How come you do it for yourself?
In the beginning, you did things to learn for yourself. For example, you learn to walk for yourself. You want to walk. You see people around you doing this and you then want to do the same.
Then when you do something you get a lot of appreciation and recognition. People get happy, start laughing, maybe clap maybe you get a candy. You don't always know why you get this.
Because sometimes you also do things that just get ignored or get negative attention. At least not the attention you thought you were getting.
My accomplishments are associated with feelings of appreciation and recognition and some accomplishments are associated with punishment. You can do this and you can't do this. In that way, my ego is shaped. As a result, I think performing is important because it gives me recognition. If I do something well I get appreciation and if I don't do something well I don't get it.
I get attention, but not necessarily the bit of appreciation and recognition I'm looking for.
So at some point this is linked to performance. If I perform then it is good, if I don't then it is not good.
Initially, this is very convenient. This is because it makes you persevere and motivated to achieve certain goals for which other people "reward" you with attention, but it can also make you consider tasks for which you do not get rewards from other people less important[1], such as doing your tax return properly.
This can cause all sorts of problems in the long run, such as the idea of never being good enough, becoming a perfectionist or even burnout.
It can also go the other way namely the side of it's never good enough anyway, I'm not going to perform anymore and I get depressed. Now I don't get appreciation, because I'm not performing anything and so I'm not worth anything.
You often see this kind of linkage coming back later, even though this is something that originated from your childhood days. The period when you are really still a baby. This does not mean that as a parent you should not do this, it is in our nature to reward achievement in children. Only then in adult life do we let go of achievements a bit. But then change your behavior again?
Until you are +- 20 years old, you are in school and busy performing. Then when you have accomplished all kinds of things you can get the feeling of "is this all?".
Even in sports, you see that always performing better stops at some point, so after age 30.
If those achievements are linked to your ego or something like that, then you can have a midlife crisis from that or something like that.
When you want to transcend this, or when you just want to do something different. Then you are still doing something, but instead of doing it for appreciation from others, you are doing it for satisfaction for yourself.
Instead, you start looking for something for meaning. Imagine that you get great satisfaction from playing guitar, but you don't necessarily have to go on stage. You do it purely for yourself. For example, you want to get better, but it is for yourself. It's not about performing, it's not about appreciation, but it's just about you wanting to get better to get self-satisfaction.
For example, you sometimes see with artists that they are not at all happy with all the appreciation they receive. As soon as they get off stage they get depressed and in their hotel room they are on drugs.
But fortunately, there are also artists who actually get satisfaction from their work and their performances. Who become happy regardless of whether they have an audience or not. It's just something they enjoy doing, regardless of whether they get appreciation for it.
When you succeed in this you have transcended your ego because you then focus, direct, your attention to what makes sense to you now and what gives meaning to you. When you focus your attention or performance on that, it can't go wrong otherwise and that you suddenly have a midlife crisis, burnout or whatever.
Because you're doing something you think is cool. Whether you get credit for this or not.
The likelihood of success then also increases because you do this with passion. And then the trick is to go back to meaning to hold on to this tof-finding to keep it from becoming an ego thingy.
Be sure to listen to this podcast as well:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1257800-je-ego-is-top
Ego by others is a trap
In the process, scientists have linked it to narcissism and ego growth. That is, it is a trap, by appreciating others you get a bigger ego in the short term, but this is not sustainable in the long term and can then even be harmful to yourself and the others who helped you get this bigger ego[2].
This is also reflected in my rant that you can eventually get burnout if your ego depends on other people's appreciation.
In the process, having too much ego can also make you more aggressive. Suppose over the years you have acquired the image that you are a great person. You are super and fantastic and good at what you do, but maybe not quite the best, but you think you are.
If someone then points this out to you, you are more likely to become violent than if you have a realistic self-image and thus a realistic ego[3].
How do you take care of a healthy ego?
So a healthy ego is one that you link to self-esteem and that is proportionate, so that it cannot be threatened and that keeps you from becoming aggressive (although, of course, not everyone with a big ego has this problem). The question is how you achieve that.
For example, if you have become depressed, your ego has become unhealthy, so to speak. You are then kind of wounded. Fortunately, you can improve this with several techniques, such as Ego state therapy and cognitive hypnotherapy[4].
For example, you learn how to change your emotional state by imagining certain things, for example. A hypnotherapist will help you with this.
Cognitive hypnotherapy deals more with the thoughts you have, such as how you value yourself and what you think of yourself, and helps you change them.
For example, a fun technique is to make a negative thought completely ridiculous. When you can laugh at the thought "I think of myself as stupid," that thought no longer has any power at all to influence your emotions and you actually become more cheerful.
This can be done, for example, by speaking the thought out loud as ridiculously as possible. Depending on your humor, or beliefs, this can be done in weird voices, by making weird movements with it or by pretending to say it in a completely different mood than a negative mood. For example, say very sexually that you are stupid. That's ridiculous, isn't it?
So how much influence can that thought have on your ego?
In addition, hypnosis can help you figure out why you find it so hard to do something for yourself that makes you feel good, and why you find it so hard to let go of needing appreciation from other people to feel good.
This can be done, for example, with regression. Regression is a technique by which, with the help of the hypnotist, you go back to the moment when you determined that appreciation from others is the only way your ego feels good. That you cannot do this on your own without the help of other people.
Next, you start doing something with that moment. Maybe someone said something to you, maybe you saw something, it could be anything. Then you are going to revisit this moment with your current knowledge, maybe you are going to change the moment in your mind with your imagination.
This can change beliefs and even strengthen your sense that you can do things for yourself to feel good.
There are also other things that can be used for a healthy ego with self-esteem, such as guided visualizations, repeating affirmations and future pacing.
You can all learn how this all works and how to help people or yourself with it.
For example, come to a hypnosis playshop to master the basics of hypnosis. These playshops are held in Wormerveer and Zwolle.
Want to see hypnotherapy and master the basics? Then come to a hypnosis seminar and get inspired.
Want to get started right away with techniques to help yourself or others? Then enroll in one of our training courses.
[1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-03433-001
[2] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-03693-002
[3] https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1996-01716-001
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00029157.2013.796282
