How to Balance Ego With Confidence
WHY: Ego is often the downfall of many of the world’s gifted and talented souls. Learning how to curb it while maintaining your confidence is a major step towards achieving or maintaining success. Don’t let ego ruin your chances in life, learn to replace it with confidence.
WHERE: Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. If you couldn’t tell by the title, Holiday believes that ego and it’s side effects stand in the way of achieving and maintaining success, as well as rebounding from failure. He details this concept to show that ego is unnecessary, and that one can have confidence without ego.
WHAT: The core of this concept is that confidence is EARNED while ego is FALSE. Anyone can believe they are important and are doing big things, but without the work and the action to back their words up, it’s just not true. That’s what ego really is, an inflated view of yourself. People with the biggest egos tend to talk constantly about how important they are, often out of insecurity. Confidence, on the other hand, comes from getting down in the trenches and putting in the work. As a martial artist, it comes from taking time daily to train and repeatedly practice the same techniques over and over again. I often see martial arts instructors that think they are great just because of the title they have, but haven’t trained intensely in years. They tend to be the biggest talkers, while the silent ones are usually the best trained.
Understanding that confidence is earned is the key to learning how to develop it. Just as money can be earned so people work, confidence too can be earned just through hard work. For example, I have committed to practicing 100 sidekicks every day. After just a week of doing them, I feel much more confident in my ability to perform them at a high level. I earned this confidence through practice. I don’t feel the need to tell everyone how good my sidekicks are because they will know just by seeing me do them. I don’t need to talk because I put in the work. That’s how you balance your ego with confidence, by putting in the work and earning it.
My challenge to you is this: find something you’re insecure about but want to improve, set aside daily action towards improving it, and watch as your confidence in that area soars, and your ego deflates.
If you found this inspiring or at the very least interesting, share it with a friend or on your favorite social media platform. As always, keep growing and living your best life!