by Jay Shetty
Performing mundane tasks at an ashram isn’t exactly replicable in the modern world, but anyone can try this simple mental exercise we used to become more aware of our ego on a daily basis. We were taught that there are two things we should try to remember and two things we should try to forget.
The two things to remember are the bad we’ve done to others and the good others have done for us. By focusing on the bad we’ve done to others, our egos are forced to remember our imperfections and regrets. This keeps us grounded. When we remember the good others have done for us, we feel humbled by our need for others and our gratitude for the gifts we have received.
The two things that we were told to forget are the good we’ve done for others and the bad others have done to us. If we fixate on and are impressed by our own good deeds, our egos grow, so we put those deeds aside. And if others treat us badly, we have to let that go too. This doesn’t mean we have to be best friends with someone hurtful, but harboring anger and grudges keeps us focused on ourselves instead of taking a broader perspective.
I heard another way of thinking about this from Radhanath Swami when he was giving a talk at the London temple about the qualities we need for self-realization. He told us to be like salt and pointed out that we only notice salt when there is too much of it in our food, or not enough. Nobody ever says, “Wow, this meal has the perfect amount of salt.” When salt is used in the best way possible, it goes unrecognized. Salt is so humble that when something goes wrong, it takes the blame, and when everything goes right, it doesn’t take credit.
In 1993, Mary Johnson’s son, Laramiun Byrd, was just twenty years old when, after an argument at a party, he was shot in the head by sixteen-year-old Oshea Israel, who served more than fifteen years in prison for the killing. Johnson probably had the most valid reason any of us can imagine for hating someone, and hate Israel she did. Eventually, it struck her that she wasn’t the only one hurting; Israel’s family had lost their son too. Johnson decided to start a support group called From Death to Life for other mothers whose children had been killed, and she wanted to include mothers whose children had taken a life. Johnson didn’t think she could deal with the mothers of murderers unless she truly forgave Israel, so she reached out and asked to speak to him. When they met, he asked if he could hug her. She says, “As I got up, I felt something rising from the soles of my feet and leaving me.” After the initial meeting, the pair began to meet regularly, and when Israel was released from prison, Johnson spoke to her landlord and asked if Israel could move into her building. “Unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out,” says Johnson. She wears a necklace with a double-sided locket; on one side is a picture of her with her son, and on the other is a picture of Israel, who says he is still trying to forgive himself. The pair, who now live next door to each other, visit prisons and churches to talk about their story and the power of forgiveness.
Remembering your mistakes and forgetting your achievements restrains the ego and increases gratitude—a simple, effective recipe for humility.
KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR EGO
With increased awareness, we begin to notice specific moments or circumstances when our egos flare.
Once a group from the ashram backpacked across Scandinavia, hosting pop-up meditations in city centers. Most people we encountered were very warm, interested in health, and open to meditation. But at one of our stops in Denmark I went up to a gentleman and asked, “Have you heard of meditation? We’d love to teach you.”
He said, “Couldn’t you do anything better with your life?”
My ego flared. I wanted to say, “I’m not stupid. I’m smart! I graduated from a really good school! I could be making six figures. I didn’t have to do this—I chose it!” I really wanted to set this guy straight.
Instead I said, “I hope you have a wonderful day. If you want to learn how to meditate, please come back.”
I felt my ego respond. I noticed it but refused to indulge it. This is the reality of keeping our ego in check. It doesn’t disappear, but we can observe it and limit its power over us.
True humility is one step beyond simply repressing the ego as I did. In a class at the London temple, some of my fellow monks were being rude—laughing at the exercise we were doing and talking when they should have been quiet. I looked to our teacher, Sutapa, who was the head monk in London. I expected Sutapa to reprimand them, but he stayed quiet. After class, I asked him why he tolerated their behavior.
“You’re looking at how they’re behaving today,” he said. “I’m looking at how far they’ve come.”
The monk was remembering the good they’d done and forgetting the bad. He didn’t take their behavior as a reflection of himself, or of their respect for him. He took a longer view that had nothing to do with himself.
If someone is treating you badly, I’m not advising you to tolerate it like the monk. Some mistreatment is unacceptable. But it’s useful to look beyond the moment, at the bigger picture of the person’s experience—Are they exhausted? Frustrated? Making improvements from where they once were?—and to factor in what has led to this behavior, before letting your ego jump in. Everyone has a story, and sometimes our egos choose to ignore that. Don’t take everything personally—it is usually not about you.
DETACH FROM YOUR EGO
The monk and I both used the same approach to quiet our egos. We detached from the reaction and became objective observers. We think we’re everything we’ve achieved. We think we’re our job. We think we are our home. We think we are our youth and beauty. Recognize that whatever you have—a skill, a lesson, a possession, or a principle—was given to you, and whoever gave it to you received it from someone else. This isn’t directly from the Bhagavad Gita, but to summarize how it sees detachment, people often say, “What belongs to you today, belonged to someone yesterday and will be someone else’s tomorrow.” No matter what you believe in spiritually, when you recognize this, then you see that you’re a vessel, an instrument, a caretaker, a channel for the greatest powers in the world. You can thank your teacher and use the gift for a higher purpose.
