The ego can be your best friend or worst enemy; it’s all in how loud you let that voice get in your head
Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash
Ego
The ego can be both your best friend and your worst enemy.
Why it Matters
The ego is a paradox; both too little and too much will hurt you.
Without some measure of ego, attempting anything ambitious in your life is impossible. But too much ego can cripple you and destroy what you try to build.
You must find that balance where ego motivates you without letting it harm you.
The Eastern View
Many Eastern traditions see the ego as the enemy. They insist that we must suppress or even kill the ego to live a good life. “Happy are those who have overcome their egos,” says the Buddha, and other teachers have echoed that sentiment throughout the centuries.
Conquering your ego may be a worthy pursuit if your only ambition is to live in a monastery, eat bland food, and spend your day chanting. But what if you want to accomplish more than that?
The Problem with the Eastern View
Without the ego, setting worthy goals or finding the motivation to pursue them is challenging. We need some ego to convince us we can succeed at things we have never tried.
Without the ego, there would be no self-improvement or progress in the world. It’s your ego that whispers to you that you are capable of achieving your ambitions. Those with too little ego will never try; that unwillingness will ensure their failure.
The Western View
In the West, ego is king. We admire those who aim high and achieve outsize success. Who believe in themselves when others don’t. Who pursue goals that others think are impossible. We celebrate their success, whether in athletics, politics, or business. Their monumental egos appear to be the key to their achievement, and we admire them for having such self-assurance.
The Problem with the Western View
But take a minute, and you can also think of a list of people destroyed by their egos. Driven for ever more success, they broke the rules and hurt people. Ultimately, they blew up the things they built in an ego-driven search for more success. They let the ego-driven delusional belief they couldn’t fail to lead them to disaster.
Their ego may have helped them accomplish something great, but failure to rein in that ego destroyed all they had worked for.
A Balanced View of Ego
It’s a Catch-22, we need ego to set worthy goals and encourage us to get started, but we also need to remain humble to gauge our success and learn from our failure.
The Danger of Too Little Ego
A lack of ego can impede us from attempting our goals. Too little ego leaves us apathetic and unwilling to try.
We need some measure of confidence to convince us of the irrational belief that we can succeed at something we have never tried before. In those cases, a little dose of ego helps to motivate us by making the path look easier and success seem possible. Buddhists are wrong in this case; some ego is necessary for a good life.
The Danger of Too Much Ego
An untempered ego can corrupt our pursuits and undermine our achievements. At the other extreme, excess ego impedes success. The ego convinces us that success is a product of who we are rather than our effort. It whispers false reassurance that our achievements result from our superior abilities rather than our circumstances.
At the same time, ego lies to us that our failures are the fault of someone else or unfair circumstances.
The result is that ego teaches us the wrong lessons from our success and keeps us from learning from our failures. Ultimately, this makes it harder to achieve lasting success.
The Correct Solution
The answer to this paradox is the find the balance between too little and too much ego. Enough ego to convince you to try, while not so much that you lose the ability to remain humble, learn from your experience, and stay within your capabilities.
It’s a tricky balance to achieve. I honestly believe that most of us are capable of more than we think we are. We need a little ego to goad us into trying new things and chasing ambitious goals. The belief that you can do great things if you put in the effort is a positive use of ego.
The problem with ego occurs when you believe that success should automatically be yours because of who you are rather than what you do. Many people succeed due to a lucky break and assume that their success results from some innate characteristic rather than their circumstances. In these cases, their ego keeps them from learning from the experience and capitalizing on their good fortune.
A good ego is like an Aspirin; it helps blunt the pain of failure.
A bad ego is like a narcotic: it’s addictive and becomes its own end.
The Quiet Ego
What you want is a quiet ego. You want it to whisper encouragement in your ear but not get so loud that it drowns out the feedback of others and prevents learning from your mistakes.
As Dr. Heidi Wayment who has studied the ego, explains, “The volume of the ego is turned down so that it might listen to others as well as the self in an effort to approach life more humanely and compassionately.”
You want to keep your ego intact but turn down the volume so that you can hear others and yourself. It’s not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking about yourself less.
Benefits of a Quiet Ego
Success — The more you quiet your ego, the more likely you are to achieve your goals.
Improved Self-esteem — Healthy self-esteem comes from having a positive view of your strengths and compassion for your weaknesses. You need a quiet ego to accomplish both.
Growth — When you squander less effort defending your ego, you can devote more energy to development.
Other benefits — self-compassion, humility, authenticity, spiritual growth, flexible thinking, open-minded thinking, the ability to savor everyday experiences, life satisfaction, resilience, risk-taking, and the feeling that life is meaningful are all benefits enjoyed by people with quiet egos.
Quieting Your Ego
Put yourself in perspective.
You can quiet your ego by seeing yourself in the context of the bigger picture.
How?
Make time to step back and review the events of your life in a detached and dispassionate way. Try to be as objective as possible. Ask yourself questions like;
What did I do well?
Where can I improve?
What do I need to do next?
How does this fit in with the big picture of my life?
Answering these questions will help you focus more on what you are trying to accomplish and less on yourself.
Make an opportunity to gain perspective on yourself and the events in your life by setting aside regular time to review your day and ask these questions. An excellent way to accomplish this is via journaling.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
— Socrates
Create Cues to Quieten Your Ego.
Know your “Why.”
Why do you want to have a quiet ego? Is it so you can better connect to the people in your life? Then you might want to carry a picture of those people with you so you can pull it out and remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing.
Do you want to become a better person? Then carry a memento that reminds you of the person you want to be. It could be a quotation that speaks to you or a list of your values served by quieting your ego.
There is no right or wrong answer. It is a highly personal choice. Just go with what works for you.
Repeat
The ego pops up as a response to stressful situations. And you will be exposed to stressful situations. So this isn’t a one-time fix. Instead, quieting your ego is a daily practice.
In Summary
Your ego can be your best friend or your worst enemy. To make it your friend, you need to quiet your ego. You want it to be an encouraging whisper and not a deafening shout that drowns out others.
You can learn to quiet your ego by deliberately trying to think of yourself less. Make time to stop and look at your life objectively. Identify where you are succeeding and where you need to improve. Then focus on the work and not yourself.
