Stop Trying To Prove Yourself

One of the primary needs of the ego is to create a sense of independence and separation from others. Our ego evolved to help us understand our ranking within a tribe, and that can only be done through comparison. In an effort to increase our status in a group, we have a natural pull to want to prove ourselves to others.

This is a powerful force that offers good motivation, but the problem is it can motivate the wrong things. It leads you to do something because of what it signals to others, not because it’s what you want to do or who you want to be. That’s why it’s important to understand our ego and its needs.

Recently I’ve subscribed to the Fios Brothers daily newsletter and I’ve been really enjoying it. Last week they featured this quote that struck me:

“Stop trying to prove yourself. Start trying to improve yourself. One keeps you stuck performing for other people. The other keeps you growing for yourself.”

Improvement flips the focus of your efforts inward, and invites you to compare your present self with your past self. That’s all improvement is… Measuring how things were, measuring how things are now, and noticing the difference. If things in your life are now closer to where you wanted to be, then improvement occurred. 

The secret to genuine improvement is that you conduct this self-comparison without criticism. Rather than feeling worse about yourself when things aren’t improving, you use it as feedback. Our ego wants to use our shortcomings to place us in the hierarchy, and when the results are disappointing it then deflects responsibility out of self-preservation. But that prevents us from learning from our mistakes and keeps us from doing better next time. The more you can sit with things and understand what caused it, the more awareness you have to create improvement in your next attempt.

That’s why I swear by completing a Daily Check In every day. It’s a moment to measure my performance, reflect on what got in the way, and accelerate my growth. Click here to check out a video where I show my System for that.

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