Ways To Overcome Your Pride

Excess pride is not a favorable trait. Most people will view someone with excessive pride negatively and steer clear from them. Think about it, would you have fun with someone who was obsessed with themselves and their own accomplishments? Your answer is probably no and if it isn’t then please explain because that’s an interesting answer.

How to overcome your pride

If you have excessive pride and you are looking to deal with this then a congratulations to you because you are already on a admirable path. Here are some tips to be less prideful.

1. Notice prideful habits

If you notice you have excessive pride, what are your proud behaviors? Do you come off as condescending, rude or arrogant? Do you view others as lesser people? One of the best first steps in becoming less prideful is being attentive to how you demonstrate pride – prideful habits. These can manifest themselves in the form of actions and interactions with other people or in the form of thoughts that inflate your pride. Pay attention to these and begin to combat them to get on the path towards taming your pride.

2. Challenge prideful thought patterns and actions

Once you pinpoint your prideful habits you ought to then start addressing them. The goal here is to prevent yourself from thinking excessively prideful thoughts or behaving in a prideful manner.

Any action you feel makes you behave proudly can be combated with willpower. Notice instances when you behave with excess pride (per number 1) and then deal with those habits by halting them and containing yourself. Challenge egotistical thoughts by not allowing yourself to feed into them. I.e. if you nail a presentation at work, don’t start obsessing over how much better you did compared to others. Instead, focus on your success but not at the expense of others.

3. Accept imperfections

People who are too proud tend to be under some sort of impression that any form of imperfection in their life is unacceptable. Imperfection might cause fear or anger. The reality is imperfections are a part of life. People go through hard times, make mistakes, get treated all sorts of horrible ways but they still keep moving. Learn to be more content with imperfections in the event you notice or experience them and let them become a lesson for you, not a deterrence.

4. Learn to be more humble

Humility counters pride. It is important to know that being humble in this case should not entail feeling low self-worth or shame. Here, being humble is intended to mean you are modest or fair in your view of who you are. You accept that you can fail, you can be imperfect, things don’t always have to go your way but you can also be successful, great and accomplished. This applies to anybody.

5. Find value within

Your self-worth need not come from the world around you. The way people treat you, your successes, your failures and whatever else that your life presents you is independent of your value. After you learn to be humble you ought to understand that you create your own value from within. Being a decent person, having ambition and being able to find peace and happiness even if it seems impossible to do so – these are great traits to be proud of.

6. Accept criticism

One of the more difficult traits amongst many who have excessive pride is their poor response to criticism. Overly proud people may become overly offended in the event someone offers them feedback. But here’s two important considerations when it comes to feedback. First, someone criticizing you may actually be doing so out of care for your own betterment. Criticism does not always have to come with malicious intentions. Secondly, even if someone was  criticizing you with bad intentions, taking it with strive and remaining unphased by it is a sign of strength.

7. Be happy for others

Celebrating the accomplishments of others can be a surprisingly humbling and joyful experience. For people with excessive pride, doing this might be a challenge. But feeling happiness for the accomplishments of others can help get your mind off your own inflated ego. It’s also a smart way to combat some envy you might have because of your pride.