Putting Others On a Pedestal is Killing Your Confidence

Why Feeling “Below” Others Is the Real Engine of Social Anxiety

If you want to overcome social anxiety, and actually start feeling confident, you have to challenge a belief that quietly runs your entire inner world:

The belief that other people are better than you.

They’re not.

Other people are made of the same stuff as you. Literally and psychologically. As Carl Sagan famously said, “we’re all star stuff.” Same ingredients. Same biology. Same emotional machinery. There is nothing magical about other people.

Yet for many people with social anxiety, this belief doesn’t just exist, it feels obvious. Automatic. It seems like common sense.

And that belief is what is driving your social anxiety.

The Real Problem Isn’t Judgment, It’s Hierarchy

Social anxiety is often described as “fear of judgment.” But that explanation is incomplete.

At its core, social anxiety is about perceived hierarchy.

You don’t just worry about what people think, you feel beneath them. Less legitimate. Less important. Less allowed to take up space.

So when you enter a social situation, it feels like you’re being evaluated by people who are “above” you. People whose approval matters more than your own. People you feel you need to impress, perform for, or prove yourself to.

That pressure creates anxiety.

Not because you’re broken, but because you’ve placed yourself in a position where anxiety seems like the logical response.

If you genuinely believed other people were your equals, social situations wouldn’t feel like a test. They’d feel like geniuine interactions.

Where This Belief Starts

This idea that other people are on a different plane doesn’t start in adulthood. It starts early, often before you’re capable of questioning it.

Think about childhood.

When you’re little, adults don’t just have more experience, they’re treated as unquestionable authorities. Teachers, parents, coaches. You’re told things like:

• “Don’t question the teacher.”

• “Don’t make the teacher look bad.”

• “They know better than you.”

As a child, you don’t yet have the cognitive ability to contextualize that. You don’t think, This is just about classroom structure or authority roles.

You think, This person is above me.

Teachers can feel almost god-like when you’re young. They seem all-knowing. Infallible. I remember feeling like they don’t even have personal lives.

Then you grow up and eventually realize:
They’re just people who went to school to become teachers.

That’s it.

But emotionally, many of us never fully update that realization. We intellectually know people are “just people,” but we don’t feel it.

And that emotional lag follows us everywhere.

Arbitrary Standards We Never Question

As we get older, we stop idealizing teachers, but we replace them with new figures:

Athletes.
Actors.
Entrepreneurs.
Popular people.
The confident ones. The people who seem to have their lives together.

And we quietly ask the same question:

Are they better than me?

But pause for a moment and ask yourself honestly:

Is someone a better person because they’re good at pretending to be someone else on screen?

Is an athlete inherently more worthy because they can run faster or throw harder?

Do money, accolades, status, or recognition make someone more legitimate as a human being?

No, at least I don’t think so.

They make someone more visible. More rewarded. More recognized by society.

But visibility is not value.
Recognition is not worth.

Social anxiety thrives on confusing these things.

The Illusion of Knowing Other People

Another major issue: we don’t actually know the people we compare ourselves to.

We know what they present.

Especially on social media.

When you scroll through Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn, your brain does something subtle and dangerous:

It takes the best parts of 20 different people and merges them into one imaginary, perfect being.

Then it says:
Why aren’t you like this?

But that person doesn’t exist.

You’re comparing your full, unfiltered internal experience to a carefully curated external performance.

Of course you lose that comparison, it was rigged from the start.

Strengths, Weaknesses, and Selective Attention

Every person has strengths. Every person has weaknesses.

But social anxiety selectively filters reality.

You don’t see the confident person’s self-doubt.
You don’t see the successful person’s emptiness.
You don’t see the popular person’s fear of being irrelevant or alone.

You see their confidence, and assume it defines them.

Meanwhile, you see your insecurity and assume it defines you.

That’s not objectivity, that’s anxiety.

Borrowed Values Create Chronic Self-Judgment

Many people with social anxiety are comparing themselves based on values they never consciously chose.

Money.
Career milestones.
Status.
Social dominance.
Relationship timelines.

None of these are inherently bad, but they’re not inherently meaningful either.

If you measure yourself using someone else’s values, you will always feel behind.

Because you’re not playing your own game.

Most people with social anxiety have never been taught to sit down and ask:

• What do I actually care about?

• What matters to me?

• What kind of life feels meaningful to me?

Instead, their attention is locked outward; on perception, approval, and comparison.

And when your attention is always outward, confidence never gets a chance to form.

It’s time to ask yourself what your actual values are and what a meaningful life would look like.

