Before I start today’s blog, I want to be sure to thank everyone for all the amazing blog comments and emails I received yesterday wishing me a happy birthday. I loved and appreciated them all!
Let’s talk a little about relationships today…
Anyone who has read me knows that there is something I say over and over again (because it is so important!): To be able to truly love yourself and to truly be able to love someone else, you must drop the ego. This is absolutely essential to finding an amazing relationship, but it’s equally critical to maintaining and continually improving a relationship once you’re already in it.
Nothing will kill a relationship (even the best of relationships) more quickly than ego. Here are 6 ways your ego can kill your relationship, and how to avoid having your ego ruin your relationship.
1.Resist The Temptation To Defend Yourself: Think about the number of times you’ve fought with a significant other, and whenever things get a little heated you start to defend yourself. All you hear is you being attacked, and you immediately go into “defending yourself” mode. Do you know that when you defend yourself in a fight, what’s really happening is your ego is defending itself.
It also means that you’ve stopped listening to the other person. If someone tells you that they don’t like the way you’ve been acting lately, why not hear them out instead of defending yourself? It will almost always create a MUCH better outcome.
2.To Love Yourself And Someone Else Completely You Must Separate The Ego: In order to truly love someone, you must separate your ego from yourself. This is also true if you want to be able to totally love yourself. Now, I know that in a perfect world, we would never be ego-driven. This is not a perfect world of course, so let’s get real. We are all ego-driven to some extent or another, so let’s acknowledge it and embrace that we need to separate the ego to cultivate and maintain a truly amazing relationship with someone.
3.Your Ego Can Ruin Any Conversation: The truth is that no matter how much you prepare, plan and hope for a good conversation with your significant other, your ego is the one thing that will consistently ruin any conversation you’re about to have if you let it.
Let’s say your significant other is frustrated with you in one way or another and really needs to express something about that to you. How do you respond? If you let your ego get involved and you defend yourself, it means that you’re not listening to them.
In order to really listen to somebody, it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes your significant other has things that are really bothering them about which they want to talk to you, but which you would rather not hear. To maintain a great relationship, however, you can’t let your ego keep you from really listening.
4.You Have To Be Willing To Drop The Ego And Learn To Have A Healthy Relationship: If you want to really be able to get deep with someone and take your relationship to a deep level, then you need to be able to take your ego out of the equation. You will always attract somebody who is just like yourself, because you really attract who you are as a person. Also, your significant other is going to do things that you don’t recognize. It may be voices, patterns, communication styles or other things with which you aren’t familiar.
You need to be open and able to learn these things about your significant other, and your ego will keep you from doing this every time. All of us need to learn things about our significant other every single day. We need to learn our significant other’s communication style, because many times your communication styles will be very different.
5.Dropping The Ego Doesn’t Mean You Need To Change Who You Are: It can take a lot for you to drop the ego, really listen to your significant other and realize that they need you say something in a different way or understand how the way you communicate may make them feel a certain way. A lot of people misunderstand these kind of requests as being their significant other’s attempt to change them. It’s not.
They’re not trying to change you, they are trying to improve the way you communicate with each other. They are trying to get the two of you to be able to communicate better than you ever have in the past. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Embrace this!
6.Ego Causes Those “Low Blowers” Which Are The Biggest Relationship Killers: Do you get frustrated when you’re having an argument with a significant other? Of course, we all do. When that happens, though, sometimes the ego will cause you to hurl what I call “low blowers” at the other person.
You’re feeling hurt, so you lash out and say something you know will make the other person hurt too. It was not only hurtful, but inevitably something stupid. By listening to your significant other, instead of lashing out from your ego, you can get through an argument without these low blows and they will be much more constructive (and not destructive to your relationship).
So the next time you see your ego getting involved in your relationship, get rid of it! If you find yourself defending yourself or not allowing you to really listen, then you need to take a step back. Listen carefully to what’s really being said, and use it to create the most amazing relationship.
In regards to this post. What if you are invovled with something in your life where the other person is completely ego driven? What advice do you have for someone in a relationship like that? Does that mean I secretly have a monster ego that likes to butt heads with someone like that or does that mean that my ego is so small, or my true self is so distant, that I let someone else’s ego walk all over me?
I don’t think I have a big ego when it comes to connecting with people but I do have the knack for finding people that try to dominate me with their own ego. I’m getting sick of it but something keeps drawing me back to these people.
