The spotlight effect: when you think everyone is looking at you

I don't mind being the center of attention. At least, at moments when it makes sense to be in the spotlight, like during a speech, when I was teaching in my previous job, or during dance performances in my youth. I loved it when people paid attention to something I had worked hard on. Furthermore, I move quite quietly through life, but still, often at uncertain moments, I can have the idea that everyone is looking at me or talking about me. It doesn't make any sense, of course, because everyone is generally mostly focused on themselves. Yet this is a common phenomenon that researchers have now given a name: the spotlight effect.

The spotlight effect refers to the tendency we have to overestimate how much other people notice about us. We then think that there is a spotlight on us highlighting all our mistakes and flaws. According to researchers, this comes from an exaggerated sense of self-awareness and the inability to put yourself in someone else's shoes to realize that his or her perspective is different from yours.

For people who struggle with the spotlight effect, it is very difficult to believe that other people are not constantly paying attention to them. They are so aware of everything they do themselves that they are convinced that other people are too. It's strange actually, because if you are so focused on yourself, it makes more sense to assume that other people are mainly focused on themselves as well.

It is difficult to get rid of the feeling of the spotlight effect, but not impossible. Acknowledging the fact that you are affected by the spotlight effect is step one. Step two is to literally take yourself out of the spotlight by zooming out on your fear. Imagine: you are afraid that your new colleagues think you are stupid because you haven't said much during your first day at work. Flip that situation around. You probably don't think anything about a new colleague on her first day and are just looking forward to getting to know her better. You would never think someone is stupid because they, logically, prefer to wait and see. Turning the situation around in this way can lead to new insights, which hopefully relieve some of the pressure from the spotlight kettle.

Source: VeryWell Mind