Confidence Is Often About Circumstance, Not Character

Here’s something that doesn’t get said enough:

Confidence is not a personality trait.

It’s often a byproduct of early encouragement.

Many confident people were encouraged when they were young. They were allowed to speak up. They weren’t shamed for expressing themselves. They weren’t punished for taking up space.

That doesn’t make them superior, it just means they were better supported.

If you didn’t receive that encouragement, it doesn’t mean you’re flawed. It means you were deprived of something you deserved.

Giving Yourself What You Didn’t Get

If you didn’t get encouragement growing up, you’re often left waiting, consciously or unconsciously, for someone else to finally give it to you.

That doesn’t work because now you are reliant on other people’s validation, and that is fleeting and inconsistent.

It’s time to give yourself the support you missed out on.

What did you need to hear as a child? What would have encouraged you? What did you need to hear after making a mistake or accomplishing something important to you?

Social Anxiety Is a Status Problem

At its core, social anxiety says:

I am less than.

So you feel pressure to perform. To impress. To hide flaws. To prove your worth.

That pressure is the anxiety.

But here’s the truth:

There is nothing wrong with you.

You may have skills to develop.
You may feel behind in certain areas.
You may be learning later than others.

So what?

Development isn’t linear.
Timelines are arbitrary.
“Behind” is often a cultural myth, not a personal failure.

The truth is you don’t know the ins and outs of anyone else’s life.

If you were doing a science project you would collect all the date, account for all the variable before you settle on a conclusion.

The same applies with life. If you don’t know the advantages/disadvantages other people have, you are comparing apples to oranges.

Notice When You Put People on Pedestals

The next time you feel anxious around someone, pause and ask:

• Am I putting this person on a pedestal?

• Why do I feel the need to impress them?

• What am I assuming about their authority?

• What am I assuming about my worth?

Sometimes it’s attraction.
Sometimes it’s status.
Sometimes it’s something absurdly small, like what they wear.

Uniforms are a perfect example.

Psychologically, we assign authority to people in uniforms automatically. We behave differently around them. We defer, even when it makes no sense.

This isn’t a personal flaw, it’s human wiring.

Authority, Obedience, and Why This Matters

There’s a well-known psychology experiment that illustrates just how powerful perceived authority can be - The Milgram Study

Participants were instructed by someone wearing a lab coat—symbolizing authority—to administer what they believed were painful electric shocks to another person.

They could hear the person screaming.

They felt uncomfortable.

And yet, when the authority figure said, “Keep going,” most of them did.

Some people stopped. Some stepped back and said, This is wrong.

But most complied.

Not because they were bad people, but because the fear of authority influences us.

There are other famous demonstrations of this tendency.

In the famous Solomon Ashe Study , a person is asked to pick which drawn line is longer than the others. Simple enough.

What they don’t know is the other participants in the group are actors who are told to intentionally chose the shorter lines.

Due to peer pressure and confortmity, the majority of participants chose the shorter line simply out of fear and self doubt.

This is how human brains work, we have an instinct to fit in with the crowd.

Using Awareness Instead of Auto-Pilot

The goal isn’t to eliminate these instincts. That’s unrealistic.

The goal is to notice them.

When you start paying attention, you’ll catch yourself thinking:

• Why did I act differently around that person?

• Why was I trying to impress them?

• What did I assume they had something that I don’t?

Was it their confidence?
Their humor?
Their clothes?
Their social approval?

Ask yourself what’s actually happening.

Then peel back the layers.

Is it fear of authority?
Fear of not being liked?
Fear of being outcast?

Intimidation Is Information

Feeling intimidated by someone is uncomfortable and most people avoid admitting it to themselves.

But intimidation is valuable information.

It shows you exactly where you’re placing hierarchy.

When you notice it, ask:

• Why am I putting this person above me?

• Where did I learn to do that?

• Who taught me that I was “less than”?

For some people, that message came directly from parents or caregivers.

If that happened to you, hear this clearly:

That message was wrong.

You are not beneath other people and you don’t need to treat yourself like you are.

Equal Dignity Changes Everything

You don’t need to disrespect others to respect yourself.

The goal is equal dignity.

Treat others with respect.
Treat yourself with the same respect.

When you truly internalize this, not just intellectually, but emotionally, you stop looking up to people.

You stop performing.
You stop chasing approval.
You stop confusing authority with worth.

And when that happens, social anxiety loses its foundation.

Final Thought

You are no worse than anyone else.
You are no better than anyone else.

And that’s the point.

When you stop putting people on pedestals, you finally get to stand on solid ground.