How The Spotlight Effect Negatively Impacts Your Life

Life is easier when you are comfortable in your own skin.

Photo by whoislimos on Unsplash

Hey friends, 

For most of my life, I've been struggling with being self-conscious and social anxiety, known as the spotlight effect. It's something I really had to work on and it's take a while to unlearn. 

We've all been there: walking into a room and feeling like everyone is staring at us; noticing every single thing we do. It's an uncomfortable feeling that can make even the most confident of us feel awkward and self-conscious. 

It's what psychologists call the spotlight effect. It refers to our psychological bias to overstimulate how much those around us notice intricate aspects about ourselves, like our flaws, appearance and other small things we worry about ourselves. As a kid growing up, this really caused me extreme anxiety, which detrimentally impacted my confidence and self-esteem. It took me a long time to understand what it was, why do we have it and how to overcome it? I learned why it's important to understand the spotlight effect and implement strategies to overcome the impact of it in your life, and be more comfortable and confident in social situations. 

So here are three strategies I used to overcome the spotlight effect bias. 

1. Practice Present-Moment Awareness

Start incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine. 

Three years ago, I started mindfulness meditation for 5 minutes a day, it completely helped reduced the spotlight effect and it's associated stress and anxiety. Mindfulness meditation doesn’t change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. Understanding whatever the present moment contains, accept is as it had chosen it. Brief mindfulness-based-meditation, as short as 5-15 minutes, has been shown to significantly decrease egocentrism and improve judgment accuracy, particularly in the moment.

Adopting a third-person imagery perspective during mindfulness meditation can also enhance the accuracy of your judgments. This involves considering a current issue or decision you have to make and approaching it as if you're an outsider looking in.  

2. Reframe Your Negative Thoughts

We have more control over our thoughts than we realised. Instead of seeing situations as anxiety-provoking, we can train ourselves to see them as exciting opportunities. 

Rather than concentrate on what might go wrong, focus on what can go right. When you find yourself the centre of attention, think about your strengths and focus on how you can use it to help others. As I get older, I'm realising that jobs and money are never the primary causes of stress. Thinking, negative thinking causes stress. The real cause of all problems lie in our thoughts, not in things or circumstances. You and I possess the power to change our thoughts. It is our greatest power—the power to choose.

Something I always try to remember whenever I'm feeling stressful is, you can choose to relax. Look at your problems as a stranger might then do something about them.

3. Pay attention to others

Intentionally shifting your focus to what people can help take some of your inner focus off yourself. 

Start trying to notice what others are doing more. Work on your active listening skills so you can engage more fully in conversations and ask questions to learn more. Become mindful to people's words and body language. Because when you stop and pay attention to how they are responding, you may realised that are not at all concerned about what your self-conscious off. 

The simple awareness can help you understand that people are not as aware of you as you think they are. 

The spotlight effect is a common cognitive bias that most people go through, you are not alone in experiencing it. By using these strategies such as mindfulness, reframing negative thoughts and embracing our uniqueness, we can overcome the spotlight effect and feel more comfortable in our own skin. 

Stay mindful, 

Pach Deng