You always have a choice to either fool yourself and those around you with your importance, or choose real development. In your self-deception, you can even become a king. And if self-development was initially chosen to amuse the sense of self-importance (PSV), then it is really easier not to develop, but to immediately engage in self-promotion, assuring others of their own enlightenment, coolness and advancement.
Thus, internal conflicts are created, vulnerability appears, and dependence on other people's opinions. The illusory greatness can be led by blind followers suffering from a similar problem. Self-deception can escalate to the point where you yourself begin to believe your own lies, becoming an increasingly suitable client for a good psychiatrist.
To be a simple person with a healthy psyche, or to be a "cool" fake with painful neuroses - that is what your real choice is.
And it’s obvious that being fake is always more expensive. Life inevitably collides with self-deception. You can convince a few blind people of your great importance, but you will be cut off from the society of sober. You can convince others to be blue in the face of your coolness, just not to face your fears. But real development is only possible when you accept yourself as you are. Only when you are honest and open with yourself, then you yourself become a living truth. A cool "fake" does not develop, but on the contrary runs away from development, because development puts such a person before the fact of his falsity.
If you choose development and consider yourself advanced, it is worth asking yourself honestly, are you really cool, or are there any external signs by which you will pass for cool? Are you really cool, or indulge your vanity? Any slightest hint of trying to prove your "coolness" is a sign of self-importance, dependence and self-deception.
When you are not afraid to be yourself and accept yourself as a real person, then complexes and doubts cease to pollute the mechanism of your thinking and perception, which gives clarity and efficiency to all your actions.
At the same time, it is important to understand that the awareness of the uselessness of the sense of self-importance does not imply the same uncompromising attitude towards other people's PSI. On the contrary, it means that you, as a real practitioner, should be very attentive to others, not to hurt them with your "flexibility", and not to poke your nose into your own shortcomings, if only because in most cases it is fraught with quite adequate opposition on their part.
For some reason, most people, having familiarized themselves with the theory of PSV, begin to observe this feeling in anyone, just not in themselves, which is an obvious self-deception and a deviation from the path of personality development and self-knowledge in the opposite direction. To help a person, you can point out his shortcomings, but if you do not do this consciously and sensitively, the so-called "good intentions" can too easily turn into typical tyranny and self-exaltation, by humiliating the interlocutor. Such "karmic knots" on the path of the development of consciousness become a great obstacle.
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Being uncompromising about your importance is the best way to become an effective person. Precisely with its own personal importance. Being uncompromising and ruthless with a sense of the self-importance of others can be an excellent excuse for emotional sadism. A person can put on the mask of a teacher, or just an abstruse cynic, ostensibly to help the opponent destroy his illusions. In fact, the main motivation for such intentions, as a rule, comes down to the exaltation and strengthening of the self-importance of the "benefactor." A person himself does not notice how, making fun of others, he builds a huge monument to his impenetrable stupidity of pride.
Pointing to other people's flaws, one should show the greatest consciousness, clearly aware of one's own motives. If these motives boil down to self-affirmation, the interlocutor will not hear you, and what is said will be quite rightly perceived as destructive criticism and "hitting" for the sake of pleasing your pride. If there is no confidence in your own motives, then self-affirmation is definitely present in them. There is nowhere easier to deceive yourself here. But if you really point out other people's mistakes with a sincere desire to help, remember that no one is obliged to change at your whim, and most likely your words will be perceived as criticism, or even hitting. A separate article on constructive and destructive criticism is devoted to this topic on progressman.ru.
A sense of self-importance is pure neurosis, prompting to demonstrate your own person in the most beautiful colors. However, you should not suppress your personality. Any, for example, creative, activity related to the manifestation and disclosure of personality is not prohibited. The challenge is not to become attached to the result of your activity in any form. Ultimately, fame, recognition, or, conversely, misunderstanding and humiliation are nothing compared to the eternity that your soul possesses. A real practitioner does not run away from the world, because he realizes that freedom consists not in the absence of material goods, but in the absence of attachment to them. When there is no attachment, beauty and wealth cannot spoil a person.
To get rid of the sense of self-importance, the teacher of Carlos Castaneda advised him to use situations with "petty tyrants". A petty tyrant is an annoying person who, with his “cultureless” behavior, puts pressure on your personality. If a person rises above you, you should not resist him, because this is tantamount to one of the options for accepting the conditions of his game. The best thing to do is not to play this game with him, not to be led by the situation. Then the petty tyrant will rightfully find himself in a stupid position, in which his unreasonable behavior will look like a child's prank.
In general, when faced with difficult people and situations, it becomes possible to practice mindfulness in extreme conditions, when the personality is polished especially intensively. And it is in your power to show detachment or, showing weakness, surrender to emotions.
Getting rid of PSV is not a mental decision, but constant work on yourself. As Dan Milman said, "There is no path to awareness, awareness is the path." To get rid of the sense of self-importance, it is necessary to remember that it is useless whenever PSI manifests itself. It is necessary to look at yourself honestly and call things by their proper names. If you have pride, pomp, royal habits, you should not deceive yourself into thinking that you are cool. All these are signs of an ordinary weak and insecure personality. These qualities are manifested to varying degrees in most people. If you sincerely want to pacify PSI, just take it as it is, watch carefully how PSI manifests itself. Don't let your mind fall into selfless fantasies of its own greatness.