How to Stop Being a Narcissist?: 10+ Working Tips

by Ella Carrillo · July 14, 2023

How to Stop Being a Narcissist? If you are a narcissist, then has it ever occurred to you, “What if I do not wish to be a narcissist anymore?” or “I just want to stop being a narcissist”. If yes! then you are at the correct place. If you are someone who is done with dealing with a narcissist and wishes for them to stop being narcissistic or just wish to heal them then you are also most welcome here, as you are going to be provided tips that would help the narcissist to not be a narcissist anymore.

If you have been called a narcissist, at any time or any point in your life then you might be wondering how to ensure that you are not becoming one. Or due to your unusual and extravagantly outlandish behavior, if at all you are proven to be a narcissist with the help of diagnosis, then you might be worried about how to make yourself better or how to not be a narcissist. You might be having complicated thoughts regarding treatments, therapies, or steps to cure narcissism. But it is not as complicated as it seems as everything is possible once you put your heart into doing it.

If you desperately want to have some positive changes in your life and do not want to have narcissistic qualities, then here is your chance. Everything seems difficult from afar unless you give it a try yourself and put maximum effort to achieve it. So do not get disheartened or give up as “Every cloud has a silver Lining”. Let us discuss a few tips that can make the process a little easier by indulging ourselves in learning more about curing, healing or at least getting an exit toward betterment.

The first and foremost thing to stop being a narcissist is to know more about narcissism. This may ensure that you are well aware of what exactly you are dealing with. So how would you know whether or not you are suffering from a Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Let us find out more about narcissism further.

Defining Narcissism – What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)?

NPD(Narcissistic Personality Disorder) or Narcissism is portraying some common toxic traits in an intensified state than others. In psychological terms, narcissists who suffer from NPD(Narcissistic Personality Disorder) portray these emotions and traits in a greater magnitude than others. These emotions include a boosted sense of self-importance, inflated self-worth, and a constant need for admiration, adoration, and validation.

Narcissists are often characterized by their boosted sense of self-importance, self-pride, and self-needs. With a narcissist, everything is just about them. Narcissists thrive upon the attention, adoration, and validation that they receive from others, and what makes them distinguished from others is the way they think and the way they behave, which is totally selfish and mean.

If you are dating a narcissist, or have a narcissistic family member then be ready to be surprised by some of their unusual, surprising, or strange behavior patterns. This outlandish behavior may be the cause of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

If a person is diagnosed with NPD(Narcissistic Personality Disorder), then that may be responsible for many behavioral and personality changes for a narcissistic person. So coming across strange behaviors of a narcissistic person would not come to you as a surprise. When you live with a narcissist, you have to be ready to expect the unexpected sometimes. Not every day do you have to be ready for strangeness but there are a few times when a narcissist would act against normalcy, which might shock you or put you into delusion.

Symptoms or Signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

These traits may vary for some individuals, thus here mentioned signs can be generalized for majorly all narcissists in all.

Manipulation – Manipulation is a narcissist’s go-to tactic while dealing with others in order to get what they need.

Grandiosity – Narcissists have a boosted sense of self-importance and thus showing off their achievements, talents, plus points, looks and much more becomes their regular ritual.

Lack of Accountability – Narcissists may never take responsibility for their actions even though their actions may cause distress and harm to others. They use the technique called blameshifting to distract everyone and thus ditch their wrongdoings.

Entitlement – Narcissists believe that they are made for special treatment and deserve all the privileges as they are better than others.

Envy – Narcissists easily get jealous of other people, their looks, their achievements, and much more.

Exploitative tendencies – Narcissists can exploit others without giving it a second thought and without even trying to know the consequences of their actions.

Arrogance – Narcissists are filled with arrogance and their attitude towards others says it all.

