Ego and How to Build and Improve Self Worth

According to Freud ego is an important aspect of humanity. Over the years ego has become equated to one's sense of self and more often related to one's importance in the scheme of life. Most often it was assumed how to build and improve self worth was to build one's importance. The more important you were, the greater your ego, and the higher your self worth.

In fact, for many who want to know how to build and improve self worth this is still the model that many use.

The problem with self importance is that one generally becomes addicted to it like an addict to a drug. Self importance leads to a strong ego and the need to continually prove one's importance to self and others. In extreme, strong egos start wars and manipulate others for their own agenda. Strong egos thrive on the feeling of being greater than others, smarter than others, and superior to others.

They make hideous greedy monarchs that rule with an iron hand and destroy anyone who disagrees with them. But most with high egos don't make it to become a monarch of a country. They become monarch to their companies, their families, their social organizations, and so on.

But do those with high egos have a high level of self worth? The answer is “No, they have no self worth.” And the reason is this: They are never satisfied with what they have in life and they constantly have to demonstrate and prove their importance. And to this end they often are greedy or take unfair advantage of others or manipulate others to prove their self importance.

Those with high ego are often very possessive and can easily be jealous of others. They are likewise incapable of unconditional love.

So it would make sense that a person with a low ego would have a high level of self worth. No, a low ego is only a prerequisite to a high level of self worth. The problem is that those with a low ego generally feel inferior and badly about themselves. In fact they often don't like themselves and have no self worth.

So we're at a catch 22 situation. However, it can be said that it's easier for a person with low ego to build self worth than it is for a person with a high ego. The reason being is that a person with high ego is addicted to manipulating and controlling others and may likewise be addicted to greediness.

Just how is self worth built? To do so it's important to move to a different game in town. Those who build self worth by building ego or self importance usually strive to excel at something. Their ego and self worth is dependent upon their ability to maintain that level of self importance. If they lose whatever they have built their ego upon, they drop into a mid life crisis and they have no self worth while in crisis.

What is the different game? Answer: Self worth is something that is built day after day. We all have goals and when we achieve them we feel good about ourselves. That's the easy part and is no different than what we've been doing all our lives. The problem is that life is more often about the plans (goals) that fall through—the disappointments in life. The goal is to choose to feel good about you when your plans fall through too. Feel good about you on a “bad hair day”--even when you feel embarrassed or maybe rejected.

Rather than get into self put downs for making mistakes, you learn how to feel and experience the disappointments and stop being your disappointment. Instead, choose to like you no matter what which is what my writings are about.

What is the different game? Answer: Self worth is something that is built day after day. We all have goals and when we achieve them we feel good about ourselves. That's the easy part and is no different than we've been doing all our lives. The problem is that life is more often about the plans (goals) that fall through—the disappointments in life. The goal is to choose to feel good about you when your plans fall through too. Feel good about you on a “bad hair day.”

Rather than get into self put downs for making mistakes, you learn how to feel and experience the disappointments and stop being your disappointment. Instead, choose to like you no matter what. The goal is to get rid of ego and learn how to build and improve self worth the right way