Quick answer
Pursuing wisdom is an act of self-care, not self-improvement. The verse calls it loving your own life.
Read both lines
The NKJV footnotes "wisdom" as literally heart, and the Hebrew says the man acquires a lev, which in this book is the seat of judgment and desire rather than of feeling. So the first line is nearly untranslatable in one word: he gets himself a mind, and by doing so loves his own nephesh, his life. The second line changes the verb from getting to keeping, which is the harder discipline and the one most people skip. Together they describe an arc rather than an event. What the verse quietly rejects is the idea that wisdom is a duty owed to somebody else. It is the treatment a person gives himself.
Related: Proverbs 4:5–7 · Proverbs 8:35 · Proverbs 15:32
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.