Behavioral Traits of Narcissists

Some behavioral traits of narcissists are as follows,

They use manipulation in all situations where they feel they are losing control
They always see the negatives first
They are selfish and inconsiderate
Narcissists lack sensitivity and empathy.
Have uncommon expectations and unusual fantasies
You are always the wrongdoer and not them in their eyes
They are almost incapable of praising others or giving enough credit to others
They act over dramatically over trivial matters
There is no winning against them in an argument
They are highly competitive even with someone who is incomparable
They cheat innumerable
Have unhealthy relationships.
Have regular mood swings.
They use past grudges as their trump card
They never provide straight answers

Key Causes of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

There are not many rooted answers for the causes of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but according to many researches and analyses provided by psychologists, therapists, mental health and psychology experts, there are a few known key factors that can be the causes of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Heredity
Brain Mutations
Genetic transmission from parents to offspring
Parenting flaws
Acquiring through some arbitrator like friends, partner, or anyone who is influential enough in life

Often it is observed by mental health experts, that the children raised by narcissists have childhood trauma, which affects their upbringing and also makes the same or even more narcissistic than their parents. Children learn from their parents, so parents would only be passing on narcissistic traits to their children as an inherent quality knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, by choice or without choice. Unless they are guided toward what is right, instead of toxic behavior, there is no way a child will not learn all those narcissistic traits possessed by their Narcissistic parents.

How to Stop Being a Narcissist?

A mental illness can cause many personality and behavioral changes in a person. So if you really wish to bring change, it can either be solved by self-help or self-healing. If all the other mentioned signs, causes, and traits sound familiar, but somehow you no longer wish to associate with them then here are a few tips to overcome a part of narcissistic qualities, or at least a major part of the toxic personality as changing entire personality may require professional help from mental health experts or therapists. Thus these tips might at least provide you a kick start towards implementing change in life, further making the process of seeking changes easier.

1. Accepting the fact that nobody is perfect

Normalizing that everyone makes mistakes can make this process a lot easier. Accepting the fact that nobody is perfect and everyone messes up and also that is normal. It is important to keep moving in life by making mistakes and learning rather than proving yourself as a perfect individual. Also, accepting that everyone around you, your parents, friends, family members, acquaintances, and caregivers, no one is perfect, they also mess up eventually, and thus letting go of the worries of maintaining a perfect image can put you at ease.

Accepting that people would accept you as you are even if you are not perfect can ease up the process of going towards the journey of not being the narcissist anymore.

2. Forgiving yourself

Forgiving yourself becomes the crucial step here. Do not beat yourself up for having such expectations, such behavior toward others, and such duality of your personality. The moment you leave the narcissist inside you behind is the moment you realize how beautiful life can be true. You start feeling confident and contended with life. You start living to the fullest and feel the need to enjoy life the way you want. This is the sign that you are healing from past trauma, exploitative experiences, and harmful traits. This can be a turning point in your life where you can restart your life. The moment you start forgiving yourself is the moment you start living life to its fullest.

3. Give yourself time to heal

Changes do not happen overnight. It is a long process that requires patience, perseverance, and a strong will. Changes do take a lot of time in fact longer than usual than you might have expected. Healing comes through spending time with yourself, enjoying your own company, surrounding yourself with good and positive people, not being afraid to acknowledge the wrongdoings and working to make things better for those whom you have caused problems and hurt, seeking therapies, being one with nature, and most importantly not rushing the healing process. Time heals everything and is also one of the most important factors to measure change. Do not rush the healing process.

4. Identify your triggers

Knowing which situations, actions, and behavior make you lose your cool, can help a lot in keeping yourself calm and composed and not losing your temper. Knowing about your triggers can help you to stop being the narcissist or at least help you keep away from the bad behavior that emerges when something, someone, or some situation makes you angry and simply pushes you back toward the self which you do not want to be anymore. So know your triggers and help yourself from keeping away from narcissistic practices.

5. Taking things one day at a time

Reminding yourself that not everything is under your control, something just occurs naturally and you always being anxious and worried about your future might actually not help here. Live in today rather than worrying about tomorrow. It always gets stressful when we overthink the scenarios in our heads regarding the future or something that might not be real or happening anytime soon.

Overthinking always leads to more stress, anger, and worries and thus it slows down the healing process and also harms your will to change. Thus taking one thing at a time or taking things one day at a time can help you to let go of the compulsive nature of controlling everything and solely focus on bringing in changes that are helpful to you.

