One thing you have to keep in mind whenever you are thinking about how to humble an arrogant person is, I will say, understanding and empathy. Arrogant is a mental state emotion that always takes place in any individual’s life when they are going through insecurity and feel superior to others. In an insecure situation, a person can develop an arrogant nature to create a defense mechanism to handle criticism, low self-esteem issues, life vulnerability events, and so on.
In a superiority situation, this can come from past success or any praise a person gets from others. Here, what happens is that the person starts developing their self-worth; it happens in two forms: a negative and a positive outlook, but in an arrogant case, this becomes a negative outlook toward others due to past success, the person starts creating their value status, and so on. and they get so deep in the process that their person starts disconnecting with the life truth, getting focused on material life, and starting to lose connection with the ground knowledge, values, and lessons. That’s the reason your understanding has to be in place before you want to humble an arrogant person. If you know what situations are making them behave this way, then you can easily handle the situation and deal with them. Here we will look into some points that you can apply in your life to humble an arrogant person.
Stay Present
To humble the arrogant person, you need to be present, and this can only happen when you are calm and confident. Arrogant people are extremely self-focused individual beings; their focus goes on only their achievements and talk; they never focus on other experiences and concerns. Here, you have to first listen and acknowledge their perspective, and then you have to ask open-ended questions that go through other perspectives and what impact can happen. Example: How would you feel if someone else behaved in the same way toward you? Can you think of another way to view this situation? How might you address this issue if you were in someone else’s shoes?
When you ask these types of questions for a while, they get a window to get out of self-centric focus and look at other perspectives, and here change happens. If they understand the situation, then they can work. If not, why should you waste your time there? and allow someone to mess with your emotions. Start keeping your distance. Try to lessen your connection with such types of people.
Mirror Them on Their Action
With an arrogant person, you cannot become the same and expect a solution. If you want to humble them here, you have to gently deal with the situation, which you can do by using humor like:
- Wow, you really know everything! I wish I had a brain like yours. Mine’s still buffering.
- With all that knowledge, you must have a direct line to Google!
- If you were any more confident, we’d have to start charging people for your advice!
- I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a genius! Should I be taking notes?
Let Them Know
In this case, you have to keep in mind that the arrogant person is from your circle, relationship, and family, and then you can give them feedback on how their behavior can affect others. If the person is not in your circle, do not try to give any suggestions because if the person is from your family, you can deal with their reaction; if not, it will become difficult because you do not know how the person will take them, so better neglect them because arrogant people often refuse to admit their mistakes and always start blaming others for their mess and setbacks, so it is better for you to leave it there.
Challenge
Everybody thinks and does things differently; there is no doubt that it has to be in your mind because your brain is like a computer. What knowledge and information do you store that only you can say and reflect on? Here, you have to gently challenge arrogant person view points by adding other perspectives and view points on the situation because arrogant people do not easily allow other perspectives to be part of their information and knowledge, and if you do this, you can give them new information and knowledge. This can give a new way of thinking to their brain and make them reflect on things, and if you do this, there is a possibility that they can start appreciating other views.
Set The Example
If arrogant people are behaving negatively in your life or trying to distract or disturb you, whether it is intentionally or just their natural behavior towards others, you do not need to become like that person. Here, you can set the example by being kind and humble and try to praise the humility. And if you do this, you can give them a mirror to reflect on their behaviors and actions.