That Annoying Feeling can be Enlightening by Daneen Skube

[CZBZ]

From The SeattleTimes.com:


That annoying feeling can be enlightening

I work with a guy who is incredibly self-centered. Is there anything I can do to make him get under my skin less?

By Daneen Skube / Syndicated Columnist

Q: I work with a guy who is incredibly self-centered. He makes sure he gets the best of anything, is pushy, demanding and obnoxious. Is there anything I can do to make him get under my skin less?

A: Yes, the people that drive us the most crazy at work are usually people who have a lot to teach us. Our annoyance is nature's way of bringing attention to a skill we need to develop.

In your case, how good are you at taking care of yourself? Pretend you are ranking yourself on a scale where zero means not at all and 10 means all the time. Where do you fall on the looking-out-for-yourself scale?

Most of my clients who find entitled people obnoxious would rank themselves far below 5. You can see why your co-worker may make you itch emotionally.

Narcissism is a term we use in psychology to describe self-love or how much we care for ourselves. In popular language, narcissism has come to mean selfish brat.

In psychotherapy, many clinicians could use the scale of zero to 10 to evaluate a person's capacity for self-love. Some people who were neglected or abused as kids don't have enough of it, and some people who were hurt as kids have too much.

The healthy ideal is to land in the middle.

The irony of repairing narcissistic (self-love) wounds as an adult is that people who score under 5 need to aim for 10 to get even close to an actual normal range.

People who don't take care of themselves feel embarrassed about being viewed as selfish. They bend so far backward in the other direction that they become doormats.

You don't need to worry that you will become your co-worker if you take better care of yourself. There's actually research on what causes children to either lose empathy and become utterly self-centered or become not self-centered enough.

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Daneen Skube, Ph.D., is an executive coach, trainer, therapist, speaker and author. She can be reached at 1420 N.W. Gilman Blvd., No. 2845, Issaquah, WA 98027-7001; by e-mail at interpersonaledge@comcast.net; or at www.interpersonaledge.com.

To read other columns, go to www.seattletimes.com/ daneenskube.

[eyes_up]

This article gets straight to it. What I used to think of as mandatory niceness was me being a door mat. Well, not any more. The word "selfish" is no longer something I fear as I did in the past. Aiming for a 10 is precisely how it works.It takes time to change from a 2 to a 6 and it requires new methods of thinking and behaving.

eyes

[CZBZ]

Hi Eyes!

I liked this brief article because it asked the question: "How do I make him get under my skin less?"

There are differing degress of narcissism in our population. If a narcissistic boss is pathologically malignant, undermining an employee's performance, stealing their ideas and not giving credit where credit is due, spreading false and malicious rumors, pushing extremes of financial risk, etc., the best advice anyone can give is: "FIND ANOTHER JOB BEFORE YOUR CAREER IS AT RISK." Unfortunately, bullies are so good at what they do that it may be an irresolvable situation for the 'bullied'. Especially if speaking up threatens the office hierarchy.

However, there are lots of narcissistic people who 'get under our skin', causing us to REACT and ruin our own careers! How do we get along with arrogant people without quitting a job we like because we cannot work with a narcissist?

ANSWER: we increase our resiliency by taking care of ourselves. That includes putting up hefty boundaries. Here's something that might help people understand WHY it's important to work on their triggers, rather than react to those triggers: Narcissists attempt to undermine other people's confidence so he-or-she can feel 'good' about themselves. AND as we all know, the N equates feeling 'good' with feeling Superior.

If the N acts arrogant or grandiose and we react to their behavior, we're practically guaranteed to be targeted whenever the narcissist needs someone to Pick On (Giving a narcissist attention (good or bad) only boosts the narcissist's confidence and increases their nasty behaviors.)

One of the first things we can do to help ourselves is recognize our REACTIONS as ours to claim. If we can identify what sets us off, we can work on the trigger since there's no point asking the narcissist to quit doing whatever s/he's doing. I don't think it's very wise to TELL the narcissist what upsets us because this only gives them power over us. Once again, it's all about boundaries. We know what we need to know about ourselves and we are under no obligation to share that information with anyone...especially not the opportunistic N.


Hugs,
CZBZ

[eyes_up]

YES, absolutely ! A good understanding of existing triggers and doing some work to take the charge out of the trigger. This is delicate personal work but well worth the effort. This kind of works lasts a lifetime or the rest of a life time.

I think for me what has decreased the amount of triggers I have and down sized triggers that are still operating is developing healthy self esteem aka healthy narcissism. This is no small action because there are so many paths that lead to self esteem often disguised as a strength or positive characteristic. Once the rock is turned over and what is underneath is brought to awareness then development can proceed. But as long as the trigger maintains it's connection to other (narc) then the rock remains unmoved.

 

eyes