Detachment is liberating. When we aren’t defined by our accomplishments, it takes the pressure off. We don’t have to be the best. I don’t have to be Denmark’s most impressive visiting monk. My teacher doesn’t have to see his students sit in stunned wonder at every moment.
Detaching inspires gratitude. When we let go of ownership, we realize that all we have done has been with the help of others: parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, books—even the knowledge and skills of someone who is “self-made” have their origins in the work of others. When we feel grateful for what we’ve accomplished, we remember not to let it go to our heads. Ideally, gratitude inspires us to become teachers and mentors in our own way, to pass on what we’ve been given in some form.
TRY THIS: TRANSFORMING EGO
Look out for these opportunities to detach from your ego and put forth a thoughtful, productive response.
Receiving an insult. Observe your ego, take a broader view of the person’s negativity, and respond to the situation, not the insult.
Receiving a compliment or accolades. Take this opportunity to be grateful for the teacher who helped you further this quality.
Arguing with a partner. The desire to be right, to win, comes from your ego’s unwillingness to admit weakness. Remember you can be right, or you can move forward. See the other person’s side. Lose the battle. Wait a day and see how it feels.
Topping people. When we listen to others, we often one-up them with a story that shows how we have it better or worse. Instead, listen to understand and acknowledge. Be curious. Don’t say anything about yourself.
STEP OUTSIDE OF FAILURE
When we feel insecure—we aren’t where we want to be in our careers, our relationships, or in reference to other milestones we’ve set for ourselves—either the ego comes to our defense or our self-esteem plummets. Either way, it’s all about us. In Care of the Soul, psycho
therapist and former monk Thomas Moore writes, “Being literally undone by failure is akin to ‘negative narcissism.’… By appreciating failure with imagination, we reconnect it to success. Without the connection, work falls into grand narcissistic fantasies of success and dismal feelings of failure.” Humility comes from accepting where you are without seeing it as a reflection of who you are. Then you can use your imagination to find success.
Sara Blakely wanted to go to law school, but despite taking the exam twice, she didn’t pull the LSAT scores she wanted. Instead of becoming an attorney, she spent seven years going door-to-door selling fax machines, but she never forgot what her father taught her. Every night at their dining room table, her dad would ask her and her brother not “What did you do at school today?” but “What did you fail at today?” Failing meant they were trying, and that was more important than the immediate result. When Sara got an idea to start her own company, she knew the only failure would be if she didn’t try, so she took $5,000 of her own money and started the business that just fifteen years later would make her a billionaire—Spanx. So often we don’t take chances because we fear failure, and that often boils down to a fear of our egos getting hurt. If we can get past the idea that we’ll break if everything doesn’t go our way immediately, our capabilities expand exponentially.
My own version of Blakely’s revelation came in London, a week or so after I’d left the ashram.
I had believed that my dharma was to serve as a monk, spreading wisdom and aid. Now, back at my childhood home, I don’t want to settle for a lower purpose. What can I do? Our family is not well off. I can’t just relax and wait for answers to come to me. I am scared, nervous, anxious. All the things that I’ve been trained not to be rush back at me.
One night, washing the dishes after dinner, I look out the window above the sink. The garden is out there, but in the darkness, all I can see is my own reflection. I wonder, What would I be doing if I were in the ashram right now? It’s 7 p.m. I would probably be reading, studying, or on my way to give a talk. I spend a moment visualizing myself walking down a path in the ashram, on my way to the library for an evening class. Then I think, It’s the same time of day here as it is there. I have a choice right now. If I use this time wisely, I can make this evening meaningful and purposeful, just as I would in the ashram, or I can waste it in self-pity and regret.
It is then that I let go of my deflated ego to realize that as a monk I’ve been taught how to deal with anxiety, pain, and pressure. I am no longer in a place where it is natural and easy to achieve those goals, but I can put all I’ve learned to the test here in a louder, more complicated world. The ashram was like school; this is the exam. I have to earn money, and I won’t have the same quantity of time to devote to my practice, but the quality is up to me. I can’t study scripture for two hours, but I can read a verse every day and put it into practice. I can’t clean temples to clean my heart, but I can find humility in cleaning my home. If I see my life as meaningless, it will be. If I find ways to live my dharma, I will be fulfilled.
I begin to get dressed every day, as if I have a job. I spend most of my time at the library, reading broadly about personal development, business, and technology. Humbled, I return to being a student of life. It is a powerful way to reenter the world.
Being a victim is the ego turned inside out. You believe that the worst things in the world happen to you. You get dealt the worst cards.
When you fail, instead of giving in to a sense of victimhood, think of the moment as a humility anchor, keeping you grounded. Then ask yourself, “What is going to restore my confidence?” It won’t grow from an external factor that’s beyond your control. I couldn’t control whether someone gave me a job, but I focused on finding a way to be myself and do what I loved. I knew I could build confidence around that.
