Ego comes before self-esteem. If we take things personally we create problems for ourselves and create more issues for others. We do not get things right and cause ourselves a lot of unnecessary grief. On the other hand, if we do not take things personally then we are allowing ego to govern our behavior which will cause many more problems and make us unhappy in the process.
Self-esteem should be equated with confidence. Confidence is derived from self-esteem. Without either of these we cannot survive. It is an important factor in everything that we do.
Many people today work jobs they hate because their ego rules their life. This can be quite frustrating and in many cases quite dangerous as well. For instance, I once had a boss who constantly talked to me about things I didn’t want to talk about. If I tried to ignore him, he would try to control my thought processes so that I wouldn’t question or challenge him.
He would say things like, “every decision you make is correct and what you don’t know is wrong.” “You are not going to make any mistakes.” I thought to myself, this guy knows a whole lot about business, but his opinions are way out of line with reality. These kind of comments caused me to doubt myself and to fear leaving the office, not to mention how it effected my career.
In order to avoid all of these situations, I made a conscious decision to stop listening to his voice and to no longer respond to his nonsense. Instead, I would simply respond to him by saying, “I appreciate your comments, but that’s not the important thing here. The important thing right now is that I am the boss.” When this change occurred my opinion of myself was changed and I began to believe that I could do whatever I wanted to. I became a better employee and enjoyed working at a company where I got to be the boss.
Now, let’s put ego in another place. Ego comes from the Greek word eus which means “self” or “personality”. It’s our personal brand or mask that we wear to project who we think we are. This is where some of our greatest achievements stem from, when we come into a job and are able to look at ourselves in the mirror and see the person we want to be.
What happened when we left that job? We became a better person because we finally had to recognize who we really were inside and then decide what we were going to do about it. This is where the true benefits of having a positive image come in. Now I am happier, less stressed, more productive and I love my job. This makes me a happier person in general, so the effects of ego are also dispersed to my friends and family as well.
To summarize, the key to having a great life is to have self-esteem, respect yourself and others and let the ego go when it doesn’t have to. Don’t hide behind your image and mask of who you are. You are unique and you deserve a lot better than what you are getting today. When you feel good about yourself and know who you are, you will attract those things you only want to attract. Then your dreams will come true and your ego will be happy too.