May 2, 2025 • 40 mins
Sometimes we just need to humble ourselves. We need to tell our ego to take a back seat and let ourselves fail, let ourselves be beginners, be bested, admit we were wrong and in today's episode I'm going to explain the exact psychological power of humility, including:
- The 3 different definitions of ego
- Why your ego is sabotaging you and keeping you stagnant
- 5 subtle signs your ego is taking over
- Why humility makes us happier, more successful, and better connected
- How to refocus from self-centeredness to contribution and connection + so much more
Listen now!
ORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean
Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast
For business: psychologyofyour20s@gmail.com
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. Before we begin, I want
to just thank all of you who.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have ordered or pre ordered my book.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
This last week has been off the charts. The support
has been so overwhelming. If you don't already know, my
first book, Person and Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology
of Your Twenties, came out this week and I am
just I'm well, obviously, I'm speechless. I'm so grateful for
(00:46):
this community, and I'm so grateful for you guys, and
for the support you've shown me. Some of you have
even finished the book already, which is insane because it
came out three days ago, and it just means so
much to me. I had so much imposter syndrome going
into this. I was catastrophizing every moment of every day.
(01:09):
The negative reviews I was gonna get. You know, how
many people would say she's a terrible writer, she shouldn't
have done this.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I just I was my own worst enemy. For a
little bit there, and yet I have been met with
just a wall of positivity and love from your and gosh,
it's made me feel really good about the world. It's
made me feel really good about humanity, and it's made
me feel really good about myself. So thank you so
much for providing me with that gift. I hope that
(01:39):
I've provided you with a gift and that my book
will help you. Has helped you, is fascinating, interesting, makes
you feel less alone, and that if you haven't already
ordered it, you check it out. You can buy it
anywhere you buy books, preferably your local bookstore. I don't
make any more money from where you buy it. I
(01:59):
just feel like, at this time, in this day and age,
big corporations maybe need a little bit less about money
and shop local. Shop your independent bookstore who will really
appreciate that twenty dollars sale, and you can have a
nice chat with the person behind the counter and you
can peruse and feel homely and cozy. That's kind of
(02:20):
my preference. But again, thank you so much, even for
just you know, listening to the podcast, for talking about
the podcast with friends, talking about my book with your friends,
checking it out, on good Reads. Any of those things,
it really means the world. But without further ado, let's
stop babbling on about person and progress and let's get
(02:41):
into the episode now. I'm not proud to admit that
this episode is inspired by a moment that happened to
me the other day and it involves a bicycle. So
I was walking to my ceramics class, which you guys
know I go to every single Wednesday, and I had
my headphones on. I was playing the New Lord song,
(03:02):
of course, and I was tuned in. My fourteen year
old self was having a great time. And as I
went to turn this corner, this cyclist rides past me
and like brushes me, like brushes against my arm. And
as she passes, she turns around and makes this gesture
to me, like look where you're going, and she shakes
(03:23):
her head and she rides off. But as she rides off,
like she keeps looking back at me and keeps shaking
her head, like looking very disapproving, And it kind of
shocked me. But my second reaction was just rage, like,
how dare she be mad at me? I'm just listening
to my music. She doesn't own the road. Blah blah, blah,
(03:45):
and I was really mad. I was really upset, and
immediately after that, I felt so gross. I felt this
deep anger, evil meanness in my bones. I was so
mad at her. I kept thinking about it over and
over again, and it just was weighing me down. And
(04:06):
as I kept walking and I calmed down, I was like,
wait a second, what the heck was that? Where did
that come from? Like? Why am I feeling so entitled
and angry at this poor woman who I probably cut
off like I wasn't paying attention? And it kind of
(04:28):
scared me. My ego was so reacted that it clouded
my judgment. It made me think ill of this total stranger,
and honestly, it put me in such a terrible mood
for the rest of the day and for what It
was just after this that I was like, hmm, I
need to humble myself right now. It is time to
(04:51):
sit back and reflect on what's going on here, because
that right there, that was ugly behavior. And it was
really that instance that triggered me to art noticing some
changes in myself recently, and changes that I didn't like.
It feels icky and hard to look at, but you know,
I've been more jealous. Recently, I've been more critical, I've
(05:11):
been more defensive, I've been more argumentative, and because of
how conscious I am of it, it really got me
thinking about humility and why is the case that I
had perhaps incidentally allowed my ego to kind of go
off the rails. That's a hard thing to talk about,
and even saying that, I'm wondering who out there is
(05:32):
judging me, who out there is thinking differently of me?
But something I always believe is that if you're experiencing something,
someone else out there is also experiencing it, And hopefully
my candor is beneficial to someone else who is noticing
this weird entitlement in themselves that is causing them a
lot of shame and that they want to change. Sometimes
(05:55):
we do have to practice humility sometimes when our ego,
we do have to rain her in. So how exactly,
and this is the question I've been asking myself, how
exactly do we strike that healthy balance between being proud
of ourselves, knowing what we deserve, but not being prideful.
(06:15):
How do we strike the balance of being confident but
not arrogant. That's really what I want to lay out
for all of us today, including the real definition of ego,
what ego looks like, where it comes from, what pride
looks like, the consequences of an inflated ego. And there's
six steps that I personally have been taking to bring
(06:38):
me back to a humble, honest equilibrium and to make
me a more pro social, better human, because whatever has
been happening in my brain in my body that has
caused me to respond this way to certain situations, I
don't like it. But I also think that when you
acknowledge parts of yourself that you don't particularly enjoy, you're
(06:58):
also capable and you must change them or kind of submit,
voluntarily submit yourself to suffering under the impression of your
own thoughts and feelings that you don't take accountability for.
So it's a bit more of a philosophical episode today,
but I promise we also touch on some very important
psychology without further ado no judgment zone, Let's talk about humility.
(07:28):
So before we get into it, we firstly need to
talk about the various definitions of ego, because surprisingly there
is more than one. Most of us tend to think
of ego as just our sense of self confidence or
our sense of self worth when our ego is inflated,
we believe we possess more worth than others, which is
not true. When our ego is deflated, we believe we
(07:52):
possess less worth than others. It's also not true all
humans contain equal worth. Was about our perception of ourselves
in comparison to others. Therefore, it's a subjective acknowledgment. It's
a subjective opinion rather than an objective fact of who
we are. So the first definition of ego that you
(08:14):
are probably familiar with is pride, self worth, self confidence.
It is often associated with entitlement, feeling like you deserve
more than you have or than what others have. From
a more psychological perspective, though, we want to turn to
Freud's definition. He is really the one that first interrogated
(08:38):
this idea of ego for it, of course, being the
very famous Austrian psychoanalyst, and his idea of ego differed
slightly to the definition that we currently uphold.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Freud saw the ego.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
As the part of the mind that mediates between our
primal urges, our moral values.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
And reality.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
All of us, you and me, we have this impulsive
desire to take to do what we want to do,
to be quite animal. We have these natural instincts of
possession and desire, but we are also ruled by this
very real moral system that has taught to us at
a young age, and which yes, doesn't always get it right,
(09:22):
but it is what allows us to be civilized and
respectful to each other. It's things like don't steal, don't
make people feel bad about themselves, don't murder, don't be unkind.