BUILD CONFIDENCE, NOT EGO
Here’s the irony: If you’ve ever pretended you know something, you probably discovered that it often takes the same amount of energy to feign confidence and feed vanity as it takes to work, practice, and achieve true confidence.
Humility allows you to see your own strengths and weaknesses clearly, so you can work, learn, and grow. Confidence and high self-esteem help you accept yourself as you are, humble, imperfect, and striving. Let’s not confuse an inflated ego with healthy self-esteem.
The ego wants everyone to like you. High self-esteem is just fine if they don’t. The ego thinks it knows everything. Self-esteem thinks it can learn from anyone. The ego wants to prove itself. Self-esteem wants to express itself.
The table above doesn’t just show the difference between an inflated ego and a healthy self-worth. It can be used as a guide to grow your confidence. If you look closely, you will see that all of the self-awareness that we have been developing serves to build the interwoven qualities of humility and self-worth. Instead of worrying what people will say, we filter what people will say. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, we cleanse our minds and look to improve ourselves. Instead of wanting to prove ourselves, we want to be ourselves, meaning we aren’t distracted by external wants. We live with intention in our dharma.
SMALL WINS
Accumulating small wins builds confidence. Olympic swimming gold medalist Jessica Hardy says, “My long-term goals are what I would consider to be my ‘dreams,’ and my short-term goals are obtainable on a daily or monthly basis. I like to make my short-term goals something that makes me feel better and sets me up to better prepare for the long-term goals.”
TRY THIS: WRITE DOWN THE AREAS IN WHICH YOU REALLY WANT TO BE CONFIDENT
Health, career, relationship—pick one of these three.
Write down what is going to make you feel confident in this area, something that’s realistic and achievable.
Break your area down into small wins. Things you can achieve today.
SOLICIT FEEDBACK
Confidence means deciding who you want to be without the reflection of what other people think, but it also means being inspired and led by others to become your best self. Spend time with healed, wise, service-driven people and you will feel humbled—and motivated toward healing, wisdom, and service.
TRY THIS: WRITE DOWN THE AREAS IN WHICH YOU REALLY WANT TO BE CONFIDENT
Health, career, relationship—pick one of these three.
Write down what is going to make you feel confident in this area, something that’s realistic and achievable.
Break your area down into small wins. Things you can achieve today.
When you ask for feedback, choose your advisors wisely. We commonly make one of two mistakes when we seek feedback: We either ask everyone for advice about one problem or we ask one person for advice about all of our problems. If you ask too broadly, you’ll get fifty-seven different options and will be overwhelmed, confused, and lost. On the other hand, if you drop all your dilemmas on one person, then they’ll be overwhelmed, unequipped, and at some point tired of carrying your baggage.
Instead, cultivate small groups of counsel around specific areas. Make sure you choose the right people for the right challenges. We’ll go deeper into finding people who provide competence, character, care, and consistency in Chapter Ten, but for now, in order to recognize productive feedback, consider the source: Is this person an authority? Do they have the experience and wisdom to give you helpful advice? If you choose your advisors wisely, you’ll get the right help when you need it without wearing out your welcome.
The monk approach is to look to your guru (your guide), sadhu (other teachers and saintly people), and shastra (scripture). We look for alignment among these three sources. In the modern world many of us don’t have “guides,” and if we do, we probably don’t put them in a different category than teachers. Nor are all of us followers of religious writings. But what the monks are going for here is advice from trusted sources who all want the best for you, but who offer different perspectives. Choose from those who care most about your emotional health (often friends and fam
ily, serving as gurus), those who encourage your intellectual growth and experience (these could be mentors or teachers, serving as sadhus), and those who share your values and intentions (religious guides and/or scientific facts, serving as shastras).
Always be alert to feedback that doesn’t come from the usual suspects. Some of the most useful feedback is unsolicited, even unintentional. Temper the ego by paying close attention to how people react to you nonverbally. Do their expressions show intrigue or boredom? Are they irritated, agitated, tired? Here, again, it’s worth looking for alignment. Do many different people drift off when you’re talking about a subject? It might be time to pull back on that one.
When people offer their reflections, we must pick and choose what we follow carefully and wisely. The ego wants to believe it knows best, so it is quick to write off feedback as criticism. On the flip side, sometimes the deflated ego sees criticism where it doesn’t exist. If the response to your job application is a form letter saying, “Sorry, we have lots of applications,” this is not useful feedback. It says nothing about you.
The way around these obstacles is to filter the feedback. Reflect instead of judging. Be curious. Don’t pretend you understand. Ask clarifying questions. Ask questions that help you define practical steps toward improvement.
The easy check to confirm that someone is offering criticism in good faith is to see if the person is willing to invest in your growth. Are they just stating a problem or weakness, or do they want to help you make a change, if not by taking action themselves, then at least by suggesting ways to move forward?
When soliciting and receiving feedback, make sure you know how you want to grow. Feedback often doesn’t tell you which direction to follow, it just propels you on your way. You need to make your own decisions and then take action. These three steps—soliciting, evaluating, and responding to feedback—will increase your confidence and self-awareness.