{"id":45309,"date":"2021-08-03T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T13:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=45309"},"modified":"2021-08-16T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T16:08:09","slug":"how-to-let-go-of-ego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-let-go-of-ego\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Holiday: How to Let Go of Ego"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What exactly is an ego? How does having an inflated ego<\/a> distort your perception of yourself and others?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Ryan Holiday, the author of Ego Is the Enemy<\/em>, ego is an unhealthy belief in one\u2019s own importance that distorts our perception of the world<\/a> so that we see ourselves as central figures and see everyone else as either subservient or oppositional. Further, he argues that seeing the world this way causes a host of adverse consequences such as difficulty accomplishing things (because ego causes us to overestimate our abilities) and connecting with people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we’ll discuss Holiday’s advice on how to let go of ego<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ryan Holiday on Ego<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many successful people are famously egotistical\u2014ambitious, self-important, and caught up in their own vision of the world. He says that as a result, society tends to think that ego is an important ingredient in success, as if ego<\/em> leads to accomplishment<\/em>. According to Holiday, this is not the case. He believes that ego leads far more often to failure<\/em>, and that people find success only when they\u2019re able to control their egotistical impulses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holiday argues that overall, ego leads us to failure because it causes us to overestimate our own skills while underestimating threats and challenges. It also prevents us from effectively connecting with people, which limits our ability to lead them or to inspire them to help us. Further, it can lead to a host of adverse characteristics, such as addiction, depression, mania, and abuse, which can destroy a person\u2019s career (and life). He emphasizes that you don\u2019t need to be a full-blown \u201cegomaniac\u201d (a person completely<\/em> obsessed with themselves) to suffer the effects of ego, but that even slightly elevated levels of ego can hold you back from success and create difficulties in your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holiday\u2019s Definition of Ego<\/strong>

Holiday uses the term \u201cego\u201d in the way it\u2019s come to be known in our general popular culture and not as psychiatrists define the term. 

Psychiatrists define the term as one of three pieces of the human psyche: the id, the superego, and the ego. The id<\/strong> is the impulsive part of us that responds to basic desires, fears, and urges. The superego<\/strong> is the opposite of the id\u2014it counters the id\u2019s urges with morals and societal expectations<\/a>. The ego<\/strong> is the part in the middle. It evaluates the input from the id and the superego and makes our decisions. 

Psychiatrists consider a healthy psyche as one where the ego is firmly in control of both the id and the superego<\/a>, so that a person is not ruled by either too many primitive impulses (from the id) or too many rules (from the superego, which leads to compulsive disorders). 

In contrast, Holiday uses the term \u201cego\u201d to mean the part of our psyche that is always and only looking out for ourselves\u2014the part that is driven by primitive instincts of \u201cme first\u201d and is influenced by fears and desires. His use of the term corresponds most closely with the psychiatric term \u201cid.\u201d Therefore, while he argues that the ego should not drive our decisions, psychiatrists would say the ego should<\/em> drive our decisions. However, the difference between the two arguments is only a difference in language. Both theories say that we should not let the more primitive, instinct-driven part of our psyche control our thoughts and actions.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the book, Holiday gives three pointers on how to let go of ego: <\/p>\n\n\n\n