So when the part of us that is quite unruly
gets too big, our ego becomes unbalanced and we behave
(09:43):
in a way that makes us feel gross.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Or uncaring or arrogant.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Therefore, this part of us, it's called the id, needs taming,
it needs humbling, so that the moral side and the
ID can sit in harmony. So that's the definition given
by Freud. Ego is an unbalanced system within us where
pride is allowed to take over. Let me give you
(10:11):
another definition of ego that's not psychological. It's philosophical, and
it comes from Buddhism. So in Buddhism, ego is basically
the source of suffering. Ego has us forget that we
exist in a very vast, flowing ecosystem with other living
souls who all have their own intricacies, stories, and worth,
(10:31):
and our ego is the thing that puts us above
everyone else in a very unnatural and harmful way. So
there is an incredible article written by the Mindful Stoic
that I was reading when I was exploring this topic
that talks about the idea of anata or the no self,
which is quite popular in Buddhism. Basically, this idea of
(10:54):
the no self suggests that we are a combination of
everything around us. We are constantly changing. Nothing makes us
more special than anyone else. There is nothing that we
do that we can ever take full credit for. We
are basically just the world it's experiencing itself. And when
we respect that principle, our attachment to ideas like success, fairness, pride,
(11:17):
they're quite healthy. We tend to live a happier existence.
I think that this idea is really really profound. It's
very freeing to just exist and watch yourself evolve and
detach from all the heavy stuff that we opt into
and just understand that you and everyone around you is equal,
is hopefully in harmony, and in are connected. What happens
(11:40):
when ego rules, well, that becomes a problem. Ego is
wanting to separate you from this humility and this understanding
of connectedness with other human beings. Ego is also always
going to be a part of you. Now, that's something
that I probably should have stayed before. The idea in
the existence of ego was not the problem. It's when
(12:02):
it's allowed to rule and when essentially we are off balance.
Here are some signs that that is occurring. Here are
some signs that you know you kind of need to
humble yourself. The first red flag is that, quite simply,
you always need to be right, and you struggle with
any form of criticism, even when it's valid. Specifically, I'm
(12:26):
talking about instances or individuals who feel quite threatened when
someone disagrees with them and has a very hard time
admitting that they're wrong. This often has quite a physical
element to it. Someone disagrees with you, someone argues back,
and you feel that hot flush, maybe even that rage
or that anger that you are being disrespected, When if
(12:49):
you dug a little bit deeper, you would see that
you have more to learn in this moment than to
be hurt by and you are actually hurting yourself more
by being defensive. Because these experiences of criticism, of feedback,
of disagreement. They're actually learning moments. They're teaching moments. They
are opportunities. They're a doorway to more knowledge about the
(13:12):
world and to seeing things differently. But when your ego
is in control, you never able to see them that way.
This also links to the second observation or sign that
your ego was out of control, which is that you
take everything personally, including others' reactions and others bad days.
I'm going to call myself out there that woman who
(13:33):
got upset at me for I guess walking in her way.
She was entitled to have that reaction, but my reaction
to her reaction that was ego, because I was interpreting
what could have been a neutral comment or action as
an attack, as a slight, and I was allowing it
to infiltrate deeper than it was intended to or that
(13:55):
it needed to, therefore kind of ruining my day. The
thing is is that we are, of course the center
of our own universe. We can only see through our
own mind's eye. We can only experience the world through
our senses from our perspective. That makes it difficult sometimes
to empathize with others. But empathy is also an incredibly
(14:17):
unique and important human quality, and if you are devoid
of that, or if you are detached from it, it
makes you hard to be around, and it makes you
it makes it harder for you to be happy. The
third red flag. If your ego is unruly, you are
craving validation and recognition, and you are constantly in what
I call a more, more, more mindset. So the more
(14:39):
and more mindset is basically a mindset where we are
never entirely content or.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Happy with what we have.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Now humans, by nature, we actually exist according to something
called the hedonistic treadmill. Essentially, what this term describes is
this thought or theory that you cannot be happy all
the time, and that no matter what good things happen
in your life, what amazing successes you achieve, you are
(15:06):
always going to return to quite a neutral point. Now
that is healthy, it's very healthy. You cannot be at
either extreme end of our emotion spectrum, either extreme surprise, joy, excitement,
or extreme misery for too long. It's a healthy thing
to be somewhere in the middle. But if your ego
(15:26):
is you haven't humbled yourself, you just cannot. You cannot
make peace with the fact that at times you will
not receive recognition. You will not receive validation, people will
not be thinking about you, people will not be praising you.
That means that not only are you never happy with
what you have, but you constantly feel this pressure to
(15:50):
push and strive harder and to bring the spotlight back
onto you, which is unnatural. You also may compare yourself constantly,
whether it's stat looks, success, popularity. You're always measuring your
worth by someone else's. I always give this analogy, and
I think I gave it in a recent rerun episode,
but we have to remember comparison. It's a circle, not
(16:14):
a ladder. There is not someone who is objectively the
happiest person, or the best person, or the most successful
person in this world. And there is probably not a
person who wants for nothing, even if they are someone
who is trying very hard for that, even if they
are someone who is very spiritually disciplined. All of us
(16:35):
feel jealous and envious at times, but you might be
looking at someone thinking why don't I have what they have,
whilst they're looking at someone else who is looking at
you and what you don't appreciate is that this is
a circle, this is a cycle, and if you continue
to constantly compare and ruminate and feel miserable about what
you don't have, you miss out on a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of what you do.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I think we're up to the sixth side now that
your ego is out of control, and that is that
you need to always be in control. Letting others lead
or not having the final say it can make you
feel very uncomfortable and anxious and uncertain whether that is
you know, the need to control the itinerary for the
group trip, not being able to work in a team,
(17:19):
craving alone time because it's easier to not think about others.
That has a real consequence for our relationships. We cannot
let our grip up over our life and over our
interactions with others. I will say some people are what
we call type A individuals. Some people are just like that.
They're all the children, they're naturally leaders. But the distinction
(17:41):
is the ability to compromise without emotional distress and discomfort.
It's not you know, some individuals will naturally take charge
because they're just very good at it. But if they
were invited to not take charge, they wouldn't have this
visceral sense or need to reinstate themselves at the center
of everything. They are able to say, yes, someone else
(18:05):
might not do this the way that I will do
it doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile, valid way doesn't
mean I can't be happy with whatever they produce. A
couple more signs you feel threatened by others' success, and
you also struggle to apologize. Two big ones that I've
actually I've seen in people's behavior before, and they're not
that pleasant. All of this turns us into you may
(18:30):
have guessed it, a deeply unhappy person, but also a
self conscious person, and someone who is not a good friend,
not a good partner, not a good child, not a
good sibling or colleague. That last point is very important
because being in community requires people to decenter themselves. I
read a similar quote recently that being in community requires inconvenience.
(18:51):
A lot of people talk about loneliness these days. They
talk about how it's difficult to make friends, difficult to
be seen. But if you think you are the most
important person in the world, you are not going to
be able to tolerate the inconvenience and sometimes the difficulty
of having to compromise and be around other people think
about it. You know, being a good partner means being
(19:13):
able to admit you're wrong, means compromise, means losing control.
Sometimes means doing things and aren't always what you want
to do, but better what's best for the team. If
you are not tuned into that fact that your preferences
and lifestyle don't matter more than anyone else's, that is
going to be a hard dynamic. Any relationship is going
to be difficult to sustain. Now, we know relationships are
(19:37):
one of our main predictors of happiness. Studies have proved
this again and again and again. Actually, one of the
longest longitudinal studies on happiness in the world found that
positive relationships make you live longer, make you more pleasant,
make you happier, make you more satisfied with your life. So,
if ego is costing you those relationships, it's also costing
(19:59):
you your happiness. If you are lonely, if you don't
have those meaningful connections, what do you have? Success? Accomplishment?
Knowing you're right, Like, none of that really means anything.
