How To Take Someone Off A Pedestal?

Have you ever wondered how to take someone off a pedestal? Someone like a crush, a taken/married person, a player man/woman, an ex, or someone who can’t be with you or isn’t good for you. If you have, I have a few tips for you that could make a big difference.

First of all, taking someone off a pedestal requires you to stop being emotionally connected to that person. It demands that you break your current patterns of thinking and behaving and allow yourself to develop a different perception of the person you’ve put on a pedestal.

How you do that is up to you, but the easiest way to take someone off a pedestal is to take away the traits you’ve attributed to this person. If you made him or her into a smart, funny, good-looking, confident, valuable, and unique person in your eyes, you have to take those qualities away from him or her.

A good way to devalue someone you are way too attracted to is to transform some of his positive qualities into negative ones. Instead of telling yourself that you get along with him, like the way he smiles, and never enjoyed anyone’s company as much as his, tell yourself it’s easy to find people interesting when you don’t know their bad traits and that you enjoy spending time with him only because you don’t have anyone better to spend time with at the moment.

You lack good options, so you feel drawn toward someone who presents himself as a valuable individual. That doesn’t mean he’s the right person for you but that the things he allows you to see are positive and attractive to you.

Once you’ve acknowledged the fact that you’re attracted to this person’s superficial traits, you’ll become much more receptive to his or her negative qualities. Those qualities won’t be easy to find at first, especially if you’re blinded by love and can only see the positive things that validate you and make you feel good, but you’ll notice more and more of them over time.

If you want what’s best for you, you’ll take your rose-tinted glasses off by reminding yourself that this person is only human.

He or she doesn’t deserve the kind of admiration you have for him or her. At least not yet because you’re still getting to know him or her. Or if you already know this person, you aren’t getting what you want in return. It’s his/her lack of interest and your emotional response to rejection/neglect as well as hormones that are convincing you this person is extremely important to you.

To stop feeling so infatuated, deliberately look for things you don’t like about this person. Whether it’s something serious such as bad communication and a lack of patience or bad habits such as nail-biting, remind yourself that the attractive things you notice about this person are for the most part shallow and clouded by your feelings and admiration.

When you get to know this person fully, you’ll start to understand that the things you like aren’t as big and important to you as they first seemed. They’re merely qualities that attracted you. To keep you interested long-term, this person will need to show a totally different set of skills, beliefs, and behaviors.

And the sad thing about it is that they’ll likely take months to be revealed.

You can also ask around a little bit. Ask this person’s friends, family, or co-workers about his or her dating experiences, problems, and the past in general. It’s not always right to judge a person based on his or her past, but if this person did something bad just a few months ago, it’s probably safe to assume that he or she is still the same person.

People need months of reflecting to change. They can’t just cut off the past and claim they’re a changed person. It doesn’t work like that. They first need to do the necessary work and then promise themselves that they’ll never make the same mistakes again.

I know it’s tempting to seek validation, but don’t forget that his or her appearance is false. You either like what the man or woman is selectively showing you or he or she has hurt you so badly that your self-esteem took a dive and made you depend on him or her for self-acceptance.

Some people put others on a pedestal because they’re not getting the recognition they want. They feel unprioritized and neglected, so they chase the person who neglects them. Their aim is to impress the person in question and feel rewarded (validated) by him or her in return.

Such people basically throw away their personal power and put themselves at the mercy of the person they desire.

If you want to know how to take a person off a pedestal, my advice is to start by devaluing him or her. Tell yourself that friendship or relationship with this person would be difficult because you’d sooner than later face the same issues as before or that you’d encounter the issues he or she had with others.

An understanding of his or her personality and strong convictions that your emotions are deceiving you are necessary because when you fully understand what he or she is like and that you don’t have a future with this person, you can start doing the opposite of what your heart tells you to do.

You can distance yourself from this person and lose interest/fall out of love.

Today’s post is for those who wonder how to take an ex/a friend/a coworker, or someone they value too much off a pedestal. We’ll share some simple, yet powerful tips that will motivate you to change the way you think and feel about this person.

Why did you put him/her on a pedestal?

Oftentimes, infatuation ends with an understanding of why you got attracted in the first place. Was it because this person said and did all the right things or perhaps because you were hungry for attention, affection, and love and couldn’t imagine not being close to this person?

If you just went with the flow, chances are you appreciated the wrong things. You liked the first impression this person made on you and overlooked the important things people reveal months later when it becomes difficult to pretend to be someone they’re not.

If you got swept off your feet, that’s perfectly okay. People develop crushes all the time. But staying attracted to your crush, knowing that things will end badly is not okay at all. It’s what naive people allow when they get so close to someone that they let their emotions control them.

