How to Name Your Inner Critic for What It Actually Is: Ego Programming

The ego is the part of your mind where your identity lives. It's the I that you think you are — and it holds all of your programming.

Programming is the collection of beliefs you've absorbed throughout your life. Mostly from ages zero to seven, but it never really stops. It comes from your family, your culture, your schooling, every social environment that taught you what was acceptable and what wasn't.

By the time you're an adult, you have an entire operating system running in your mind that you didn't consciously choose. It's just there — telling you who you are, what's possible, what you deserve, what's dangerous, what's realistic.

And most of us don't even know it's running.