And it reminds me of now a very famous interview
between I think it was Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez,
where he basically says, like, what do I have to
(20:20):
achieve by being right? Like an angry girlfriend?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And not much else?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
For what? And that's a mature man right there. He
has understood the cost of his ego and it's something
that a lot of us are yet to recognize. It
may not come as a surprise as well, that ego
and narcissism go hand in hand. Narcissism as a term
is often misused a lot. What we are talking about
(20:46):
today is narcissism as a trait, not narcissistic personality disorder,
not narcissism in a medical setting. Narcissism as a trait
that we all have some of rait in this world,
any personality trait, like all of us have a little
inch of it. When you are high in narcissism as
a trait, as some people naturally are, basically you cannot
(21:10):
see anyone else's point of view because you see everything
as a mirror of yourself or something to take advantage of.
You must find yourself competent, successful, attractive, desirable, intelligent or else.
What does that also sound like? It also sounds like
a dysregulated ego. Now this means that we can basically
understand ego and pride and a lack of humility by
(21:32):
examining narcissism as well and examining the origins of it.
And a study published by NYU in twenty twenty one
has found that narcissism is driven primarily by a deep
rooted sense of self hatred. In this study, individuals who
are higher on traits associated with narcissism they were typically
quite emotionally vulnerable and felt quite emotionally. I don't like
(21:56):
the term weak out in the open. Maybe that's also
where our inflated ego comes from. It comes from a
desire to protect ourselves because perhaps we don't feel great
or feel good enough deep down, so we counteract that
by puffing out our chests. We counteract that by turning
(22:16):
up the entitlement so we don't have to uncover unfortunate
truths about how we really feel about ourselves. There is
a great article that was published by the Society of
Personality and Social Psychology and it's titled Unnarcissistic People Happy,
and it looked at the mood of over two thousand
individuals who had narcissistic personality disorder and it found that
(22:37):
a lot of them were quite miserable, especially when they
felt that they were constantly in competition with others or
had some rivalry. They were less happy than the average person.
In fact, they reported greater life dissatisfaction, greater relationship dissatisfaction,
greater sense of accomplishment when it came to when it
(22:57):
came to their achievements. Now, perhaps I've gone too far here,
because this isn't to suggest that we are all narcissists
if we can relate to our ego taking over, but
maybe when that happens, this gives us a clue as
to what our ego thinks. It's protecting us from the
expected unhappiness, the insecurity, the jealousy, the poor self esteem
(23:18):
that may come to the surface if we don't keep
trying to inflate ourselves and prove ourselves. Maybe, unlike narcissism,
ego is is quite protective, and ego is the result
of something quite squishy and soft and delicate inside of
us that feels a bit bruised. So this brings me
(23:41):
to my next question. Why do we sometimes feel so
entitled for seemingly no reason. What Spike's ego, We're going
to take a short break here and then I'm going
to return with a few explanations. So you've snapped, I
feel like a terrible, horrible, no good person. Why is
(24:06):
that the case? Why was humility not on your side
in that moment? Firstly, and this one is probably the
most likely case for those of us in our twenties,
You've just got a lot on your plate right now.
You're irritated, you're overworked, you're overstretched, and your capacity to
monitor and mediate your emotions and rain in your ego,
it just isn't there right now. When we are in
(24:27):
that survival over extending mode, we are naturally more tense
and more defensive, and that defensiveness extends to our sense
of self and self worth. This really does come down
to emotional regulation and the fact that this becomes harder
at these points in our lives, these tension points, lots
of deadlines, moving house, relationship problems that bleed into work,
(24:48):
breed into friendships. It's somewhat of a cruel cycle. You know,
we need emotional regulation to manage stress, but when we're stressed,
it becomes harder to regulate any form of rational thinking,
meaning we can't avigate our emotions or our ego properly.
The solution here is to find a tie breaker or reroute,
which means simply stop doing what you've been doing all
(25:09):
along that obviously isn't working, thinking that it's going to work.
Stop pushing yourself even further, Stop being cruel to yourself
to rain in your ego. Try something new here. Specifically,
I think if you want to control your ego, you
need to slow down and be more intentional about your
thoughts but also your actions. What can you do to
(25:31):
calm down your nervous system and feel that emotional cup
backups that it can restore a healthy level of ego
rest It's physically important, it's also mentally important, and it's
emotionally important. If you're finding that you are at the
end of your tether and that you feel abrasive and
(25:52):
titled pride for I really sometimes think it's just a
matter of exhaustion. The other reason that our ego can
become unruly is unmet.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Needs for insecurities.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
When we feel inadequate, as we said, overlooked insecure, our
ego steps in to compensate, and it builds a false
sense of superiority to kind of protect and guard our
self worth. Validation addiction is another term that we should
be across here as well. It refers to essentially an
unnatural dependency on praise, attention, and success. The ego begins
(26:28):
to expect reward, expect applause or admiration as a baseline,
not as a bonus. A twenty twenty study found that
validation addiction is very common amongst not just high achievers,
but what they call ultra high achievers, a whole new level.
And what they tended to find was that these individuals
(26:50):
were generally not satisfied by any accomplishment that didn't come
with praise. They could produce their best work, yet they
could run a sub to our marathon. I don't even
think that's humanly possible, but you know, they could paint
the next Susteine Chapel. But if there was no praise,
it wouldn't be worth it to them. Everything is based
on external recognition. And when investigating this they did a
(27:13):
little bit more deep, a little bit more digging, a
little bit more searching. They found that it typically begins
around the age of between twelve to seventeen, so prime
teen years around puberty, when our sense of identity is
in a real growth formative period. But also when we
are quite young, we're learning what our worth is. We're
(27:34):
learning essentially the guidebook by you know, by which we're
going to judge ourselves. And if during that time, what
you are absorbing from your environment, from your caregivers, from
your community, from your environment is you are only worth
something if you can produce good output, and if you
are being praised for that output and based on something
(27:57):
that we can see physically, that's going to really fuck
with your sense of self concept and it's going to
ensure that the older you get, the higher that baseline
for validation becomes, until it's unruly unmanageable and cannot be met. Now,
those are some very high level reasons why we may
(28:20):
be called to humble ourselves and why we need to
embrace the power of humility. Let's now talk about exactly
how to get there. Now, let's just say one more time,
you're never going to eliminate ego. We've talked about ego
a lot this episode, and perhaps I've done a bad
job painting it. Is this very villainous, evil thing. It's
(28:42):
not a bad thing, it's not harmful having a healthy
level of ego allows you to set boundaries, allows you
to recognize what you do and don't deserve, allows you
to work hard, have ambitions, maintain a stable sense of self.
We don't want to give any of that up. And
I also don't want you to feel shame at being
envious or jealous, or accidentally rude or mean. And I
(29:08):
don't want you to think that just because you have
acted that way in the past, that that is always
who you are going to be and how you are
going to feel. I say this a lot. You simply
cannot hate yourself into being a better person. It doesn't
work that way, because if you truly think you are
awful and curse and whatever else is running through your mind,
you have no incentive to improve because this all feels
(29:30):
very set and stone your shame and self awareness. It's
gotten you to this very important point. You have recognized
that perhaps something is off. That's a good thing. Now
it's time to focus on the mindset shifts that are
available to you to get you out of this downward
ego spiral. Humility is also just such a great asset
to have. Humility makes you more attractive, It makes you
(29:54):
more desirable as a romantic partner. Humility is a strong
predictor of relationships satus faction, but also relationship length and sustainability.
