Understanding your Ego and How it Affects your Performance at Work
Most of us think of our ego as the thing that makes us cocky or a jerk. But really the ego (according to Eckart Tolle) is our identification to surface level things.
The thing the ego loves the most is validating itself. One of its favorite past times is to seek out the evidence to make itself “right” or “correct.” When you gather enough perceived evidence, you’ll manifest whatever reality you want. For example, if you think that you’re not a great presenter at work, your ego will actually seek out things like a nauseous stomach and a bored face and continue to feed those images and feelings to the brain to prove to itself that it is correct.
Imagine these scenarios and see if any of them resonate. As objectively as you can, consider how you might act if you’re living out these thoughts.
If you think - “this won’t be done right unless I do it,” what kinds of things will your ego look for to validate this? Probably any spec of “laziness,” or outcomes that you believe aren’t perfect from your colleagues. This will likely cause you to be ungrateful for any effort presented and make you believe that you can’t teach your colleagues new tasks. How much do you think others will want to step up and help you? This becomes a cycle where you’re doing all the work alone.
If you think - “my work is never quite good enough” what will the ego show you? It will tell you that you need to spend more time than necessary to complete a task, and classify any and all mistakes, even if small, as big or unforgivable ones. How much extra time will you spend ruminating and making something “perfect” instead of learning new tasks and taking on higher level opportunities?
If you think - “my client/boss/manager etc hates me” how will you take feedback when it’s given to you? Instead taking it an opportunity to up-level and get better, you might spend the energy getting defensive and explanatory. Ultimately, you won’t want to make change. When your boss/client/manager doesn’t see improvement, will you be the first on the list for the next promotion cycle?
Seems like a scam, right? It kinda is…except, it works both ways. The ego can create a spiral of negativity and doubt, and it can also create the opposite. And the opposite, where we create an upward spiral of positivity and possibility, is incredibly powerful and exciting.
And so, how do we go from here to there though?
For starters, I like to offer the “What if…” scenario.
“What if you didn’t hate that task?”
“What if your manager didn’t hate you?”
“What if you could teach someone how to do it better than you can?”
I’ll admit that there’s a little bit of training the brain to think differently, and that’s what I teach my clients to do. Because when you teach the ego to validate a productive thought, you can do anything.