Saturday, April 25, 2015

Overcoming Narcissism By Asking for Advice

Some people know how to take advice. Others do not.

Those in the first category will invariably do better on the job and in life than will those in the second.

It stands to reason. Anyone who is sufficiently humble to know that he does not know everything will do better than someone who is so arrogant that he thinks he knows it all.

Psychiatrists diagnose those who refuse to take advice to be narcissists. The diagnosis rings true, but it needs to be qualified.

For decades now therapists have been encouraging people to introspect, to get in touch with their feelings, to follow their bliss… thus, to become more self-absorbed, more self-involved and more narcissistic.

Therapists often pursue a political and ideological agenda, regardless of whether it is best for their patients. They encourage their charges to defy authority, to rebel against experts, to disrespect age and experience, to assert their independence and autonomy.

This suggests that medical science or psychological science is telling us all not to take advice. It also denigrates anyone who would dare ask for advice.

People who have suffered the influence of the therapy culture do not understand that refusing to take or to ask for advice makes them look incompetent, self-absorbed and disrespectful.

Therapy has convinced people that when they ask for advice they are looking subservient and dependent.

When someone faces a difficult dilemma, he might well repair to his neighborhood therapist. In many cases he will find someone who refuses to offer advice.

If your therapist feels your pain but does not offer advice he is telling you that it is futile to try to find a way to resolve your dilemma by taking action in the world. He is rendering you more passive.

If the prospective patient makes the “mistake” of consulting with a therapist who is willing to offer advice, he might very well reject it out of hand and reject his therapist for lacking empathy.

It’s one thing to diagnose narcissism. It’s quite another to encourage and foster it.

When therapists are not encouraging you to become more narcissistic they are bemoaning the fact that your narcissism is so intractable. They might even believe that it has been caused by traumatic events from your childhood.

As long as they are encouraging you to be more narcissistic, they should dispense with the effort to recall the past and turn their attention to the old saying: Physician, heal thyself!

If you want to overcome your narcissism, you should develop personal habits that bespeak the opposite of narcissism. You might start thinking in terms of “we” or “you” over “I.” You might start doing unto others as you would have others do unto you. You might perform a good deed for someone else every day.

Or else, you should start learning how to take advice.

Begin by asking for advice. If your gut or your bliss is directing you to do this or that, you do well to run your plan by someone who is older and wiser.

Taking advice does not mean doing what you are told. You might hear a piece of advice and recognize that neither it nor your prior inclination is best. 

Surely, you can take the advice as given. But, if the discussion causes you to think up a new and better plan--better than both plans-- you are free to follow it.

If you seek out advice, you can take it or you can use it to formulate a better plan. Taking advice means that you will not be following your initial inclination, your gut or your bliss.

If you are starting out on your career, you should always give full consideration to the views of those older and wiser than you. Often they will offer advice, whether you like it or not. If they do not do so, ask for it.

If you actively ask for advice you are humbling yourself. If you have only been on the job for a month, no one will expect that you know everything... yet. 

Also, when you ask for advice you show respect for the other person, for his age, his wisdom and his experience.

If you do not respect people, you have no right to expect that they will respect you.

By asking for advice, you are striking a blow against your narcissistic tendencies.

Better yet, when you ask for advice, you will look smarter than the guy down the corridor who believes that he must make his own mistakes.

New research has shown that people who ask for advice are considered to be smarter and more competent.

There is no special virtue to making your own mistakes. It is best to avoid avoidable errors when it is at all possible.

Of course, this only works when you ask someone for advice about something in which he or she possesses expertise. Asking an auto mechanic for advice on how to cook lasagna does not make you look exceptionally bright. Asking a chef for advice on an oil change does not make you look very smart.

Naturally, some people ask for advice because they want to flatter their superiors. Some people follow advice because they have told—by people like me—that’s it’s the right thing to do.

None of it matters. It’s better to ask for advice for the wrong reason than not to ask for advice at all.

If you are not in the habit of asking for advice, if your narcissism is such that you find it distasteful to ask for advice, if you feel like you are selling out and making yourself look weak… then your first effort to ask for advice will not feel very good or very right. It might feel fake and insincere, as though you are acting like a sycophant.


If you ask for advice and act as though nothing has changed, then you are, by definition, being an insincere flatterer. If you ask for advice and then take it you are being sincere. This is true even if you do not believe that the advice is very good.