It makes you a more desirable employee, and it also
means that people feel more comfortable around you because you're
less defensive and judgmental. I know that confidence and arrogance
(30:15):
and thinking that you're the shit like that's some people
are going to confuse that with having a strong sense
of self.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And knowing your worth.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
I don't necessarily think that when it gets to the
level where you are instinctually judging or thinking cruelly of
other people, I don't think that that is what we're
talking about. We're talking about the balance. So in order
to get back to that balance point, the first thing
I need you to do is call yourself out. Call
yourself out for those moments like the one I experienced
(30:44):
the other day where you just behaved in a bad manner.
Your instinct was ugly, no matter how much control you
had over it or not, it was coming from a
place that was not being taken care of. People aren't
always going to call.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You out for your bad behavior.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
In fact, you know you could get to a point
where even if they did, you would still not believe them,
and that would result in reputational and into personal damages
or consequences. It would result in relationship failure and breakdown
because you have gotten to a point where you just
think they're a hater or you think that they're you know,
(31:25):
criticizing you. So when you notice that your behavior is
not what you want it to be and want you
to say it out loud, that's not okay. I want
you to ask yourself why did I say that. I
want you to pull your head in. Remember bad, mean,
cruel thoughts.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
They come from you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That also means that a better thought can come from
you as well. You are capable and able and allowed
to have mean thoughts that you don't particularly like or
prideful thoughts, and then take that thought, examine it, give
it a kiss, and replace it with something even better. Secondly,
if you are ready to embrace the power of humility,
(32:05):
don't do a gratitude list, commit to a contribution list,
a list of things that you have done for others.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I will say.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Gratitude and humility are a very healthy match and studies
do find they're mutually reinforcing. That means the more you
feel one, the more you feel the other. But I
think we can take it a step a step further
and really start to reflect and make our priority what
we are doing for other people in our community. And
if you have a contribution list, I think this makes
(32:36):
this more of a focus for you to be putting
things on that list as regularly as possible. D center
yourself by doing something selfless, as selfless as any act
can really be, but something that is not primarily for you.
I think our issue as a society, specifically in a
highly individualistic society, is that we are taught again that
(32:57):
we're at the center of our own universe and that
we should always look out for ourselves first. We focus
on what makes us special, what we need.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
When we have.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
More than plenty, we have so much more than we need,
and because of our obsession with just gaining more, gaining more, praise, wealth,
whatever it is, we've lost this sense of interconnectedness. You
are going to do better if your neighbor is doing better,
if your friends are doing better, if the people around
you feel supported. So if you are feeling gross about yourself,
(33:29):
if you are engaging in too much self pity, if
your ego is dominating, it is time to do something
for someone else. And speaking of others, my third tip
is to start noticing the most beautiful things about other people.
My humility always goes down the drain when I start
feeling bad about the world, when I start believing that
(33:51):
everyone is cruel and mean and cold hearted, and therefore
I have to only look after myself. That's especially hard
these days the news, with everything going on. I need
to remind myself that humanity and other people are beautiful
and that life is valuable, and that we are all
the same, like I am no better than anyone else.
(34:12):
There is good in everyone. And so I've started doing
this walk slash run practice. In particular, I started doing
it on my long runs. So like every weekend, me
and my friends got to Centennial Park in Sydney and
we do like a couple of laps into being like
ten kilometers. And one day I forgot my headphones and
(34:32):
I was just in a bad mood and I don't know,
something had happened that week, and I was feeling like
quite angry, like I don't know, people would like kind
of get in my way and I'd be like ah,
like I was getting frustrated, and so what I started
doing is every single person that walked past me, I
forced myself to notice something really beautiful about them, something spectacular,
something wonderful, something about the outfit that I liked, the
(34:56):
color of their eyes, how beautiful they were walking, how
kind they were to their dog, how they were noticing nature.
Every single person got this hidden compliment from me, and
it immediately made me feel that interconnectedness that those Buddhists,
philosophies and Buddhist principles want us to feel with other people.
(35:17):
It decentered me from the narrative. It allowed me to
reconnect and remember that you know, humanity is gorgeous and beautiful,
and that people are kind, and that that is enough.
I think we're going to talk a little bit more
about the role of others here just for one second,
which is, yes, we want to do things for others.
We want to notice things about others. We also want
to give credit publicly and thank others. You can celebrate yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And you should.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
We're not saying not to do that. When it's your
moment and good things are happening and you've worked hard
for them, go off, you did that, celebrate yourself, buy
yourself a fricking cake, put some candles in it, tell
people self, promote, but you also have to notice when
it's someone else's moment as well. Not letting a scarcity
mindset trick us into envy and into not raising others
(36:05):
up because we think there is less room for us.
There is room for everyone. Believe me, I know in
a success obsessed society we don't think there is. But
you are going to get further ahead and you are
going to have a happier life if you are getting
ahead with others beside you, who you care about and
whose careers and ambitions and goals are meaningful to you,
(36:28):
and who you can celebrate like. None of this life
is worth nothing without community. Community is so valuable. Every
single person that you feel envious towards or jealous of
because they have more than you or doing something better
than you, that means that there is something you can
learn from them, That means that they have cracked a
(36:49):
code that you are still working on, and a kindness
towards them is a kindness towards yourself. But it also
just makes your life better. It makes everyone's life better.
To give credit publicly, to thank people to praise people,
to speak their names in crowded rooms with their opportunities.
Here's my little challenge for you this week. I really
(37:13):
want you to hype someone up that you envy, even
when it feels unnatural. Now, that could be someone that
you know, someone one of your coworkers, colleagues, classmates, whatever
it is, I want you to speak their praises. It
could literally be a celebrity, could literally be a social
media influencer. Speak kindly about them. I mainly what all
(37:34):
these exercises are doing is basically pursuing humility by allowing
you to see how wonderful other people are and that
there is no world where anyone is worth more than
someone else, where your needs, your desires, your goals are
more important. We are really truly all equal. And yes,
(37:57):
your ego will sometimes get in the way of humility.
That is when you need to deliberately humble yourself. And
that is where you need to understand that if you
approach things with humility, if you remove yourself from the
center of your own universe and you focus outwards, you
are going to get more done because you aren't always
(38:18):
trying to prove yourself. You are going to have more
fun because you take life less seriously, you take yourself
less seriously. You are going to appreciate your mistakes more,
you are going to be a better person to be around,
and you are actually going to gain more momentum towards
your goals because this huge factor has been taken out
of the equation. This huge factor being how you think
(38:41):
your story looks to others, This huge factor being trying
to impress others, trying to protect your sense of self,
trying to avoid any hint of rejection or on fairness
or dissatisfaction. When you take that as part of your
life and you humble yourself and you say, I'm just
going to accept what comes and I'm going to work
(39:02):
hard and be kind. Like I know, it sounds simple,
but that is truly. Every single major religion, every single
major philosophy will tell you that that is the equation
for a satisfied life. So I hope that this episode
has been persuasive for you. I understand that it's more
philosophical than what we normally talk about, but I promise
we have a jam packed science pack psychology episode coming
(39:25):
to you next week. If you made it this far, Hello,
my loyal listeners, I want you to leave what emojis
should I choose today? I want you to leave a
little banana emoji down below. I would also love it
if you shared your thoughts about this episode. Further questions, thoughts, queries, qualms.
Maybe you disagree with something that I said, maybe there
was a point I didn't make, Please leave it below.
(39:46):
This is obviously I feel like every episode I make,
I want it to be an ongoing discussion and we
can learn so much from each other. So yeah, don't
feel afraid to share. Make sure you share this episode
as well with someone who you think needs to hear.