6. Pause before reacting

As part of your regular behavior pattern, rage, yelling, degrading others, not listening to others, always proving your point correct, forcing others to follow your advice, and forcefully controlling others become your regular reactions. But after you have made up your mind about bringing changes, and stopping yourself from doing everything that might bring out your narcissistic side, then how you react to situations must not at least be everything that is mentioned above. Pause before you react impulsively and also identify your triggers. The best way to act calmly is either by tracking deep breaths before you say anything or just try understanding other people’s perspectives.

7. Remind yourself of your worth

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder usually have underlying insecurities and self-doubt which they just suppress by maintaining a perfect image in society. Narcissists have a habit of maintaining their image and beat themselves up for that. they have high expectations and standards for their own selves. They also have underlying shame that usually causes their unhealthy conduct towards others. In such moments, a narcissist must only remember their self-worth and how blessed they are indeed to have such a happy and accomplished life rather than running after something achievable and doubting their own self.

8. Allow yourself to feel emotions

Do not let pent-up emotions guide you. Let your emotions flow, feel them, manifest them, and just normalize experiencing feelings and emotions.

You might have become an emotionless robot being this narcissistic personality because you prefer hiding or depressing your emotions in order to keep up the grandiose image and so you do not allow yourself to feel emotions like loss, sadness, grief, and anything that may make you vulnerable. You might be avoiding all the sad emotions with the help of excuses just to keep yourself from feeling the pain. But when you start feeling all the emotions like grief, happiness, sorrow, sadness, empathy, sympathy, and every other emotion in depth, then this is the sign you are healing indeed from being your usual narcissistic self.

9. Know the root cause of the narcissistic behavior

Understanding the “WHY”, and knowing the reason behind why you function in certain ways, or what is the root cause of your narcissistic behavior, or why are you behaving the way you do, is the first and foremost step toward not being a narcissist anymore. Knowing the reason, understanding how it has affected your life, and trying to stop practicing narcissistic actions are a few baby steps that you need to take in order to stop being the narcissist and be able to function differently and better than you currently are.

10. Recognize other people’s feelings

As a Narcissist, you seem to always put your needs, wishes, and priorities first and then think about others. So to have a balanced life, respecting your and other people’s feelings is equally important. Understanding others is as important as understanding yourself to not hurt other people whom you truly value in your life.

A healthy relationship requires mutual understanding, respect, control, and nurturing. As a narcissist, you might be proven incapable to do so in most cases until you find someone similar to you and face hurtful situations. Recognizing emotions, dealing with your emotions, and how other people feel when you behave in a certain way can help you to eradicate all those toxic narcissist traits and behavioral tactics which can result in you going in the opposite direction other than narcissism.

11. Be more mindful and attentive to your relations and responses

As a narcissist, you might have a sense of entitlement that you feel the need to be special and also treated as someone special. You hardly listen to others, pay attention to what they have to say, or what they want from you, expect from you, or just how can you help them because you always think that you are special, smarter than others, and also should be treated differently as a narcissist.

So instead of continuing your older habits and instead of having a sense of entitlement, if you really want to change and want your relationship to be better, be mindful o what others have to say, pay attention to what you reply or respond to them rather than just ignoring them just because the topic is not about you that does not mean you should not listen or help. Try to give more respect, and attention and listen more to others.

12. Start apologizing

Start admitting your mistakes instead of hiding them. Your first reaction to being blamed is narcissistic rage, rather than doing that start being more accepting and vulnerable to your mistakes. Own up to your mistakes, forgive others when they do so, and start maintaining healthy relationships.

Conclusion

If you feel that you are a narcissist, and you wish to change your behavior and approaches towards people then these tips may initiate the process of changing yourself. Though these tips are reliable but they are not as effective to cure a deep-rooted personality disorder. To heal yourself to a greater extent one must seek professional help and use therapies along with these tips to get better and to stop being a narcissist eventually.

If you can successfully change or try to change a few toxic traits and keep on working on them sincerely you might soon note some positive changes in your life like, you might be feeling good in your own skin, you might be liked by people sincerely, you might feel good and happy and lastly, you might soon perceive life in the best possible ways. Do not lose hope and work toward your goal of not being a narcissist anymore sincerely.

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Ella Carrillo

Hey Reader, I am Ella, an Online and Offline Therapist holding an experience of 6 years in this field.

From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.