One of the pitfalls that many people encounter when embarking onto something novel in a bid to for self improvement is this very thing called the ego trap. The more commonly used abbreviation could be something along the lines of "one-upmanship", or constant comparison and thinking that one human being is better than another because of [x].
Here is an simple example: "I ran 10km today while you sat on a couch walloping the entire bag of kettle-chips when you should have been doing kettle-bells. Chips are not bells. I ran while you snoozed, therefore I am superior to you."
The ego is inherent in every human being, and whilst the ego itself is innately not a bad thing, one should learn that falling into the ego trap, where you mistakenly think that you are better than someone because of something you have or have not done or ......