “Same, mine was a disaster too”. One more question sounds like “Which part threw you?”, and it tells them that right now their day matters more than ours.
3. Keep a ‘Little File’ on the People You Love
This one comes from a Reddit thread in which someone admitted they were selfish and greedy and wanted to change. The reply that helped them most was a simple trick: keep notes on the people in your life, such as their favorite snacks, the interview they are nervous about or the name of their dog.
It sounds a bit mechanical, and it is. However, caring is often just attention plus memory, and a note on your phone that says “Asha’s driving test, Friday” becomes a message on Friday that brightens her whole week.
4. Let Someone Else Choose
Needing to control the plan is a quieter kind of selfishness, and it often comes from anxiety rather than ego. We pick the restaurant, the film, the route and the playlist, and then wonder why our friends seem a little flat around us.
So the next time the group chat is deciding where to eat, we can suggest nothing and happily go along with what everybody else picks. It is a small thing, but notice how it feels to let go, and notice how the others respond.
Selfishness hides best in the jobs nobody thanks us for: the dishes, the trash, booking the table, sending the reminder in the family group. If we only help when it is fun or visible, people notice, even when they say nothing.
Pick one boring job at home or in your friendship group and quietly make it yours.
Doing it without announcing it is the whole point.
6. Give Something Small, Unasked
Here is the part that surprises people. In a study published in Science in 2008, Elizabeth Dunn and her colleagues found that people randomly assigned to spend money on others ended up happier than those told to spend it on themselves.
It does not have to be money, and it does not have to be big. A coffee for the friend studying late, a ride, a packed lunch for a sibling or a message that says “Thinking of you today” all count, and our post on why kindness matters has plenty more ideas.
7. Say Sorry Without a ‘But’
A real apology names what we did and how it landed, says what we will do differently, and then it stops. The moment we add “but you also…”, it turns into a defense, and the other person hears only the second half.
Something like “I’m sorry I kept checking my phone while you were talking, and I’ll put it away next time” feels hard the first time. Well, that is the point, and it gets easier the more we do it.
Selfishness in a Relationship
Relationships are where selfishness shows fastest, because two people are trying to share one life. A post on Reddit’s r/DecidingToBeBetter put it plainly: a woman found a cheap train ticket and told her boyfriend he could buy one and come with her or she would go alone, and he was hurt.
The replies split in a useful way. One reader said that making the plan first and then offering a seat can make a partner feel like an afterthought, whilst another told her not to make herself small just to keep him happy.
We think both are right, and together they make a good rule: we include the people we love before we decide, and we still speak up for what we want. “I’d love to do this trip, will you come with me?” is generous; “I’m going, you can come if you like” is not, even when the plan is exactly the same.
The same rule runs through the rest of a relationship. Asking about their day before we talk about ours, sharing the boring jobs and noticing when every weekend is somehow about our plans all count. When a partner is going through something hard, our guide on how to be there for someone in need picks up from here.
One word of balance, though. If someone calls you selfish every time you have a need, a friendship or a boundary, that says more about their need for control than about you, and it is worth talking through with someone you trust.
Selfish, or Something Else?
Sometimes the question behind am I selfish is a heavier one, and two worries come up again and again.
The first is “Am I a narcissist?” MedlinePlus, the US National Library of Medicine’s health site, describes narcissistic personality disorder as a mental condition marked by an excessive sense of self-importance, an extreme preoccupation with oneself and a lack of empathy for others.
As per MedlinePlus, it is diagnosed through a psychological evaluation, not by an online quiz or one bad week, and ordinary selfish moments are something every one of us experiences.
The second is guilt that never switches off. If you feel selfish all the time, even after small and reasonable choices, that heavy guilt can be part of low mood, and the NHS lists feeling guilt-ridden among the psychological symptoms of depression.
When that heaviness stays with you for most of the day, every day, for more than 2 weeks, the NHS says it is time to see a GP, which outside the UK simply means your own doctor.
Thoughts of harming yourself are a different matter altogether: those deserve help today, from your local emergency services or a crisis line, and from someone close who can stay with you while you call.
Selfish Is a Habit, Not a Name
Every one of us is selfish some of the time, and every one of us can become a little less so. The people we admire for their kindness did not escape selfishness; they simply practiced the other habits more often, until those became the comfortable ones.
Take care of yourself out loud, and of others on purpose.
Your Questions on Selfishness
How do I know if I’m a selfish person?
Look at patterns rather than one bad moment. If other people regularly end up paying for your choices with their time, effort or money, if you talk far more than you listen, or if you disappear whenever helping costs you something, those are the signs worth working on. Asking someone you trust for an honest answer, and listening without defending yourself, tells you more than any quiz.
Is it selfish to put yourself first?
Not always. Putting your sleep, health, studies or safety first is self-care, especially when you say so honestly and it costs others very little. It turns selfish when someone else is quietly left with the bill, or when you come first every single time, whatever the other person needs.
Why am I so selfish?
Usually it is a mix of habit, stress and fear rather than a bad heart. Tiredness and worry narrow anyone’s attention, and habits picked up in a crowded or competitive childhood can stay with us long after we need them. The reason matters less than the next small habit, and noticing the pattern is already the first step.
Can a selfish person really change?
Yes. Selfishness is a set of habits, and habits change with practice. Asking one more question, doing your share of the boring jobs and apologizing without a ‘but’ are small, but repeated often they change how you behave and how people feel around you. People tend to trust steady small changes more than big promises.
How do I stop feeling guilty for being selfish?
First, check whether it was actually selfish: who paid for your choice, did you tell them honestly, and would you accept the same from them? If it passes, the guilt is an old habit and you can let it go. If it fails, apologize and put it right, then move on. If the guilt is constant and heavy, talk to a doctor, because lasting guilt can be a sign of low mood.
1 thought on “How to Stop Being Selfish: Signs, Examples and Self-Care”