A mentor of mine recently asked me what the most challenging part of building my career has been so far, and I knew instantly that my answer was the uncertainty of it all. My sister is a surgeon, and I’ve always said that I envy how clear and direct her path has been, that she figured out her purpose in life and had all the steps laid out to pursue it.
Of course, when I said that to my sister she reminded me that it’s not that simple for anyone, even doctors. She started college as an English major and then switched to Psychology, and it wasn’t until her senior year that she decided she wanted to study medicine. There were extra classes she had to take, a multitude of tests to pass and procedures to go through, potential barriers at every turn where if she failed an exam or wasn’t accepted to the program she wanted, the door to her dreams would be closed. In fact almost everyone I’ve spoken with about their career trajectories, from lawyers to yoga instructors, has reiterated that our futures are never quite as clear as we’d like them to be, and that even the most successful and fulfilled people still aren’t sure what they want to do when they “grow up.”
Figuring things out as we go requires us to constantly ask ourselves who we want to be and what path we want to take to get there. That’s the question author Ryan Holiday asked himself as he wrote the book Ego is the Enemy. While I’ve read and enjoyed many of Holiday’s books, I always skipped over this one, thinking ego wasn’t really a problem I struggle with. To me, an egotistical person is self-centered, grandiose, and obnoxious, and it’s easy to see when someone is being controlled by their ego. But as Holiday shows in his writing, we all struggle with our egos, and that struggle may not be as obvious as I assumed.
What I learned from reading Holiday’s book is that ego shows up in me every day, and she can be a real sneaky bitch too, because I’ve only been watchful for her overtly negative qualities. When I feel myself getting boastful, or starting to make excuses or complain, I can quickly recognize it and adjust my attitude. So she switches up her tactics, and masks herself in things I would never recognize as harmful. Now, my ego appears in things I hardly notice, things like:
- When I spend hours plotting out my “ideal” work schedule, meticulously blocking time off for all kinds of ambitious things: I will wake up by five a.m., I will go on a run and go to the gym, I will write for three hours a day, of course I’ll also work from nine to five and make time to eat, sleep, commute, and maybe even talk with my husband or walk my dog. I organize and then feel incredibly accomplished and proud of myself without having done anything,
- When I tell friends that I’m “working on my novel” even though I’ve barely written a thousand words that week, or when I let myself daydream about all the things I’ll do “one day”, like run a marathon or start my own company, and visualize how amazing it will be: how everyone will love me, and be so impressed with me, and how I’ll be so much happier and better then than I am right now,
- When I take offense at being asked to do work that I feel is below me, or to participate in a group effort that isn’t connected to what I care about or am interested in, or when I sulk about not receiving credit for my efforts and see everyone around me as competition, striving to prove that I’m better than them even if what they are working on or concerned with has absolutely nothing to do with me,
- When I overperform a task instead of just getting it done and bask in the glory of others admiration or my own pride,
- When I reject compromise and bullishly force my own opinions under the guise of being “passionate” or being “stubborn” because I want it all.
In each of these examples my ego keeps me from achieving my potential without me even realizing it, either because it tricks me into thinking these moments are productive when really they’re just wasted time, or because some of these actions have been reinforced as actually being positive instead of unhelpful. Our society encourages people to micromanage themselves, to create their “brand” and share it with the world constantly, to take your credit where it’s due and that you deserve to have it all. In this way, I can get so wrapped up in the pretend life that exists inside of my color-coded planner and on my social media feed that I’m too busy to look up and realize that I’m not actually doing anything at all.
Holiday’s solution to ego is simple: work. In the book, he quotes Joseph Conrad who said “I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.” There are two types of time in our lives: passive time where we wait and watch and active time where we learn and grow and utilize every second. The more active time we have the more we can find ourselves, and the less our ego can slide into our lives and push us towards laziness or spinning our wheels.
The solution to ego is to work without need for validation of the work, to be capable of experiencing the uncertainty without letting it drain us. “What is truly ambitious,” Holiday writes, “is to face life and proceed with quiet confidence in spite of the distractions.” Don’t be attached to the outcome of the work, because that’s what can lead us to a fear of failure so large we don’t even begin. That’s what can lead us to attempt a new PR everyday in the gym so we can post it on Instagram instead of putting our heads down and slogging through those god awful boring reps that actually make us stronger. Let the good work be sufficient. Let it be enough each day to look back and know you’ve met your own standards, not the world’s, that you like that snapshot of yourself, not that someone on the internet does.
I’ve printed one section of Holiday’s book and posted it at my desk as a daily litmus test for if I’m working in the right direction or letting ego fool me. It says:
So. Do we sit down, alone, and struggle with our work? Work that may or may not go anywhere, that may be discouraging or painful? Do we love work, making a living to do work and not the other way around? Do we love practice, the way great athletes do? Or do we chase short-term attention and validation—whether that’s indulging in the endless search for ideas or simply the distraction of talk and chatter?
Fac, si facis. (Do it if you’re going to do it.)
So. Let’s do it.