If you’re at that stage already, you developed expectations and feelings and will need to fall out of love. You’ll need to remember the time you first got attracted to this person and figure out why you got attracted.

Ask yourself what traits, behaviors, or abilities made you put this person on a pedestal. If you figure that out, you can come back to reality and change your perceptions of your crush.

The more you understand yourself, the more rational you become, and the bigger the chance that you’ll have a moment of clarity and gather the strength to emotionally disconnect from the unrealistic outcome you’ve envisioned.

If this is someone you’ve been with romantically, bear in mind that many people put their partner or ex-partner on a pedestal. They do this because their (ex)partner treats them poorly. The man or woman doesn’t provide much or any attention and affection and by doing so, starves them for validation.

This makes them appear more valuable than they are and makes it more difficult for their partner to get the things he or she needs to feel secure and fulfilled.

Such people must be taken off the pedestal at all costs. And you can do that by remembering that their lack of respect and affection doesn’t make them valuable. It makes them unworthy of your admiration and respect.

Emotions may tell you otherwise, but emotions alone aren’t something you should judge a person on. Emotions say more about you than they do about your partner.

Besides, if you keep this person high up on a pedestal, you could disrupt the balance of the relationship. You could let the person you like take you for granted or take advantage of you and stop investing in you. That could cause him or her to lose interest or attraction and move on to someone else.

Someone whose validation he or she has to actually work for.

You’ll never feel comfortable and happy in a relationship if you don’t feel like an equal. You’ll only be happy with someone who listens to you, respects you, loves you, and doesn’t steal power from you.

So convince yourself that chasing a person who isn’t on the same level/page as you is pointless and that it will likely lead to heartbreak and lots of suffering.

Always remember that a romantic relationship needs to be as balanced as it can be. It will never be completely balanced because that’s impossible, but that’s why the person with more power has to willingly give power away and treat you fairly and the same as every other person he or she encounters.

The same goes for you. To reduce this person’s value in your eyes down to your level, you need to start treating him or her the same way you treat your friends. He or she mustn’t think that you’re scared and insecure because that will immediately put him or her in a position of power.

And what do people do when they feel powerful? Oftentimes, they abuse their power. They look down on those who admire them and ask for more of their time than they’re comfortable giving.

If you want to stay friends with this person, you need to act like a friend rather than a fan. You need to consider yourself an equal and act like one too. That’s the only way you’ll gain his or her respect.

With that being said, here’s why you put this person on a pedestal.

How to take someone off the pedestal?

If the person you like is an ex or someone you want or wanted to date, it’s in your best interest to knock him or her off the pedestal. Doing so isn’t necessary just for the sake of regaining his or her respect but also for rebuilding your self-worth.

You can’t get yourself back unless you pull away, break your obsessive patterns, get busy, and refuse to act on fears, temptations, and emotions in general.

Clearly, you don’t like giving this person control over your life. You feel enslaved by him or her and want to think rationally and feel at peace.

The good thing about all of this is that you can regain control of your life. You can be free. But to be free, you must first understand why you’ve put this person on a pedestal and then look for things you don’t like about him or her.

You must essentially convince yourself that a meaningful long-term relationship with this person is impossible and that you must stay away from him or her physically before you can detach emotionally. To stay away physically, start the no-contact rule and stick to it at all costs.

This self-imposed rule will help you clear your head and encourage you to focus on yourself and those who deserve your focus.

Taking a person off the pedestal takes time, so don’t expect to devalue him or her the moment you realize he or she isn’t good for you. If you’re attached, you’ll probably need weeks if not months of time to fully let go and change your perception of him or her.

That’s how it is for most people, not just you. The more you need this person to validate you, the harder it will be and the longer it will take to regain your emotional independence.

So don’t waste any time. Start practicing letting go affirmations right now. It will take a lot of trial and error, so you may as well start today.

Delete photos and conversations and throw away gifs if you received any. Such things will force you to cut the cord and allow you to let go of the hope that things will magically work out on their own.

While you’re reducing your dependence on this person, make sure to work on your self-esteem as well.

Sign up for therapy, journal your thoughts and emotions, and surround yourself with supportive friends and family. They’ll tell you and show you that they are the ones who truly matter.

Also, get busy in life. Take up some new hobbies and get out of the house. You don’t want to spend all your free time obsessing about the person you’ve put on the pedestal. You want to keep your brain engaged and stop yourself from thinking about people who don’t add any real value to your life.

If you don’t know how to keep yourself entertained, then that’s a problem. Perhaps you should talk to someone and make sure your life has a purpose outside of friendships and relationships.

Did you learn how to take someone off a pedestal? Do you agree that the best way to devalue someone is to value yourself? Let us know what you think about that in the comments below the post.

And if you want to make a plan on how to take someone off a pedestal with us, click here to subscribe to coaching.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.