I was in this “narcissist mini-cycle” for many years. Many google searches and no luck. I can’t believe that I finally found someone who recognizes it. Thank you so much.
fwiw, what got me out of it was to attend a Zen temple for 3 months or so. This didn’t make me less narcissistic, but somehow gave me the stamina to actually achieve something that befit my inflated expectations, and now I just refer back to those achievements to quell my need for greatness. At least while I work on lowering my expectations.
Why work on lowering your expectations rather than working on improving your consistency of success? If you managed to actually satisfy your expectations once, that seems to suggest that they weren’t actually too high (unless the success was heavily luck based, but based on what you said it sounds like it wasn’t.)
Also, that article didn’t sound like it was describing narcissists (at least for the popular conception of the word “narcissist”). It more just sounded like it was describing everyone (everyone has a drive for social success) interspersed with describing unrelated pathologies, like lack of “stamina” to follow through on plans and trouble dealing with life events.
I was in this “narcissist mini-cycle” for many years. Many google searches and no luck. I can’t believe that I finally found someone who recognizes it. Thank you so much.
fwiw, what got me out of it was to attend a Zen temple for 3 months or so. This didn’t make me less narcissistic, but somehow gave me the stamina to actually achieve something that befit my inflated expectations, and now I just refer back to those achievements to quell my need for greatness. At least while I work on lowering my expectations.
Why work on lowering your expectations rather than working on improving your consistency of success? If you managed to actually satisfy your expectations once, that seems to suggest that they weren’t actually too high (unless the success was heavily luck based, but based on what you said it sounds like it wasn’t.)
Also, that article didn’t sound like it was describing narcissists (at least for the popular conception of the word “narcissist”). It more just sounded like it was describing everyone (everyone has a drive for social success) interspersed with describing unrelated pathologies, like lack of “stamina” to follow through on plans and trouble dealing with life events.