How To Kill Your Ego

’ve never had one; it’s never been an issue.

All of a sudden it appeared- and it started to fuck everything up.

The Ego will make you think you don’t need anything or anyone. Will make you worry about everyone else, except what is important. (I’ll tell you what’s important in a moment)

The Ego will make you bitter, jealous, and NOT your ‘best self’.

Being someone who’s always tried to make themselves better, even just 1%, every day, this was a huge pill to swallow. I couldn’t understand what was happening; I couldn’t believe I had become this.

have since beat down my Ego, I’ve gotten a grip on it, and now that son of a bitch is starving and will eventually die.

Here’s what life is like with the Ego (It’s not pretty)

found myself saying/doing the following things.

• Saying “This is the last conference I’ll go to” – Meaning that I know everything there is already and I can’t possibly learn anything else that will help me.
• Getting jealous over the success of my business partner- her success is directly her doing, I should be happy for her, not jealous.
• Focused on the results- trying to figure out what I’m going to do in the future. What I’m going to buy, where I’ll travel, what I’ll experience.
• Pissed off that I’m not getting the things I want- I had some expectation that things would just happen or fall in my lap.

So, now you know the backstory, how did I manage to kill this thing called Ego?

There’re two key elements needed to control and beat down the Ego.

First, identify that it’s present. This step is critical, if you don’t know there’s an issue, you won’t know how to control or overcome it.

Second, kill it. Now that you’ve identified it, time to destroy it.

How To Identify The Ego In Your life

felt this unsettling before anything else.

felt different. Negative thoughts, jealousy, and some expectation that things would just happen.

None of it felt “right.”

This gut feeling is how you can first tell if the Ego is taking over. It wants recognition for things you haven’t done or small things that are unimportant, in reality.

The Ego is a bastard who will tell you that you’re better, that you deserve more than what you have, that you don’t need to do any of the shit that got you to where you are today.

dentifying the Ego is hard, I’m lucky that I was able to pinpoint mine in just over a month. If I had never found it, I can assure you failure and disaster would have come quickly.

Everything that I worked so hard for would have been destroyed.

Here’re some questions to ask yourself if you have an Ego that needs to be addressed.

1. Where is most of my time spent?

• Dreaming of the future of the things that will happen
• n the daily work to get to that future

2. Am I jealous of:

• Other People
• Others’ success

3. Do I think I know it all?

• When someone tells you something new, how do you take that info
• Do you try and learn

4. Do you have a sense of unrealistic expectation

• Expect things to come to you
• Wonder why you aren’t getting the things you want

All of these questions will help you uncover your inner Ego.

f you are still having trouble, just ask your close friends (if they’re still around) or your family. Ask them if there’s anything they see that’s holding you back. If there’s some negative pattern of behavior, that needs to be corrected.

The hardest part of the Ego is realizing you have one.

The simple part is killing it.

How To Kill Your Ego

The good part about this entire thing is that the Ego can easily be killed.

There’s a process for this, and it’s quite simple. When you’re dealing with your Ego, it forces you to focus in the future, in the outside circumstances, in the bullshit you can’t control.

To kill it, you need to focus on the opposite.

Focus on the present moment, focus on the work not the outcome, focus on the things you can control, and also by taking a beginners mind.

NOW:

When you focus on the moment nothing else can get in the way. Nothing can distract you or take you away from what really matters. The now.

Now is the only thing that is real. When you dwell in the past or the future, they are both fiction. The only thing that is fact is the present moment. Don’t let your head get tied up with false ideas.

ACTION:

Action trumps everything. It trumps grand ideas, fantastic products, extraordinary visions. You can have all of those, but if you don’t have action, nothing will become reality.

Same goes for your Ego. It wants you to focus on the results, rather then the work. But the work is what will get the results. It will keep you grounded, and when you take action, results will come.

CONTROL:

The world is filled with things we can’t control. The trick is to focus on what you can control. Get out of the “what-ifs”; don’t worry about what other people are doing; don’t be jealous of that others have; none of it serves you.

For you to become all that you want to be, you need to focus on the things you can control. The things that are in your power, the things you can change.

BEGINNER:

You can’t leave out this last piece. It’s one of the biggest. One of the key elements to killing your Ego is to have to have a beginners mind.

By constant learning, you put yourself in a place of peace and humility. When you learn you realize that you don’t know it all and in turn, you get better. If you’re getting better, even by 1% every day, there’s no way you can’t kill your Ego.

When you’re growing, you don’t have time to worry about everyone or everything else. You’re evolving into the best you can be and that is all that matters.

Here’s Your Toolkit and Resources:

read a lot about how to manage and control my Ego. And most of what I’m giving you here was found in these books. And I owe most of my success to these.

n order to locate and kill your Ego, I suggest you read the following books in this order.

The Ego is the Enemy – It describes the life of people who had Egos, and those who didn’t have Egos. Gives clear examples of each on how and why some are good, and others are not. It shows the clear way to come to terms with you evil internal friend

The Obstacle Is The Way – Ironically enough written by the same author (Ryan Holiday), this book will tell you how to take control of the things you can. Your time, energy, actions, and focus are dependent upon you doing what’s important – breaking through the never ending barriers that will come up.