Some great points about the ego here. I’ve been contemplating the concept a lot myself.
Very good tips david.. i must say i ‘m kind of hot tempered and i try to cool down. I agreed when in relationship we have an argument and we tend to pour everythings and defending ourself as much as we can. This is totally wrong….. which i did previously with my girlfriend.
i still remember david had wrote another wonderful blogs last year ” Drop your EGO”. you guys should navigate again. Ego not only apply in relationships but everything in our daily life. most of the people don’t realize and they keep repeating the same mistake.
Ego will get you kill..
Thanks David
Have a Great Weekend to everyone !!
you are very welcoem David!
you are so right about the ego thing, i have to work on it more not just with women but families as well.
a great step by step explanation, easy read thank you.
hope you had a great b-day!!!
i agree with Jimmi, i have to work on that as well~
life is too short to have a ego!
You are very welcome sweetie glad to hear that had a wonderful time with your LOVE.
Our ego is our worst enemy, when you become aware of it, we began to enjoy life more and more!
great blog today never stop writing David, some reason todays blog made me feel so much better as a person.
Clint-
glad to hear that you feel much better now!
sometimes it takes us some self understanding, becoming aware of our egos, and that is when we can consciously eliminate it from our lives, and have more freedom!
feel free to update how you feel!
CJ-
thanks for the comment, it means a lot to hear from you!
i will update more as i put all the things to practice.
Good post David. This is one of my weak points here. Happy belated birthday by the way.
Mike, that’s a good question – I’d be interested to hear David’s answer on that. Am struggling with such a situation myself at the moment.
Peter and Mike
It’s an interesting question but are you talking about a personal or a work related relationship. With a work relationship where you are dependent on income it gets a bit hard as you really did not “choose” the relationship, but maybe it got something to do with the line of work the both of you have and the types it attract.
Personally I think it’s more about that you are allowing it to happen whether you know it or not, in particular when it comes to personal relationships. We can’t be affected by other unless we let them do it. It seems to have a bit to do with self worth/self confidence as when you are at the top of your game these people have no chance and they know they can’t get away with it.
But back to David it really would be interesting to hear your answer on this one.
this is the only reason im still a virgin… i know, i know. hopefully i can conquer this poison of self indulgence and improve my life
With self ego brings pride…I have heard it said time and time again if it were not for my foolish pride…What pride. Pride cometh before a fall. We were taught to defend ourselves no matter what…But when you are in love with someone why do you want to ruin something they are not out to get you. They just want you to understand. Let the foolish pride go and the tell that ego to take a flying hike.
I don’t know if it was ego that led my previous relationship to end… but in hindsight, I think I was afraid of allowing myself to totally give to her. Is it ego or is it fear? I’m not sure… but there sure were a few things that I wished I did more in my last relationship.
Mike, if you keep on meeting people who try to dominate you, you should ask yourself: what is it that you project that attract those kind of people to you? Are you “picking” a fight with them? Are you secretly wanting to dominate others yourself?
Usually, we attract what we are….
The best way to think of your ego is to remember the old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Remember the little devil that would appear? Well, think of the little devil on the left shoulder as your ego. The angel on the right shoulder is what you need to listen to! Just do like Jay Z says and brush that dirt off your shoulder.
A lot of guys think it is macho to use ego to get what they want. Its probably why some guys are very successful, but they end up losing a fair bit in terms of respect outside work. Ego really blinds a lot of people and we have this ME, ME, ME culture. Had they’ve slowed down and bit and went for a softer way, things might be better. If we guys can forget our needs and concentrate on what the other might want. Partners might feel much better. I’d be happy to sacrifice comfort for the greater good and longevity of a relationship.
What happens when the other person is ego-driven? The other person will always be ego driven.But when we become egoless and donot defend or attack,then the other person’s ego starts to dissolve and disappear.How does this happen? The other person’s ego needs to be fed, for it to continue and live. But when we stop feeding it, by not reacting, the other person’s ego becomes lifeless.
The question we must ask ourselves is, whether it is possible for us not to react? We must respond but not react to the ego driven person. Reaction is defense mixed with anger,fear or sadness. Response has no anger and no negativity.When we respond to their attack we are not feeding ther ego and therby forcing them to become egoless towards us.All it takes is to remember and be aware not to react but to respond.But that is the difficult bit.
I hope this makes sense.