4 comments:

  1. Re: For decades now therapists have been encouraging people to introspect, to get in touch with their feelings, to follow their bliss… thus, to become more self-absorbed, more self-involved and more narcissistic.

    Yes, therapists must be the problem. What was life like before this scourge encouraged us in such poor directions.

    But I think it was Mythologist Joseph Campbell who said “Follow your bliss”, and by that he meant do things that make you “lose yourself”, while your actual attention is outward in the world. Still, it’s easy to misinterpret, and for picking a college majors, it might be bad advice.

    In regards to taking advice, I love advice, and I love not taking it almost as much, contrasting options and making my own choice. So I put little boxes up and say “What other people think” and then when things go badly I can say “Well, I guess I should have tried that other way”, and take personal responsibility for the results.

    Myself, I’d rather not ASSUME that narcissism is taught by therapy. Are there studies on this, or is it just an OBVIOUS consequence? Is it ALWAYS a consequence, or perhaps only in certain people? Perhaps we can identify which patience are at risk of such misinterpretations?

    Re: By asking for advice, you are striking a blow against your narcissistic tendencies.

    Again, I’m not sure this is true. I admit I’m a man, and asking for directions is something I dislike, but this morning I got disoriented biking to a running race, and I asked for directions, and it helped get me unconfused. I made it to the start line barely 30 seconds early, so I was lucky.

    I do pride myself on my direction-sense, but I also know when it fails me, so it’s frustrating, but no humiliation was involved, just gratitude.

    Re: Naturally, some people ask for advice because they want to flatter their superiors. Some people follow advice because they have told—by people like me—that’s it’s the right thing to do.

    I confess I use questions for “ice breakers”, to talk to new people, or to redirect attention away from me, and see what someone else thinks, and it seems a natural position for me. I wonder what other people think, and you’ll probably never learn if I agree or disagree, unless I really disagree strongly.

    Re: If you ask for advice and act as though nothing has changed, then you are, by definition, being an insincere flatterer. If you ask for advice and then take it you are being sincere. This is true even if you do not believe that the advice is very good.

    Okay, this sounds like bad advice to me. I’m not even sure it means, and I HOPE no one takes my advice so seriously! YUCK! I might be wrong!

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  2. "If you are starting out on your career, you should always give full consideration to the views of those older and wiser than you. Often they will offer advice, whether you like it or not. If they do not do so, ask for it."

    I don't think it's necessary or desirable to restrict advice-asking to those who are older, wiser, or organizationally more senior. I've often sought advice from people who were younger than I and organizationally on much lower levels.

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  3. I've been thinking more about advice-taking, and found this blog. I thought it was interesting for questioning the motives of the advice giver. Perhaps that's a very narcissistic thing to do, but it also seems like useful perspective for consideration.

    It is also interesting to me that I do have opinionated friends, and over time I create "internalized voices" that match them, and I can even debate in my mind, so sometimes I don't even have to ask advice, but just ask "What would Jesus do?" or whomever, and take your best guess, and then see how you react to that advice whether you agree or not.

    Perhaps its just like internalizing your parents. They looked out for you for so long, and then their perspectives become a part of yours, even long after they've died, for good or bad.

    On the good side, even if you have an internalized view of someone else's advice, you can also actually ask, if people are still alive, and see how accurate your prediction is, and if you're surprised, then you can spend a moment not assuming you know them, and remember they might have other ideas different than you imagined.

    http://tinybuddha.com/blog/when-and-when-not-to-take-advice/

    Consider who is giving you the advice. Some useful questions to ask yourself include:
    •Do they have your best interests at heart?
    •Are they biased about your situation for any reason? (For example, did they make a mistake in a similar situation which is still haunting them?)
    •Do they understand you and your situation?
    •Has their advice been helpful in the past?
    •Do they have similar values to you? If they think money is the most important thing in the world and you don’t (or vice versa) then their advice might not be right for you.

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  4. During a period of affliction with intense residual pain I had been participating in a weekly 2-hour men's therapy group for more than a year. The day I managed to fend off very intense suicidal impulses with even stronger inhibitions came right after the men's group joined in a well-intending round of criticized me for not following advice and not taking coaching. The therapist agreed with the group. Their criticism did nothing to improve my fragile self-esteem.

    Advice is easy to give but hard to follow.

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