Me, Myself & I

How to stop hogging the spotlight and let others shine

- Karen Stiller

LIFE LESSON

SUSAN MACLEOD USED TO demand attention at work a little too often. At her Halifax home, she had a comfortable dynamic with her husband and their two teenage children. But at the office, she bowled over her fellow colleagues on the hospital communications team. "I would say, 'Here's my idea and I think it's the best idea, and I got very annoyed when people didn't agree with me," she says.

Over time, MacLeod, now 66, experienced the Aha! and Ugh! moments familiar to those of us who realize we have some stuff to work on. First, a team-building exercise prompted a co-worker to see that he dominated conversations-MacLeod recognized the same ears-on-me tendencies in herself. She began to reflect inward and wasn't happy with everything she saw.

Many of us, like MacLeod, can be occasionally self-centred. It doesn't mean you have narcissistic personality disorder, a rare clinical mental health condition defined in part by a deep need for attention and admiration. Nor does it mean you're a bad person: a healthy shot of narcissism empowers us to speak up and confidently claim our rightful place in the world.

Left unchecked, however, an inflated sense of self-importance, hitched to the lack of empathy that defines narcissism, can trample over the needs of others and hurt our relationships. If you do sometimes believe you are the one and only cat's meow, take heart. We can get better at not thinking we are better than everyone else.

Figure Out Your Why