Although feel like that's kind of a read if you're
like the power of Humility and you send that to someone,
but you never know, maybe you and your friends, or
(40:07):
your family or your partner have that kind of relationship,
maybe it can be a subtle hint that they need to.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Rein it in.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
But until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle
to yourself, Make sure that you check out person and progress,
and make sure that you're following me on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast, and we will talk very very soon
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. Before we begin, I want
to just thank all of you who.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have ordered or pre ordered my book.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
This last week has been off the charts. The support
has been so overwhelming. If you don't already know, my
first book, Person and Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology
of Your Twenties, came out this week and I am
just I'm well, obviously, I'm speechless. I'm so grateful for
(00:46):
this community, and I'm so grateful for you guys, and
for the support you've shown me. Some of you have
even finished the book already, which is insane because it
came out three days ago, and it just means so
much to me. I had so much imposter syndrome going
into this. I was catastrophizing every moment of every day.
(01:09):
The negative reviews I was gonna get. You know, how
many people would say she's a terrible writer, she shouldn't
have done this.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I just I was my own worst enemy. For a
little bit there, and yet I have been met with
just a wall of positivity and love from your and gosh,
it's made me feel really good about the world. It's
made me feel really good about humanity, and it's made
me feel really good about myself. So thank you so
much for providing me with that gift. I hope that
(01:39):
I've provided you with a gift and that my book
will help you. Has helped you, is fascinating, interesting, makes
you feel less alone, and that if you haven't already
ordered it, you check it out. You can buy it
anywhere you buy books, preferably your local bookstore. I don't
make any more money from where you buy it. I
(01:59):
just feel like, at this time, in this day and age,
big corporations maybe need a little bit less about money
and shop local. Shop your independent bookstore who will really
appreciate that twenty dollars sale, and you can have a
nice chat with the person behind the counter and you
can peruse and feel homely and cozy. That's kind of
(02:20):
my preference. But again, thank you so much, even for
just you know, listening to the podcast, for talking about
the podcast with friends, talking about my book with your friends,
checking it out, on good Reads. Any of those things,
it really means the world. But without further ado, let's
stop babbling on about person and progress and let's get
(02:41):
into the episode now. I'm not proud to admit that
this episode is inspired by a moment that happened to
me the other day and it involves a bicycle. So
I was walking to my ceramics class, which you guys
know I go to every single Wednesday, and I had
my headphones on. I was playing the New Lord song,
(03:02):
of course, and I was tuned in. My fourteen year
old self was having a great time. And as I
went to turn this corner, this cyclist rides past me
and like brushes me, like brushes against my arm. And
as she passes, she turns around and makes this gesture
to me, like look where you're going, and she shakes
(03:23):
her head and she rides off. But as she rides off,
like she keeps looking back at me and keeps shaking
her head, like looking very disapproving, And it kind of
shocked me. But my second reaction was just rage, like,
how dare she be mad at me? I'm just listening
to my music. She doesn't own the road. Blah blah, blah,
(03:45):
and I was really mad. I was really upset, and
immediately after that, I felt so gross. I felt this
deep anger, evil meanness in my bones. I was so
mad at her. I kept thinking about it over and
over again, and it just was weighing me down. And
(04:06):
as I kept walking and I calmed down, I was like,
wait a second, what the heck was that? Where did
that come from? Like? Why am I feeling so entitled
and angry at this poor woman who I probably cut
off like I wasn't paying attention? And it kind of
(04:28):
scared me. My ego was so reacted that it clouded
my judgment. It made me think ill of this total stranger,
and honestly, it put me in such a terrible mood
for the rest of the day and for what It
was just after this that I was like, hmm, I
need to humble myself right now. It is time to
(04:51):
sit back and reflect on what's going on here, because
that right there, that was ugly behavior. And it was
really that instance that triggered me to art noticing some
changes in myself recently, and changes that I didn't like.
It feels icky and hard to look at, but you know,
I've been more jealous. Recently, I've been more critical, I've
(05:11):
been more defensive, I've been more argumentative, and because of
how conscious I am of it, it really got me
thinking about humility and why is the case that I
had perhaps incidentally allowed my ego to kind of go
off the rails. That's a hard thing to talk about,
and even saying that, I'm wondering who out there is
(05:32):
judging me, who out there is thinking differently of me?
But something I always believe is that if you're experiencing something,
someone else out there is also experiencing it, And hopefully
my candor is beneficial to someone else who is noticing
this weird entitlement in themselves that is causing them a
lot of shame and that they want to change. Sometimes
(05:55):
we do have to practice humility sometimes when our ego,
we do have to rain her in. So how exactly,
and this is the question I've been asking myself, how
exactly do we strike that healthy balance between being proud
of ourselves, knowing what we deserve, but not being prideful.
(06:15):
How do we strike the balance of being confident but
not arrogant. That's really what I want to lay out
for all of us today, including the real definition of ego,
what ego looks like, where it comes from, what pride
looks like, the consequences of an inflated ego. And there's
six steps that I personally have been taking to bring
(06:38):
me back to a humble, honest equilibrium and to make
me a more pro social, better human, because whatever has
been happening in my brain in my body that has
caused me to respond this way to certain situations, I
don't like it. But I also think that when you
acknowledge parts of yourself that you don't particularly enjoy, you're
(06:58):
also capable and you must change them or kind of submit,
voluntarily submit yourself to suffering under the impression of your
own thoughts and feelings that you don't take accountability for.
So it's a bit more of a philosophical episode today,
but I promise we also touch on some very important
psychology without further ado no judgment zone, Let's talk about humility.
(07:28):
So before we get into it, we firstly need to
talk about the various definitions of ego, because surprisingly there
is more than one. Most of us tend to think
of ego as just our sense of self confidence or
our sense of self worth when our ego is inflated,
we believe we possess more worth than others, which is
not true. When our ego is deflated, we believe we
(07:52):
possess less worth than others. It's also not true all
humans contain equal worth. Was about our perception of ourselves
in comparison to others. Therefore, it's a subjective acknowledgment. It's
a subjective opinion rather than an objective fact of who
we are. So the first definition of ego that you
(08:14):
are probably familiar with is pride, self worth, self confidence.
It is often associated with entitlement, feeling like you deserve
more than you have or than what others have. From
a more psychological perspective, though, we want to turn to
Freud's definition. He is really the one that first interrogated
(08:38):
this idea of ego for it, of course, being the
very famous Austrian psychoanalyst, and his idea of ego differed
slightly to the definition that we currently uphold.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Freud saw the ego.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
As the part of the mind that mediates between our
primal urges, our moral values.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
And reality.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
All of us, you and me, we have this impulsive
desire to take to do what we want to do,
to be quite animal. We have these natural instincts of
possession and desire, but we are also ruled by this
very real moral system that has taught to us at
a young age, and which yes, doesn't always get it right,
(09:22):
but it is what allows us to be civilized and
respectful to each other. It's things like don't steal, don't
make people feel bad about themselves, don't murder, don't be unkind.
So when the part of us that is quite unruly
gets too big, our ego becomes unbalanced and we behave
(09:43):
in a way that makes us feel gross.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Or uncaring or arrogant.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Therefore, this part of us, it's called the id, needs taming,
it needs humbling, so that the moral side and the
ID can sit in harmony. So that's the definition given
by Freud. Ego is an unbalanced system within us where
pride is allowed to take over. Let me give you
(10:11):
another definition of ego that's not psychological. It's philosophical, and
it comes from Buddhism. So in Buddhism, ego is basically
the source of suffering. Ego has us forget that we
exist in a very vast, flowing ecosystem with other living
souls who all have their own intricacies, stories, and worth,
(10:31):
and our ego is the thing that puts us above
everyone else in a very unnatural and harmful way. So
there is an incredible article written by the Mindful Stoic
that I was reading when I was exploring this topic
that talks about the idea of anata or the no self,
which is quite popular in Buddhism. Basically, this idea of
(10:54):
the no self suggests that we are a combination of
everything around us. We are constantly changing. Nothing makes us
more special than anyone else. There is nothing that we
do that we can ever take full credit for. We
are basically just the world it's experiencing itself. And when
we respect that principle, our attachment to ideas like success, fairness, pride,
(11:17):
they're quite healthy. We tend to live a happier existence.
