Why Building Ego Strength Is the Foundation of Real Personal Growth
5 ways to stop fighting your ego and start leading it
Prefer to listen? Here’s the audio version by Jon:
Your ego is not the enemy. But it probably runs your life more that it should.
For years I thought getting rid of my ego was essential for self-development.
I tried lots of different things, meditation, hypnosis, visualisation and affirmations. They all helped a bit, but I always felt I was exploring a maze with countless dead ends. I learned the hard way that I was missing something fundamental.
It wasn’t until deep into my Psychosynthesis training when a wise lecturer steeped in the arcane knowledge of psychoanalysis gave me the insight I lacked.
He explained in words of crystal clarity that seeped into by bones, the raw truth that the ego is a necessary vehicle for navigating the world. You can’t outgrow or transcend an ego you never properly built.
And without ego you would be a mess. You’d never assert yourself or stick up for your needs. You would be a doormat.
That was the aha moment. The switch from treating the ego as an enemy to vanquish to a partner to renegotiate a relationship with. It also led to the realisation I needed to build a healthy level of ego strength to make this possible.
The harsh truth is if your ego is fragile, easily threatened, overly dependent on validation, avoids discomfort, then deep personal development work is a waste of time.
What ego strength actually means
In psychology, ego means your sense of ‘I’ the mental manager that helps you navigate reality.
It’s the internal voice and organiser of your thoughts, feelings, and identity. A healthy ego is what lets you get dressed in the morning, show up to work, and say ‘Hey, I deserve to be here’.
Ego is not just ‘egoism’ or pride; it’s the everyday self that keeps you you.
Ego strength is not self-importance. It’s the anchor that keeps you stable in the storms of life.
It’s your capacity to remain together under pressure. To tolerate criticism without crumbling. To feel anger, shame, or fear without being consumed by them. To hold a boundary without aggression. To delay an impulse that would cost you.
A strong ego doesn’t inflate when praised or collapse when challenged. You can hear ‘you’re wrong’ without feeling a failure. You can be imperfect and still value who you are.
Ego, in essence is the backbone of your personality.
The risk of going too deep, too fast
Many people attempt serious psychological work like excavating old trauma and exploring their shadow sides without first building a stable ego.
When ego strength is lacking, the consequences are often self-sabotage. Self-examination turns into self-attack; spiritual practice becomes a way of avoiding difficult feelings rather than engaging with them. Relationships suffer from unresolved reactive patterns rather than being grounded in conscious awareness.
What shifts when ego strength grows
When ego strength develops, something quiet but profound changes.
You can face yourself honestly looking directly at blind spots rather than defending against them. Growth requires self-confrontation, and self-confrontation requires a self stable enough to withstand it.
You also become less ‘owned’ by your triggers. A critical comment still stings. An unanswered message still nags at you, but through being more self-aware they don’t impact as much.
Picture someone who receives a harsh review of their work by an angry boss. A fragile ego spirals, replaying the words, catastrophising.
A colleague with a stronger ego feels the sting of the same feedback, sits with it, and returns to the desk the next morning. Not because the criticism didn’t matter, but because it didn’t define them.
Five ways to build ego strength
Ego strength isn’t built through insight alone. It develops through conscious action and repetition. These five practices will help you build that strength if you work with them a little each day.
1. Expand your tolerance for discomfort
When anxiety, shame, or anger arises, stay with the feeling for a moment, even 30 seconds is enough to start.
The point is to be present with what’s going on in your body rather than immediately reaching for distraction like social media, Netflix or shopping. What you are building is your capacity to pause and then choose how you respond rather than react to challenging situations.
To help when uncomfortable feelings arise, slow your out-breath and feel your feet on the ground. Let the feeling crest and fall if you can. Be curious as to where you feel it in your body.
Each time you do this, your nervous system learns something important: I can survive this. Everything else in this list depends on this foundation.
2. Keep small promises to yourself
Build your self-belief, one action at a time. Start small and adjust as your capacity grows.
2-minutes focused work on a goal. Take proper breaks from work, away from your desk, try a short walk at lunchtime to get some air. Send an email you’ve been avoiding. The goal here is consistency of keeping your word to yourself. Self-trust is earned, repetition by repetition.
At the end of everyday remind yourself or write down 2-3 promises you kept for yourself however small.
3. Set and hold boundaries
Say no without apologising or over explaining at least once a day as long as it feels safe to do so. Allow others to be disappointed in you.
This is where ego strength becomes visible in the world. Where you discover that another person’s needs don’t have to become your responsibility. Each time you hold a boundary, your psyche absorbs a message it rarely gets: my worth is not based on approval.
For more about building boundaries see:
The Most Important Boundaries You’ll Ever Set
4. Treat mistakes as useful information
When you make a mistake, own it, correct it, learn from it and then move on.
You’re not your mistakes. There is a profound difference between ‘I did something wrong’ and ‘I am wrong.’ Treat mistakes as useful feedback not as reasons to attack your self-worth.
5. Develop witness awareness
Practice observing your reactions.
Notice when you crave validation, when your ego feels threatened, when discomfort makes you want to run. Mentally name these instances, it helps creates distance between the witness (your core identity) that observes and the ego that reacts. You are not the reaction; you are the one watching it. This is where ego strength and self-awareness work together.
A great practice to help develop this is disidentification. See:
You’re Not Your Anxiety: A 5-Minute Practice for Finding Stillness in the Storm
The long game
Building ego strength takes time, but if you are serious about self-development work it’s fundamental.
It’s staying present during discomfort. Finishing what you start. Holding a boundary without drama. Owning a mistake without letting it define you.
In short it lays the foundation for you to become the person you are meant to be, no apology needed.
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are
Carl Jung