How to Reduce the Ego.

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The ego is that part in us which feeds off praise, compliments and success. When we live in the ego we are inevitably subject to feelings of superiority / inferiority, pride and worthlessness, success and failure. If we want to avoid these negative emotions we need to transcend the ego. If we can transcend the ego, we will find that people are instinctively more attracted to us, even though we are no longer trying to impress. It may seem a great paradox, yet, limiting the role of our ego can make a radical difference to our lives.

These are some factors which can reduce the power of the Ego.

1. Don’t Try to impress

Don’t speak about your own achievements. Don’t drop names of great people you have met. Avoid forcing your accomplishments and success into the conversation. If you have been successful in accumulating wealth, try to keep quiet about it. All these factors may impress your own ego, but, you can guarantee they will have little impact on other people.

2. Be aware of False Modesty.

Sometimes when we say. “O I’m absolutely hopeless”. Actually what we are wanting is for people to respond. ‘O no your not, your really good.” Humility means that we don’t take excessive pride in our achievements, but, it also means we don’t exaggerate our failings in the hope of gaining sympathy.

3. Be Careful of Flattery.

We need to be careful about receiving praise, in some ways it can be as difficult as receiving criticism. The problem is that the ego likes receiving praise and so we can easily become addicted to being flattered. Don’t seek out people who are keen to flatter us, as this is only feeding the ego. Also, be wary of flattering other people in the hope that they will return the compliment.

4. Don’t use your Religion / Spirituality to Impress.

It is a mistake to feel that the practise of a religion / spiritual path gives us a moral superiority over other people. If we feel any superiority we are missing the whole point of spirituality. Spirituality is about a feeling of oneness not of proving that one path is better than others. This can be one of the most insidious types of ego. This is because when we wrap up the ego in a sense of moral superiority, we can easily trick ourselves into thinking we are reducing the ego, when actually we are strengthening it.

5. Be Aware of the extended Ego.

Ego, is not just about feeling we are better than others. Our Ego can also be expressed via national / religious feeling. When we feel a pride or superiority in our religion / nation, there is still the same problem of ego but, it is expressed through an extended sense of reality. This sense of superiority / pride is just as damaging as if it was contained to ourselves. However, we can feel that because it is not directly related to ourselves, somehow there is no ego involved.

6. Don’t Speak badly of Others.

Quite often, when we speak ill of others there is a subtle attempt to make ourselves look better. We may not explicitly say it, but, when we point to someone’s shortcomings we imply that we don’t have these, and therefore we are much better than them. The important thing here is the motive. Be very vigilant; what is your inner motive for criticising someone else? If it is to make you feel / look better, be very careful. The irony of course is that when we criticise someone, often we have the same imperfections ourselves, it is just that we find it easier to see them in other people.

7. What is Your Motivation for Doing Something?

If nobody knew that you had done it, would you still do the action with the same intensity? Can you work without expecting reward and praise? If you can do things selflessly with no desire for people to find out, this is a sign you do not give importance to the ego. If you only do things in the hope of praise, then you are working to satisfy the ego. The sad thing is that if you really work selflessly, at some point, your efforts will receive much greater recognition because people will come to also value the selfless motivation behind the action. Try doing some things but not let anybody no about it. In the NT, this is what Jesus meant when he said. “and with you left hand.

8. Don’t rely on Your Physical Appearance to Impress.

If you rely on your physical beauty to impress this is definitely coming from the ego. This is not to see beauty is bad thing, far from it. But, real beauty is heightened by modesty and the absence of ego. Avoid paying excessive interest to your physical looks.

To reduce our ego, we have to give great importance to our thoughts and motivation behind our actions. We have to be very strict with ourselves and work out why we are doing something. To reduce the ego, requires great vigilence, we need to reflect on each action and motivation. However, to reduce the influence of the ego, is of great value, it is the key to achieving a sense of inner peace.

If you have any other tips for reducing the ego, I would be interested in hearing them!

106 thoughts on “How to Reduce the Ego.”

  1. This brings to mind the modest demeanor and feeling of peace I sense when I meet or speak with Indian people. It is very attractive and I always remark to myself–“I wish I were more like that!”

  2. These might be good points but, not possible to follow at all. because recognizing the ego itself is a great difficulty then more over when we discuss something, we always talk something which we have done, or something wrong which people have done and these are facts, then how come that can be signs of ego?

  5. great post and tips 🙂
    but i personally believe that regret always reduces the ego

  6. Today i feel sad and happy to see this nice site after wasting my many years in dark !! I am sad as to why i did not come across before and happy that even late but still have chance to improve myself and live simple with high thinking. Although not easy in this modern hectic routine machine life where we doing whatever best to survive but still there should be some way out !! thanks a lot !!

  7. Wow, this is gr8. Though of course, I figured out all this stuff a long time ago when I was very young all by MY self. Even now I see people running around concerned only with their own pathetic and egotistical lives and Im always glad that im not like that. I always think to myself that if they were more like me their live would be so much better. But noooo, they dont want to be humble like me or self reflective like me or want to listen to all the important things i can tell. I metioned this to Prof. Derek Stewart (the head of the philosophy department at Queen Mary University who i know very well) when I went to see him to collect my first class degree, and he completly agreed with me. These people are so stupid….oh wait…i think i have a problem 🙁

  8. This is so fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!may God bless you who are preparing these materials.

  9. How should one deal with a complex of being victim in life. I think it is rooted in ego, because it is a subtle urge to show that I have come thus far despite many hardships. I am sure it probably really comes from a place of feeling inferior. I want to free myself from it but I think it is part of my sense of identity so pops up again and again. Then if I talk about the difficult past with others I am unsure if it coming from ego or not. I wonder if I should try and let go of past hardships completely?

  10. Immediately after reading this article, I rememebred a post on ego that I had read long ago.

    So many things you and I do are ego driven but we are unconscious of it and feel we are doing them.

    deoxy.org/egofalse.htm is the article that I had read long ago which made a lasting impact on me.

    Thank you for this post of course. 🙂

  11. relly nice post..thank you…

    i accept that i am a person who is completely overshadowed by ego..

    i’ll try my best to reduce my ego …

    thank you!!!

  13. I think that the ideas and points of the article are good, but I don’t understand why we have to “reduce” the ego, rather than “change” it?
    Without our “ego” we would simply be animals living on our basic instincts.
    Is that really the goal of our existence?

  14. Shouldn’t the goal be to control and tame the instincts with our “ego” instead?

  15. Christian Bach: The concept of ego as something that controls the id is overly simplistic. In most cases, the ego becomes that which it tries to control. Accumulation of material wealth is primal behaviour. It’s a modern day version of tribal hoarding (food, hunting resources, etc.). Similarly, as we homo sapiens are social animals, the need for social validation manifests itself in an addiction to flattery and conformity to the group.

    So destruction of the ego won’t make you a reactionary animal. You already are one. It won’t even make you a Nietzschian ubermensch, for that too is a limited understanding of enlightenment. It is impossible to describe in words what it leads to. Describing water to a person who has never tasted it doesn’t transmit knowledge of what it actually is. Only the experience of drinking does.

  18. Dear Stephen,
    Thanks for longing for letting go of ego.
    If you keep yourself in touch with me via mail, surely i will be able within a moment to make you enlightened following the path of janamarg, because i think your are qualified enough to absorb the said.
    With loving regards,
    masud from bangladesh

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