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Managing the ego to focus on achieving tangible goals March 13, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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A great deal of personal development information focusses on the need for generating positive feelings and attitudes and the overall desirability of positive thinking.

However, it is often difficult to achieve this, primarily because in attempting to always think positively, we are, more often than not, faced with what we regard as negative realities.  These realities might be the need for a job or a better paying job, meeting the mortgage payment, looking after a sick child, overdue bills, worrying about an elderly parent; the list goes on.

The events and circumstances of everyday life are not always positive and it is difficult to be totally positive in our outlook when faced with a lot of difficulties that are not being resolved.

I am not saying that we can’t control our ego, or our mind, to think positively, but sometimes it is more practical to achieve a positive attitude by accomplishing a small goal, or a portion or sub-set of a larger goal, and thereby achieving a positive outlook through taking action.

I remember a sign I once saw when I was in my doctor’s office for a check-up, which said something like: “You can’t think yourself into a new way of acting; you have to act yourself into a new way of thinking.”

The idea being that we are more likely to be able to achieve a positive frame of mind or mindset, by taking action right now, in the present moment, by working on a solution to our problems one-by-one,  and feeling positive in that we are doing something real and tangible about negative situations, or challenges.

The concept of personal development is much wider than concentrating a lot of time and effort in an attempt to think positively. Much of personal development, and thereby much of controlling our ego, or mental outlook lies in tackling difficulties and making progress with life’s challenges.

Adding up the successes achieved in small action steps can equal a positive feeling of accomplishment.  And, the operative word in all of this is doing some work on a challenge now, not focussing all of our present mental energy on trying to create a future mindset of positivity. A useful personal development maxim that might help is: “We are all called upon to create our own future.” This quotation was also from a sign in my doctor’s office.

Controlling the ego means controlling our mind March 7, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Ego Management.
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Managing the ego as part of our personal development process need not be an overly complex psychological process if we look at the ego in a less clinical way than is often done in psychological writings on the ego.

Although there are myriad definitions of the ego and the  sub groups of ego components, we can best manage areas of our ego, such as anger, if we think of the ego as the mind, rather than a deep-seated area of the brain that is difficult to access, such as the workings of the subconscious.

Our efforts towards personal growth will seem more attainable if we realize that for the most part we are in control of our mind or ego, even though in many cases, trying to convince our mind or ego about something can be tough work. But it is do-able.

From a common-sense perspective we all have a good idea of what constitutes our mind. It is that area of our person, which, for example, decides to embark on a program of personal development or self-improvement, or any other conscious course of action.

Here is one definition of the ego which I think illustrates the point that ego management or ego control involves our free-will and is not bound by mysterious inner physic workings: “The ‘I’ or ‘self’ of any person; a person as thinking, feeling and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought.”(1)

In this sense we can use our minds to successfully embark on any personal growth efforts requiring thinking. This makes matters of controlling the ego, or managing our ego, just that – matters of using our mind to control what we are thinking and to control how we are reacting to our thoughts.

The power of the mind can sometimes make it seem like an entity independent of ourselves. This is demonstrated by a number of experiences we have all had which show the power of the mind to almost have a will of its own:

“I just can’t get his rude comments out of my mind.” “That song keeps running around in my head.” “I can’t stop thinking about my financial problems.” “My mind keeps jumping from one thing to another and I can’t settle it down.”

However, with work, we can gain greater control of our mind, and thereby realize our potential through our efforts in personal development.

(1) Source: Dictionary.com