It’s easy then to be sidetracked by incredulity, hurt ego or even even reactive impulses of revenge.īut that’s exactly when you need to stay calm, put your head down and get on with the most efficient and effective work you can produce. Some people will indeed go out of their way to make you fail. Ryan says that it’s almost a given that as you strive valiantly towards your goals, you’ll meet not just total indifference, but possibly even covert or open sabotage.
The realistic side is always checking in and making sure that we are moving forward on the right track.īecause achievement cannot rely on daydreamers.Īchievement’s foundation lay on realism, not daydreaming Rein Your Ego When You Encounter Sabotage What’s the difference? Purpose is passion tempered with a healthy dose of realism and perspective. Holiday proposes purpose and realism instead of passion. Ryan Holiday notices that we are constantly bombarded with the message of “finding our passion”.īut, similarly to Cal Newport and Angela Duckworth, he warns that “finding our passion” is often a fool’s quest. And instead of looking at reality and ways we could move forward, we get busy defending ourselves and bragging about what we’ve done. Pride makes us defensive when someone criticizes us or shows us that we could do better.
However, pride blinds us to new opportunities and room for improvements. Pride helps us justify our ego, and tells us how good we are after a major success that we’ve had. Pride and ego are connected but different. Pride Prevents Us From Bigger Achievements Think, recognize and say thank you to all the people who supported you.Share recognition with others (often they’ll do the same back).Trust others and learn to delegate (our ego stops us from delegating by telling us we’re the only ones who can perform well).Find someone more skilled than you are to learn from.Know that mastery is an eternal pursuit (sweeping the gym floor every day).
Eternal learner: remind yourself that there is always something new to learn.Here are a way tips and mindsets to control our egos: Ryan Holiday distinguishes between ambition and egoism.Īmbitious people strive to excel in their field and be the best they can be, regardless of whether they become famous and receive accolades and congratulations.Įgoists instead chase after fame, popularity and accolades, whether they are actually skilled at what they do or not. It’s the ego that wants to look good and successful and looks for the trappings of success instead of real mastery. Make it instead, focus on becoming so good that you don’t even think about faking it. Ryan trashes the idea of “faking it till you make it”. Success (ego gets big here and undermines your own success).Aspire (talk less and do more drop the 10.000 hour rule: it takes infinite time to mastery).Holiday divides Ego is The Enemy in three phases, with the ego playing a different role in each one of them: This could be a definition of the harmful type of ego that Ryan Holiday wants to warns us against:Įgo is the unhealthy belief in your own importance The 3 Phases of Ego However, Ego is The Enemy focuses on those instances when ego doesn’t help us anymore and stands in the way of our success. Some psychiatrists even say that narcissism in moderate doses is positively correlated with a healthy self-esteem and positive personality. It allows us to compete, strive to reach our goals and do our best to surpass our past achievements. There are many techniques to avoid ego-take over, including being eternal learners and pay homage to everyone who’s helped us along the wayĪ moderate ego is important to success in life.When ego and pride get to us, we lose track of what really matters and what we need to focus on.Ego blinds us and inflates our sense of worth, distorting reality.Rein Your Ego When You Encounter Sabotage.Pride Prevents Us From Bigger Achievements.