To Be A Good Writer You Have To Put Your Ego Aside

Are you writing for the right reasons?

Writing and a big head usually go hand in hand.

We need our ego.

We do.

Our ego is what gets us out of bed, gives us the confidence to tackle new challenges, and gives us the self-confidence to hit publish. If we didn’t have an ego, our world would be void of art and all the beauty the creative soul leaves behind.

In order to actually write and hit publish, you need confidence. You need an ego large enough to make you believe you have something exciting and important to share with others and, more importantly, you believe that people will actually read and love what you have to say.

Writing for the wrong reasons

Writing requires a lot of sacrifice. It can be emotionally, mentally, and physically draining. When so much effort is put into something, it’s natural to want something out of it.

Reward, recognition, praise, money.

Regardless of whether we actually receive the reward and recognition we seek or not and no matter how much we persist, our writing suffers when we constantly believe we should be rewarded for our work.

As Eckhart Tolle says:

“I have also met many others who may be technically good at what they do but whose ego constantly sabotages their work. Only part of their attention is on the work they perform; the other part is on themselves. Their ego demands personal recognition and wastes energy in resentment if it doesn’t get enough — and it’s never enough. ‘Is someone else getting more recognition than me?’ Or their main focus of attention is profit or power, and their work is no more than a means to that end. When work is no more than a means to an end, it cannot be of high quality.”

If we can’t put our writing above ourselves, our words won’t be true and honest because we won’t be writing for the pure love of writing. Our writing, as Mr. Tolle puts it, will simply be a means to an end.

Does our ego have to take a backseat for our writing?

If writing is what you dream of doing then yes it does.

Our ego enables us to start writing but it needs to take a backseat if we’re to continue writing.

There will come a time when our works are criticized, judged, disliked, and rejected. When that time comes (and it will come) and we can’t put our fragile egos aside when those harsh words come, we’ll never make it as a writer. Unfortunately the majority of those hurtful words will come from ourselves and if we let our ego dictate our next steps, we’ll stop writing, maybe forever.

Our ego is what gets us started but our ego is also what makes us give up and allow ourselves to shrivel away into obscurity.

Writing is not to stroke our ego. Writing is not for us to fall in love with our own work and expect others to do the same. That’s too much to ask of our writing and of ourselves.

Writing is a way to create a world outside of ourselves, not to encourage our delusions of grandeur but to make sense of the world around us and, on occasion, humble us.

Our ego has no place in the driver’s seat or even in the passenger seat. Its place is in the backseat and it’s job is to speak up when we become completely lost in the dark so we can find our way back to why we started writing in the first place.

How to keep writing when your ego won’t let you

There are times when you’re just sick and tired of being rejected and dejected.

Your ego’s had enough and it’s screaming to get out of this whole writing game.

So how can you keep going when your ego is sick and tired?

Remember why you wanted to write in the first place.

Forget about trying to inspire people, earning money, getting Top Writer status, that book deal, curation. Whatever.

Just write and enjoy the process of writing.

Your ego will come back and thank you.