How To Kill Your Ego After Creating New Stuff
Do Not Waste Time Checking Your Statistics — Start Creating Your Next Piece
Whenever I write and publish a new piece on Medium, I cannot help but check back on the statistics of the article. How much is it read? Has it been clapped by anyone? Has someone shared it on social media? How many likes have I got when I have posted it online?
Admit it — you are also guilty of these habits. These habits are actually dysfunctional and counterproductive. Why?
- They raise your expectations and you are disappointed when your articles do not make the impact that you hope they would.
- They are time-wasting habits. You should check your statistics once a day, not every hour. Otherwise, you are running the risk of over-indulging in your ego-fest or frustrating yourself.
- These habits prevent you from embracing the future. When your article is published, it is no longer your responsibility. It is in the hands of the Internet and the readers. Leave it to them — do not worry about it.
- These habits prevent you from focusing on your new creations. You should be focused on your new projects, articles, artwork, and creations. 100% of your focus should be on what you will work on now (not on how your previous work is received).
So, how do we fix these wrong habits? How can we be more creative and productive in our use of time? Below are my principles suggestions, based on what I try to practice in my own life.
11 Principles for Killing Your Ego and Creating New Stuff
1.Whenever you catch yourself checking your comments, statistics, or reactions, do five push-ups. While doing the push-ups, think about your next idea or next move. This will train your mind to get out of the vanity metrics (rut) and move into an active and creative zone (momentum).
2.To kill your ego, do not take yourself too seriously. There will be different reactions to the work you have shared with the world — do not pay too much attention to these. Whatever you shared with the world is not yours anymore — it belongs to the world. You cannot let what happens from now on — leave it alone. Your time is better spent if you focus on your next venture: What is next?
“Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it’s a terrible master — because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there’s never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed.”— Elizabeth Gilbert
3.Shift to a creator’s mindset. Kickstart your creativity with small steps — create your own routines to get yourself into a mood of creation. Embrace the uncertainty of doing difficult work. Treat the process as an opportunity for learning and experimentation.
“A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
4. Focus on the present. This involves putting an end to ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. What is the one action that you can do now to be creative and productive? Select your priority and act on it. It is OK to start small and take it easy. Fully engage in the experience of writing or creating new things. Stick to your practice even if it does not flow.
5. Let go of your ego and acknowledge that you are just starting your learning journey. There is an ocean to explore and what you know is just a small island in the middle of this endless ocean. Pick up books on areas or topics that you know very little about. Read and learn beyond your discipline to astonish yourself.
“Without Warren Buffett being a learning machine, the Berkshire Hathaway investing record would have been absolutely impossible. The same is true at lower walks of life. I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they’re learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they get up.” — Charlie Munger
6. You must learn to get rid of your fears (and procrastination tendencies) related to your new work: Do not play it safe and be comfortable with failure — fail often and sooner, rather than later. Treat failures as experiments and learning opportunities — get up and try again. Stop letting fear drive you — take immediate action to get into a momentum zone.
7. Have an honest conversation with yourself on what matters to you. What will you create now? What is your greater purpose and mission? Why? Prioritize that and say no to all other things. Maximize your ‘alive time’ whereby you learn, create, write, use your imagination, and take action. Minimize your ‘dead time’ where you are passive, angry, agitated, egoistical, or heartbroken.
While you wait for the right moment,there are two types of time: Dead time — where you are passive and biding and Alive time — where you are learning and acting and leveraging every second towards your intended future. Which will be for you? — Robert Greene
8. Do not expect any returns, rewards, or external validation, as this will make you weak. What matters is your internal peace of mind when you put out the best work that you can pull off. Forget about credit, recognition, or reputation — focus on creating your best work.
9. If you are not learning new things, close that page that you are scrolling down. Do not be buried in social media algorithms, endless emails, or constant updates. Close your eyes and ask yourself: What would excite you? What are you really curious about? What do you really want to learn about? What do you really want to create? How can you start right away by taking a small action towards this exciting vision?
10. Remind yourself how much work is still left to be done, not how much you have already done. Cultivate your humility when you become successful. If you are too proud of where you are, you will be stuck there and there is no room for further learning, growth, and development. The Japanese word ‘tsundoku’ refers to buying and stacking up books that you will never read. ‘Tsundoku’ is great, because it reminds you that you do not know enough. Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls these unread volumes an ‘antilibrary’ and advises us to have a very large antilibrary to be curious, humble, and open.
11. Do not feel entitled to success. Be honest about your failures, weaknesses, and mistakes. Learn from your experiences when you fail. Try to get better every day and remember that there is always more you can and should learn. Remember you are only competing with yourself and it is your journey alone — do not compare your journey to the journey of others.