Leave Your Ego At The Door

It is true that many women either underestimate or doubt their athletic capabilities at the gym or in sport. There is however that crowd of women who have let their ego run wild and are just oozing with that arrogant level of self confidence. You may be thinking surely this is only confined to your typical alpha males, that couldn’t be further from the truth. We all have an ego and believe it or not your ego could be holding you back from achieving results. How so? Well let me explain.

Your ego can be described as your conscious mind. It is the part of your identity that you consider your ‘self’. Our ego is an active part of our personality and is constructed by the thoughts that we have of ourself. It has been suggested that the human psyche holds three different aspects of personality. Firstly there is the id. The id is the only component of personality that is present at birth and contains our most basic instinctual drives. The id is a pleasure seeker that needs immediate gratification. It steers clear of pain and has no sense of implication or responsibility. Secondly there is the ego. The ego acts on the principle of reality, it helps to calm the id by implementing a more realistic and long term approach to acquiring gratitude. The ego must apply this approach in order to manage the requests of the id and super ego. The ego however can show bias to either the id or the super ego. The third aspect of our personality is the super ego. Our super ego takes responsibility for our moral compass by allowing us to recognise right and wrong where the ego can’t. The super ego is comprised of all the things we have ever been taught; this includes cultural rules, social norms and the things our parents taught us. Our super ego seeks social acceptance and try’s to contain our ego if it becomes unjust or impartial.

Now that you better understand what the ego is and how it works we can discuss what impact it has on your results. There are three main reasons as to why our ego holds us back. One, our ego keeps us out of touch with reality. It causes us to over-estimate our own abilities or self worth and leads us to under-estimate what skill or effort is required in order for us to succeed. This is in part due to the fact that our ego blocks critical and necessary feedback from outside sources. All of this results in us losing out on opportunities to better ourselves and connect with others. A good example of this is being too scared to try a heavier weight or push a little harder in case we fail. Two, our ego creates unrealistic expectations and entitlement. What this means is that our ego makes us assume that we deserve things based on our previous efforts. It fills our mind full of thoughts that we are entitled to things and that we are better then everyone else. This causes us to constantly compare ourselves to others and base expectations of ourselves off the achievements of others. Three, your ego makes you reliant on external validation. This validation can come in many forms such as praise from your peers, likes on social media or extrinsic signals like big houses and fancy cars. Remember the ego is vain, fragile and easily bruised. It seeks to avoid this pain by avoiding things we’ve told ourselves we can’t do. It fears failure and the prospect of having to persist at things we haven’t quite mastered yet. Ever decided you wanted to lose 10kg or do 10 chin ups but given up after the first week because you haven’t noticed any improvement yet? Well you can thank your ego for that.

So what can you do to get one up on your ego? The first thing you should do is drop any ego driven goals you have and swap them for a task goal. Task goals help to keep us accountable based on our own standards. For example rather than saying you want to win the race which is ego driven you might set out to beat your fastest time. This means your trying to compete with the only person who is important, yourself. Putting the focus back onto yourself and the things that are within your control will allow you to stop comparing yourself to others. That way your ego won’t get dented if you haven’t outdone someone else. If you’re trying to let go of your ego, it is imperative that you practice gratitude. Take time to think about all the people, experiences, lessons and mistakes that you are thankful for and be open to taking on feedback from these sources. This will help boost your personal growth. Lastly don’t be afraid to fail and don’t get discouraged if things don’t play out how you planned. Keep showing up and the results will come. The feedback which you receive from you ‘non-successes’ will make you stronger physically, mentally and emotionally.

It’s normal to let your ego take control at times. We all do it, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Just remember this is counter productive to your success and will only hold you back from achieving your goals. Base your goals on your own needs and desires and gauge your success purely on your own achievement, not anybody else’s.

xx Tara

Have you ever found your ego getting in the way of achieving your goals? Let me know in the comment section below.

#confidence