I think that this idea is really really profound. It's
very freeing to just exist and watch yourself evolve and
detach from all the heavy stuff that we opt into
and just understand that you and everyone around you is equal,
is hopefully in harmony, and in are connected. What happens
(11:40):
when ego rules, well, that becomes a problem. Ego is
wanting to separate you from this humility and this understanding
of connectedness with other human beings. Ego is also always
going to be a part of you. Now, that's something
that I probably should have stayed before. The idea in
the existence of ego was not the problem. It's when
(12:02):
it's allowed to rule and when essentially we are off balance.
Here are some signs that that is occurring. Here are
some signs that you know you kind of need to
humble yourself. The first red flag is that, quite simply,
you always need to be right, and you struggle with
any form of criticism, even when it's valid. Specifically, I'm
(12:26):
talking about instances or individuals who feel quite threatened when
someone disagrees with them and has a very hard time
admitting that they're wrong. This often has quite a physical
element to it. Someone disagrees with you, someone argues back,
and you feel that hot flush, maybe even that rage
or that anger that you are being disrespected, When if
(12:49):
you dug a little bit deeper, you would see that
you have more to learn in this moment than to
be hurt by and you are actually hurting yourself more
by being defensive. Because these experiences of criticism, of feedback,
of disagreement. They're actually learning moments. They're teaching moments. They
are opportunities. They're a doorway to more knowledge about the
(13:12):
world and to seeing things differently. But when your ego
is in control, you never able to see them that way.
This also links to the second observation or sign that
your ego was out of control, which is that you
take everything personally, including others' reactions and others bad days.
I'm going to call myself out there that woman who
(13:33):
got upset at me for I guess walking in her way.
She was entitled to have that reaction, but my reaction
to her reaction that was ego, because I was interpreting
what could have been a neutral comment or action as
an attack, as a slight, and I was allowing it
to infiltrate deeper than it was intended to or that
(13:55):
it needed to, therefore kind of ruining my day. The
thing is is that we are, of course the center
of our own universe. We can only see through our
own mind's eye. We can only experience the world through
our senses from our perspective. That makes it difficult sometimes
to empathize with others. But empathy is also an incredibly
(14:17):
unique and important human quality, and if you are devoid
of that, or if you are detached from it, it
makes you hard to be around, and it makes you
it makes it harder for you to be happy. The
third red flag. If your ego is unruly, you are
craving validation and recognition, and you are constantly in what
I call a more, more, more mindset. So the more
(14:39):
and more mindset is basically a mindset where we are
never entirely content or.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Happy with what we have.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Now humans, by nature, we actually exist according to something
called the hedonistic treadmill. Essentially, what this term describes is
this thought or theory that you cannot be happy all
the time, and that no matter what good things happen
in your life, what amazing successes you achieve, you are
(15:06):
always going to return to quite a neutral point. Now
that is healthy, it's very healthy. You cannot be at
either extreme end of our emotion spectrum, either extreme surprise, joy, excitement,
or extreme misery for too long. It's a healthy thing
to be somewhere in the middle. But if your ego
(15:26):
is you haven't humbled yourself, you just cannot. You cannot
make peace with the fact that at times you will
not receive recognition. You will not receive validation, people will
not be thinking about you, people will not be praising you.
That means that not only are you never happy with
what you have, but you constantly feel this pressure to
(15:50):
push and strive harder and to bring the spotlight back
onto you, which is unnatural. You also may compare yourself constantly,
whether it's stat looks, success, popularity. You're always measuring your
worth by someone else's. I always give this analogy, and
I think I gave it in a recent rerun episode,
but we have to remember comparison. It's a circle, not
(16:14):
a ladder. There is not someone who is objectively the
happiest person, or the best person, or the most successful
person in this world. And there is probably not a
person who wants for nothing, even if they are someone
who is trying very hard for that, even if they
are someone who is very spiritually disciplined. All of us
(16:35):
feel jealous and envious at times, but you might be
looking at someone thinking why don't I have what they have,
whilst they're looking at someone else who is looking at
you and what you don't appreciate is that this is
a circle, this is a cycle, and if you continue
to constantly compare and ruminate and feel miserable about what
you don't have, you miss out on a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of what you do.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I think we're up to the sixth side now that
your ego is out of control, and that is that
you need to always be in control. Letting others lead
or not having the final say it can make you
feel very uncomfortable and anxious and uncertain whether that is
you know, the need to control the itinerary for the
group trip, not being able to work in a team,
(17:19):
craving alone time because it's easier to not think about others.
That has a real consequence for our relationships. We cannot
let our grip up over our life and over our
interactions with others. I will say some people are what
we call type A individuals. Some people are just like that.
They're all the children, they're naturally leaders. But the distinction
(17:41):
is the ability to compromise without emotional distress and discomfort.
It's not you know, some individuals will naturally take charge
because they're just very good at it. But if they
were invited to not take charge, they wouldn't have this
visceral sense or need to reinstate themselves at the center
of everything. They are able to say, yes, someone else
(18:05):
might not do this the way that I will do
it doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile, valid way doesn't
mean I can't be happy with whatever they produce. A
couple more signs you feel threatened by others' success, and
you also struggle to apologize. Two big ones that I've
actually I've seen in people's behavior before, and they're not
that pleasant. All of this turns us into you may
(18:30):
have guessed it, a deeply unhappy person, but also a
self conscious person, and someone who is not a good friend,
not a good partner, not a good child, not a
good sibling or colleague. That last point is very important
because being in community requires people to decenter themselves. I
read a similar quote recently that being in community requires inconvenience.
(18:51):
A lot of people talk about loneliness these days. They
talk about how it's difficult to make friends, difficult to
be seen. But if you think you are the most
important person in the world, you are not going to
be able to tolerate the inconvenience and sometimes the difficulty
of having to compromise and be around other people think
about it. You know, being a good partner means being
(19:13):
able to admit you're wrong, means compromise, means losing control.
Sometimes means doing things and aren't always what you want
to do, but better what's best for the team. If
you are not tuned into that fact that your preferences
and lifestyle don't matter more than anyone else's, that is
going to be a hard dynamic. Any relationship is going
to be difficult to sustain. Now, we know relationships are
(19:37):
one of our main predictors of happiness. Studies have proved
this again and again and again. Actually, one of the
longest longitudinal studies on happiness in the world found that
positive relationships make you live longer, make you more pleasant,
make you happier, make you more satisfied with your life. So,
if ego is costing you those relationships, it's also costing
(19:59):
you your happiness. If you are lonely, if you don't
have those meaningful connections, what do you have? Success? Accomplishment?
Knowing you're right, Like, none of that really means anything.
