How do I continue to work with the ego, rather than fighting it?

Great question.
I think to answer that question we need to understanding what the ego is and isn’t.

In the west we tend to over identify with the ego while in the East the ego viewed as something to be nullified. Both ways I think get us into trouble if we are expected to live in the world.

In my opinion the ego is a valid and important part of the whole that is the Self.
The ego is not the self but a part of the Self, A part of the team through which we become aware, we become consciousness of self and set intentions. We work then do not to identify with the ego nor however do we negate it. (Fight it)

Ultimately the ego is the part of ourselves that acts mostly as an observer and means through which we set intention. (The ego consciousness should not to try to control the intention only set it, observe, adjust, repeat…)

Once we stop identifying our sense of Self with our ego consciousness, the ego becomes not the captain of the ship but the navigation and communication system. Communication between the conscious and unconscious, the objective and subjective, the inner and the outer…

It is the ego through which we set our course, retrieve and store our charts/memories and pays attention. Paying attention in a way that is a doing by not doing – not labeling or measuring our thoughts as in I’m a bad person because I am a bad piano player… note the difference between labeling thoughts as bad or good and labeling an experience of some moment of time that we felt as bad or good. When we label our thoughts we have the tendency to label our ego which if identified as the self we become.

By paying attention and observing we learn we are more than the sum of our parts, more than ego consciousness and the labels/measurements we make. We learn to forgive our self’s for our failings and as we forgive ourselves, others.
Life becomes less hectic as we strive and live our truths as we know them to be in the moment, open to learning. We breathe.