The ancient Stoics understood something that modern self-help culture often gets backwards: you can’t pour from an empty cup. Before Marcus Aurelius could lead the Roman Empire through plague and war, he had to master himself. Before Epictetus could teach philosophy to Rome’s elite, he had to survive servitude by maintaining his inner fortress. These philosophers didn’t view self-care as a selfish indulgence, but rather as the foundation of a life well-lived.
Taking care of yourself first isn’t about narcissism or ignoring others. It’s about building the physical, mental, and emotional capacity to face life’s challenges and serve others from a position of strength rather than depletion. The Stoics developed specific practices for self-discipline that remain powerfully relevant today, offering a framework that transforms self-care from occasional treats into daily, non-negotiable habits.
1. Guard Your Morning Routine Like a Fortress
The Stoics believed the first hour of your day sets the tone for everything that follows. Marcus Aurelius would begin each morning by reminding himself of the difficulties he would face and the difficult people he would encounter. This wasn’t pessimism but preparation. By mentally rehearsing challenges before they arrived, he entered each day ready rather than reactive.
Your morning routine is sacred territory that the world will constantly try to invade. Emails, news alerts, social media, and other people’s agendas all compete for your attention the moment you wake. The Stoic approach demands you claim this time for yourself first.
This might involve meditation, journaling, exercise, or simply sitting in silence to reflect on your thoughts. The specific activities matter less than the principle: you establish your mental state before the external world makes demands on it.
When you skip your morning routine, you’re not just missing a workout or meditation session. You’re surrendering the strategic high ground of your day. You’re allowing external forces to set your priorities instead of setting them yourself. The Stoics understood that self-discipline isn’t about willpower in the moment but about creating systems that make the right choices automatic.
2. Practice Physical Discomfort Regularly
Seneca would deliberately sleep on hard surfaces and eat simple food, even though he was wealthy enough to afford luxury. Epictetus reminded his students that the body should be trained to endure difficulty. This wasn’t masochism but strategic preparation. By choosing discomfort voluntarily, you remove its power to control you when it arrives involuntarily.
Modern life offers endless comfort, which sounds appealing until you realize that avoiding all discomfort makes you fragile. When you’ve never been cold, a drop in temperature becomes unbearable. When you’ve never been hungry, missing a meal feels like a crisis. The Stoics practiced what they called “poverty training” by periodically experiencing the conditions they feared, discovering these experiences weren’t as terrible as imagination made them seem.
You can apply this principle through cold showers, intermittent fasting, challenging workouts, or simply resisting the urge to adjust the thermostat immediately. The point isn’t suffering for its own sake but building resilience. When you know you can handle physical discomfort, stress loses much of its grip on you. You develop confidence that whatever life brings, you’ll manage.
3. Conduct Evening Self-Examination
Seneca wrote that each evening he would review his day, examining his actions and thoughts like a judge reviewing cases. He would ask himself where he had acted in accordance with his principles and where he had fallen short. This wasn’t self-flagellation but an honest assessment designed to improve future performance.
The practice of evening reflection creates a feedback loop for personal growth. Without it, you repeat the same mistakes indefinitely because you never pause to identify patterns. You react to life rather than learning from it. The Stoics knew that unexamined days pile up into an unexamined life, and an unexamined life can’t improve.
Set aside ten minutes before bed to review your day. Where did you act with courage, wisdom, justice, and self-control? Where did you fail to live according to your values? What triggered your worst moments, and how might you handle similar situations differently? This practice transforms daily experiences into raw material for wisdom.
4. Focus Ruthlessly on What You Control
Epictetus taught that all of life can be divided into two categories: things within your control and things outside it. Your thoughts, choices, and responses belong to the first category. Everything else, including other people’s opinions, outcomes, and external events, falls under the second category. Wasting energy on what you can’t control is the primary source of human misery.
This principle directly impacts how you take care of yourself. You can’t control whether you get sick, but you can control your health habits. You can’t control how others treat you, but you can control your response to it. You can’t control the economy, but you can control your financial decisions.
When you stop trying to manage the unmanageable, you free up enormous energy for what actually matters. Most people exhaust themselves worrying about things they can’t change while neglecting stuff they can. They stress about the weather while skipping exercise. They obsess over political developments while ignoring their own household budgets. The Stoic approach redirects this wasted energy toward your sphere of control, where effort actually produces results.
5. View Obstacles as Training
Marcus Aurelius wrote that the impediment to action is the advance of action, that what stands in the way becomes the way. This wasn’t motivational rhetoric but a fundamental shift in how to view challenges. Every obstacle is an opportunity to practice virtue. Every setback is a chance to develop resilience. Every frustration is training for patience.
When you adopt this mindset, taking care of yourself includes embracing difficulties rather than avoiding them. The traffic jam becomes patience practice. The difficult colleague becomes an opportunity to practice understanding. The injury that forces you to modify your workout becomes a lesson in adaptation. Nothing is wasted when you view it as an opportunity for training.
This doesn’t mean seeking out problems or pretending difficulties aren’t real. It means recognizing that, since challenges will inevitably arise, you might as well derive value from them. The Stoics understood that you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control what you learn from it.
Conclusion
Taking care of yourself first isn’t selfish when you understand that a depleted person has nothing to offer others. The Stoics built their philosophy on the recognition that self-mastery precedes all other achievements.
By guarding your morning routine, training through discomfort, examining your daily habits, focusing on your control, and viewing obstacles as growth opportunities, you lay the foundation for a resilient life.
These practices don’t require special equipment, expensive programs, or perfect conditions. They need only the decision to prioritize your mental, physical, and emotional development with the same discipline the ancient Stoics applied. Start with one rule and build from there. Your capacity to face life’s challenges and serve others flows directly from how well you’ve strengthened yourself first.