And it reminds me of now a very famous interview
between I think it was Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez,
where he basically says, like, what do I have to
(20:20):
achieve by being right? Like an angry girlfriend?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
And not much else?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
For what? And that's a mature man right there. He
has understood the cost of his ego and it's something
that a lot of us are yet to recognize. It
may not come as a surprise as well, that ego
and narcissism go hand in hand. Narcissism as a term
is often misused a lot. What we are talking about
(20:46):
today is narcissism as a trait, not narcissistic personality disorder,
not narcissism in a medical setting. Narcissism as a trait
that we all have some of rait in this world,
any personality trait, like all of us have a little
inch of it. When you are high in narcissism as
a trait, as some people naturally are, basically you cannot
(21:10):
see anyone else's point of view because you see everything
as a mirror of yourself or something to take advantage of.
You must find yourself competent, successful, attractive, desirable, intelligent or else.
What does that also sound like? It also sounds like
a dysregulated ego. Now this means that we can basically
understand ego and pride and a lack of humility by
(21:32):
examining narcissism as well and examining the origins of it.
And a study published by NYU in twenty twenty one
has found that narcissism is driven primarily by a deep
rooted sense of self hatred. In this study, individuals who
are higher on traits associated with narcissism they were typically
quite emotionally vulnerable and felt quite emotionally. I don't like
(21:56):
the term weak out in the open. Maybe that's also
where our inflated ego comes from. It comes from a
desire to protect ourselves because perhaps we don't feel great
or feel good enough deep down, so we counteract that
by puffing out our chests. We counteract that by turning
(22:16):
up the entitlement so we don't have to uncover unfortunate
truths about how we really feel about ourselves. There is
a great article that was published by the Society of
Personality and Social Psychology and it's titled Unnarcissistic People Happy,
and it looked at the mood of over two thousand
individuals who had narcissistic personality disorder and it found that
(22:37):
a lot of them were quite miserable, especially when they
felt that they were constantly in competition with others or
had some rivalry. They were less happy than the average person.
In fact, they reported greater life dissatisfaction, greater relationship dissatisfaction,
greater sense of accomplishment when it came to when it
(22:57):
came to their achievements. Now, perhaps I've gone too far here,
because this isn't to suggest that we are all narcissists
if we can relate to our ego taking over, but
maybe when that happens, this gives us a clue as
to what our ego thinks. It's protecting us from the
expected unhappiness, the insecurity, the jealousy, the poor self esteem
(23:18):
that may come to the surface if we don't keep
trying to inflate ourselves and prove ourselves. Maybe, unlike narcissism,
ego is is quite protective, and ego is the result
of something quite squishy and soft and delicate inside of
us that feels a bit bruised. So this brings me
(23:41):
to my next question. Why do we sometimes feel so
entitled for seemingly no reason. What Spike's ego, We're going
to take a short break here and then I'm going
to return with a few explanations. So you've snapped, I
feel like a terrible, horrible, no good person. Why is
(24:06):
that the case? Why was humility not on your side
in that moment? Firstly, and this one is probably the
most likely case for those of us in our twenties,
You've just got a lot on your plate right now.
You're irritated, you're overworked, you're overstretched, and your capacity to
monitor and mediate your emotions and rain in your ego,
it just isn't there right now. When we are in
(24:27):
that survival over extending mode, we are naturally more tense
and more defensive, and that defensiveness extends to our sense
of self and self worth. This really does come down
to emotional regulation and the fact that this becomes harder
at these points in our lives, these tension points, lots
of deadlines, moving house, relationship problems that bleed into work,
(24:48):
breed into friendships. It's somewhat of a cruel cycle. You know,
we need emotional regulation to manage stress, but when we're stressed,
it becomes harder to regulate any form of rational thinking,
meaning we can't avigate our emotions or our ego properly.
The solution here is to find a tie breaker or reroute,
which means simply stop doing what you've been doing all
(25:09):
along that obviously isn't working, thinking that it's going to work.
Stop pushing yourself even further, Stop being cruel to yourself
to rain in your ego. Try something new here. Specifically,
I think if you want to control your ego, you
need to slow down and be more intentional about your
thoughts but also your actions. What can you do to
(25:31):
calm down your nervous system and feel that emotional cup
backups that it can restore a healthy level of ego
rest It's physically important, it's also mentally important, and it's
emotionally important. If you're finding that you are at the
end of your tether and that you feel abrasive and
(25:52):
titled pride for I really sometimes think it's just a
matter of exhaustion. The other reason that our ego can
become unruly is unmet.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Needs for insecurities.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
When we feel inadequate, as we said, overlooked insecure, our
ego steps in to compensate, and it builds a false
sense of superiority to kind of protect and guard our
self worth. Validation addiction is another term that we should
be across here as well. It refers to essentially an
unnatural dependency on praise, attention, and success. The ego begins
(26:28):
to expect reward, expect applause or admiration as a baseline,
not as a bonus. A twenty twenty study found that
validation addiction is very common amongst not just high achievers,
but what they call ultra high achievers, a whole new level.
And what they tended to find was that these individuals
(26:50):
were generally not satisfied by any accomplishment that didn't come
with praise. They could produce their best work, yet they
could run a sub to our marathon. I don't even
think that's humanly possible, but you know, they could paint
the next Susteine Chapel. But if there was no praise,
it wouldn't be worth it to them. Everything is based
on external recognition. And when investigating this they did a
(27:13):
little bit more deep, a little bit more digging, a
little bit more searching. They found that it typically begins
around the age of between twelve to seventeen, so prime
teen years around puberty, when our sense of identity is
in a real growth formative period. But also when we
are quite young, we're learning what our worth is. We're
(27:34):
learning essentially the guidebook by you know, by which we're
going to judge ourselves. And if during that time, what
you are absorbing from your environment, from your caregivers, from
your community, from your environment is you are only worth
something if you can produce good output, and if you
are being praised for that output and based on something
(27:57):
that we can see physically, that's going to really fuck
with your sense of self concept and it's going to
ensure that the older you get, the higher that baseline
for validation becomes, until it's unruly unmanageable and cannot be met. Now,
those are some very high level reasons why we may
(28:20):
be called to humble ourselves and why we need to
embrace the power of humility. Let's now talk about exactly
how to get there. Now, let's just say one more time,
you're never going to eliminate ego. We've talked about ego
a lot this episode, and perhaps I've done a bad
job painting it. Is this very villainous, evil thing. It's
(28:42):
not a bad thing, it's not harmful having a healthy
level of ego allows you to set boundaries, allows you
to recognize what you do and don't deserve, allows you
to work hard, have ambitions, maintain a stable sense of self.
We don't want to give any of that up. And
I also don't want you to feel shame at being
envious or jealous, or accidentally rude or mean. And I
(29:08):
don't want you to think that just because you have
acted that way in the past, that that is always
who you are going to be and how you are
going to feel. I say this a lot. You simply
cannot hate yourself into being a better person. It doesn't
work that way, because if you truly think you are
awful and curse and whatever else is running through your mind,
you have no incentive to improve because this all feels
(29:30):
very set and stone your shame and self awareness. It's
gotten you to this very important point. You have recognized
that perhaps something is off. That's a good thing. Now
it's time to focus on the mindset shifts that are
available to you to get you out of this downward
ego spiral. Humility is also just such a great asset
to have. Humility makes you more attractive, It makes you
(29:54):
more desirable as a romantic partner. Humility is a strong
predictor of relationships satus faction, but also relationship length and sustainability.
It makes you a more desirable employee, and it also
means that people feel more comfortable around you because you're
less defensive and judgmental. I know that confidence and arrogance
(30:15):
and thinking that you're the shit like that's some people
are going to confuse that with having a strong sense
of self.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And knowing your worth.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
I don't necessarily think that when it gets to the
level where you are instinctually judging or thinking cruelly of
other people, I don't think that that is what we're
talking about. We're talking about the balance. So in order
to get back to that balance point, the first thing
I need you to do is call yourself out. Call
yourself out for those moments like the one I experienced
(30:44):
the other day where you just behaved in a bad manner.
