A couple of friends of mine are battling with an issue that many of us can relate to:
“There’s something I want to change (or control) in my life but I don’t know how to do so.”
In the case of my friends it has to do with their ego (more about the ego here). They’ve begun to notice how they’re ego (or lack of it) is affecting their behaviour and performance in life.
As I began to reflect on advice from my knowledge on leadership development, I began to realize an important understanding I discovered during my own experiences with my own ego:
To change or control anything, it first must be understood.
Often times we jump to change/control things in our lives without fully understanding them. In the case of your ego, before you can do anything about it you have to understand how it works for you.. or against you. Do you have an outwardly aggressive ego (attacking others) or inwardly aggressive one (beating yourself up)? What triggers your ego? How strong is it? What behaviours does it lead to? etc.
All these questions give you a better understanding what your ego is and how it works. The challenge with this phase is that it’s all education and not necessarily desired results. You may not want your ego or want control over it; however, during this discovery and understanding phase you have to be patient and realize that in order to understand anything you need to experience it fully, whether you like that experience or not.
Once you have a good understanding of how something works, then you need to decide what you want to change about it or what type of control you want over it. In the case of your ego, you’ll never be able to get rid of it but perhaps you want to be able to catch yourself when you are in your ego state or perhaps be able to turn it on and off in a very disciplined way. Since you now understand your ego, you have more power in taking that control. You will be able to notice when it flares because you’ve studied how it does.
To easily rationalize this approach let’s use analogies! You can’t fly a plane unless you understand how planes fly. You can’t drive a car unless you understand how cars drive. You can’t do business unless you understand how business is done. You get the point! Understanding preludes change/control but cannot compensate for it.
This same approach applies to many other areas of life: relationships, business, personal growth and more.
As the great saying goes, “Know thyself before you change thyself.”(Ok, not sure if that’s a great saying, but it should be right?)
Ryan is a Leadership Coach, Speaker and Entrepreneur at helping young adults realize their full potential.
