New enemy detected! Are you there?

When an enemy is known, the battle is almost a victory.

Hello Friends,

I am pleased to write to you this week again. I hope you're smiling right now. Oh Yes, I caught you. Lol. It is my prayer that happiness and joy get your location.

---

It's not really a battle of bloodshed, don't be scared. It's an effortless battle you can win. More importantly, the tactics to win is about to be unleashed. It is a battle with your ego. Ryan Holiday wrote the book, Ego is the Enemy and even took the message so important that he had to scribble it on his hand. Before you wait to think it, know that I don't support tattooing in any way, Eheen.

Ryan Holiday defined ego as the unhealthy belief in our own importance. It's a feeling of importance and a destructive one at that because it's definitely working against us. Ego sabotages our long term goals and hinder one from mastery in one's craft, career path or endeavours.

Reading this book, I discovered that there's a tough enmity between our progress and our ego. Our long term achievements is always at stake whenever we are overwhelmed with our ego. The author emphasized that it is only when we are free of ego that we can perform. He recounted the story of an heavyweight boxer that go too obsessed with himself and his past success. Instead of preparing for his next contest, he was drunk in his glories and guess what? Eheen... Exactly.

Ego working against you

There are 3 ways our ego is said to be working against us according to Ryan. It creeps into our lives in these instances.

Aspiration:

Whenever we aspire to do something great and tend to constantly seek approval from people around and we are also fond of thinking about what other people are saying about us and/or our aspirations, here, ego rents an apartment in our head. Ultimately, you might end up not achieving anything because you'd be seeking perfection to satisfy people. And in the satisfaction of others is big wahala.

Success:

Whenever we achieve success at something, it's most likely that we feel every other of our endeavours will be successful. We tend to become over confident and eventually lose focus. When one is successful in a particular endeavour, nothing else would want to be seen as important and preparation worthy, you will belittle things and ultimately beautify yourself for failure.

Failure and Setback:

Whenever there is a setback, you'd always want to save your face and not want to take responsibility for your failure. You will never want to learn from your failure, instead, you'd consume yourself with excuses for your failures.

Defeating your ego

For every of the circumstances above, Ryan offered a way to defeat them. He drew his inspiration from Frank Sharmock's technique. He called it “+ – =”.

“For every fighter to be great they need someone better they can learn from, someone lesser they can teach and someone equal they can challenge themselves against”

Aspiration:

When you feel diagnosed for the “Aspiration way” of Ego, you need to find a challenge for yourself. You need an equal to take development challenges from. Surround yourself who are actually busy with progressing with the kind of aspiration as yours. This is the = “equal to” technique. Don't forget it.

Success:

You are the type that feel overwhelmed with your success that you become overconfident and not willing to accept the fact that uneasy lies the head that wears crown, you should look for someone greater than you. This requires humility. You should understand that there's always a superior to you in whatever endeavour you have chosen. Get one of your superiors to mentor, teach and guide you.

Failure and Setback:

In this case, you need someone lesser to teach from what you know, the lessons from your failure and thereafter start the journey of self improvement.

In conclusion, ego is a sworn enemy of progress, when it gets to one's head, there's a need to declare a state of emergency. And always remember to be;

Humble in your aspirations

Gracious in your success

Resilient in your failures

---

Thank you for reading my Newsletter. I hope you will consciously check your ways to shut all doors to ego.

---