Your instinct was ugly, no matter how much control you
had over it or not, it was coming from a
place that was not being taken care of. People aren't
always going to call.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
You out for your bad behavior.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
In fact, you know you could get to a point
where even if they did, you would still not believe them,
and that would result in reputational and into personal damages
or consequences. It would result in relationship failure and breakdown
because you have gotten to a point where you just
think they're a hater or you think that they're you know,
(31:25):
criticizing you. So when you notice that your behavior is
not what you want it to be and want you
to say it out loud, that's not okay. I want
you to ask yourself why did I say that. I
want you to pull your head in. Remember bad, mean,
cruel thoughts.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
They come from you.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That also means that a better thought can come from
you as well. You are capable and able and allowed
to have mean thoughts that you don't particularly like or
prideful thoughts, and then take that thought, examine it, give
it a kiss, and replace it with something even better. Secondly,
if you are ready to embrace the power of humility,
(32:05):
don't do a gratitude list, commit to a contribution list,
a list of things that you have done for others.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I will say.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Gratitude and humility are a very healthy match and studies
do find they're mutually reinforcing. That means the more you
feel one, the more you feel the other. But I
think we can take it a step a step further
and really start to reflect and make our priority what
we are doing for other people in our community. And
if you have a contribution list, I think this makes
(32:36):
this more of a focus for you to be putting
things on that list as regularly as possible. D center
yourself by doing something selfless, as selfless as any act
can really be, but something that is not primarily for you.
I think our issue as a society, specifically in a
highly individualistic society, is that we are taught again that
(32:57):
we're at the center of our own universe and that
we should always look out for ourselves first. We focus
on what makes us special, what we need.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
When we have.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
More than plenty, we have so much more than we need,
and because of our obsession with just gaining more, gaining more, praise, wealth,
whatever it is, we've lost this sense of interconnectedness. You
are going to do better if your neighbor is doing better,
if your friends are doing better, if the people around
you feel supported. So if you are feeling gross about yourself,
(33:29):
if you are engaging in too much self pity, if
your ego is dominating, it is time to do something
for someone else. And speaking of others, my third tip
is to start noticing the most beautiful things about other people.
My humility always goes down the drain when I start
feeling bad about the world, when I start believing that
(33:51):
everyone is cruel and mean and cold hearted, and therefore
I have to only look after myself. That's especially hard
these days the news, with everything going on. I need
to remind myself that humanity and other people are beautiful
and that life is valuable, and that we are all
the same, like I am no better than anyone else.
(34:12):
There is good in everyone. And so I've started doing
this walk slash run practice. In particular, I started doing
it on my long runs. So like every weekend, me
and my friends got to Centennial Park in Sydney and
we do like a couple of laps into being like
ten kilometers. And one day I forgot my headphones and
(34:32):
I was just in a bad mood and I don't know,
something had happened that week, and I was feeling like
quite angry, like I don't know, people would like kind
of get in my way and I'd be like ah,
like I was getting frustrated, and so what I started
doing is every single person that walked past me, I
forced myself to notice something really beautiful about them, something spectacular,
something wonderful, something about the outfit that I liked, the
(34:56):
color of their eyes, how beautiful they were walking, how
kind they were to their dog, how they were noticing nature.
Every single person got this hidden compliment from me, and
it immediately made me feel that interconnectedness that those Buddhists,
philosophies and Buddhist principles want us to feel with other people.
(35:17):
It decentered me from the narrative. It allowed me to
reconnect and remember that you know, humanity is gorgeous and beautiful,
and that people are kind, and that that is enough.
I think we're going to talk a little bit more
about the role of others here just for one second,
which is, yes, we want to do things for others.
We want to notice things about others. We also want
to give credit publicly and thank others. You can celebrate yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
And you should.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
We're not saying not to do that. When it's your
moment and good things are happening and you've worked hard
for them, go off, you did that, celebrate yourself, buy
yourself a fricking cake, put some candles in it, tell
people self, promote, but you also have to notice when
it's someone else's moment as well. Not letting a scarcity
mindset trick us into envy and into not raising others
(36:05):
up because we think there is less room for us.
There is room for everyone. Believe me, I know in
a success obsessed society we don't think there is. But
you are going to get further ahead and you are
going to have a happier life if you are getting
ahead with others beside you, who you care about and
whose careers and ambitions and goals are meaningful to you,
(36:28):
and who you can celebrate like. None of this life
is worth nothing without community. Community is so valuable. Every
single person that you feel envious towards or jealous of
because they have more than you or doing something better
than you, that means that there is something you can
learn from them, That means that they have cracked a
(36:49):
code that you are still working on, and a kindness
towards them is a kindness towards yourself. But it also
just makes your life better. It makes everyone's life better.
To give credit publicly, to thank people to praise people,
to speak their names in crowded rooms with their opportunities.
Here's my little challenge for you this week. I really
(37:13):
want you to hype someone up that you envy, even
when it feels unnatural. Now, that could be someone that
you know, someone one of your coworkers, colleagues, classmates, whatever
it is, I want you to speak their praises. It
could literally be a celebrity, could literally be a social
media influencer. Speak kindly about them. I mainly what all
(37:34):
these exercises are doing is basically pursuing humility by allowing
you to see how wonderful other people are and that
there is no world where anyone is worth more than
someone else, where your needs, your desires, your goals are
more important. We are really truly all equal. And yes,
(37:57):
your ego will sometimes get in the way of humility.
That is when you need to deliberately humble yourself. And
that is where you need to understand that if you
approach things with humility, if you remove yourself from the
center of your own universe and you focus outwards, you
are going to get more done because you aren't always
(38:18):
trying to prove yourself. You are going to have more
fun because you take life less seriously, you take yourself
less seriously. You are going to appreciate your mistakes more,
you are going to be a better person to be around,
and you are actually going to gain more momentum towards
your goals because this huge factor has been taken out
of the equation. This huge factor being how you think
(38:41):
your story looks to others, This huge factor being trying
to impress others, trying to protect your sense of self,
trying to avoid any hint of rejection or on fairness
or dissatisfaction. When you take that as part of your
life and you humble yourself and you say, I'm just
going to accept what comes and I'm going to work
(39:02):
hard and be kind. Like I know, it sounds simple,
but that is truly. Every single major religion, every single
major philosophy will tell you that that is the equation
for a satisfied life. So I hope that this episode
has been persuasive for you. I understand that it's more
philosophical than what we normally talk about, but I promise
we have a jam packed science pack psychology episode coming
(39:25):
to you next week. If you made it this far, Hello,
my loyal listeners, I want you to leave what emojis
should I choose today? I want you to leave a
little banana emoji down below. I would also love it
if you shared your thoughts about this episode. Further questions, thoughts, queries, qualms.
Maybe you disagree with something that I said, maybe there
was a point I didn't make, Please leave it below.
(39:46):
This is obviously I feel like every episode I make,
I want it to be an ongoing discussion and we
can learn so much from each other. So yeah, don't
feel afraid to share. Make sure you share this episode
as well with someone who you think needs to hear.
Although feel like that's kind of a read if you're
like the power of Humility and you send that to someone,
but you never know, maybe you and your friends, or
(40:07):
your family or your partner have that kind of relationship,
maybe it can be a subtle hint that they need to.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Rein it in.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
But until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle
to yourself, Make sure that you check out person and progress,
and make sure that you're following me on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast, and we will talk very very soon
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!