You can spot it in other people in a second.
That coworker who always has to have the last word. The friend who can’t take feedback without getting defensive. The person who somehow makes every conversation about themselves.
Their pride is obvious to everyone except them.
But here’s what you need to understand: if pride is so easy to spot in others, why can’t you see it in yourself?
The Problem with Pride
Pastor Anthony Fusco explains: “The problem with pride is you can see it in other people in a second, but it’s almost impossible to see when you’re looking in the mirror.”
This isn’t just some quirky blind spot. It’s a fundamental flaw that’s wrecking your relationships and stunting your growth.
You have front-row seats to everyone else’s worst moments while maintaining a highlight reel of your own behavior. When your coworker interrupts in meetings, you notice immediately. When you do it, you were just being “passionate.” When someone else brags, it’s obviously pride. When you do it, you’re just “sharing good news.”
The truth? You’re not as self-aware as you think you are.
Why You Keep Missing It
You’re looking for the wrong thing. Most of us picture pride as overt arrogance—the chest-thumping guy at the gym, the person who can’t stop talking about their achievements, the one putting others down to build themselves up. Since you don’t act like that, you assume pride isn’t your problem.
Wrong.
Pride is far more subtle. It shows up in the moments you avoid admitting weakness. When you resist asking for help. When you secretly feel good about someone else’s failure. When you can’t celebrate another person’s success without comparing it to your own.
“Because we associate pride with overt arrogance, we don’t always see it in ourselves. But pride is insidious, it’s ugly, and it rests in all of us.”
Sometimes what you label as pride in others is actually your own insecurity being exposed. You project it outward and miss how it’s working inside you.
Pride whispers reasonable-sounding justifications:
- “I’m not being prideful, I’m just confident.”
- “I’m not arrogant, I just know I’m right.”
- “I’m not being defensive, I’m just explaining.”
Pride is a master of disguise. It masquerades as confidence (that’s really arrogance), excellence (that’s really perfectionism), and consistency (that’s really complacency). It convinces you that what looks like humility in others would be “false modesty” for you.
Someone Knows
Here’s something that should make you uncomfortable: If you can’t see your own pride, the people closest to you definitely can.
Your spouse notices when you get defensive over small corrections. Your close friends see how you react when someone else gets credit. Your family members watch how you handle being wrong. They’ve all seen the moments when you can’t admit fault, when you have to have the last word, when you make excuses instead of apologies.
And they’re not saying anything because they know how you’ll react.
Picture this: What if your spouse came to you with a piece of paper—or better yet, a whole tablet—ready to list all the ways pride shows up in your life? How would you respond? Would you listen, or would you immediately start defending and explaining?
Your response to that hypothetical tells you everything you need to know about whether pride is a problem for you.
What Pride Is Actually Costing You
This isn’t just about hurt feelings. C.S. Lewis put it bluntly: “Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness are mere flea bites in comparison to pride because pride leads to every other vice.”
Pride isn’t just another bad habit on your list—it’s the root system feeding everything else. And because it’s invisible in the mirror, you can go years without naming it while it actively destroys things you care about:
It keeps you from apologizing when you know you’re wrong. Or even when you’re only 5% wrong and they’re 95% wrong.
It keeps you arguing long after you realize you don’t even have a point anymore.
It keeps you from saying what needs to be said. There are people who love you who are dying for one positive word from you. But pride makes giving a simple compliment feel impossible.
It keeps you from hearing what needs to be heard. People are trying to speak wisdom into your life, but your pride makes their words bounce off.
Pride doesn’t make you bigger. It makes you smaller.
The Choice in Front of You
You have a decision to make. You can keep pretending you’ve got this figured out, or you can get honest about what’s really happening.
“At some point along the way in your life, you’ve got to answer this question: How does pride manifest itself in my life? And then you’ve got to call it out.”
Call it out so it doesn’t shut you in. Call it out so it doesn’t shut other people out. Because if you don’t, you’ll ultimately shut God out.
Here’s what it takes: Ask someone you trust how pride shows up in your life. And when they tell you, don’t defend yourself. Don’t explain why they’re wrong. Just listen.
“It takes humility to listen to somebody else describe to you the thing that you try to hide.”
The Real Question
How much longer are you going to let pride control you? A month? A year? The rest of your life?
The worst part of you doesn’t have to control the rest of you. But first, you have to stop pretending it’s not there.
Here’s your assignment: Ask someone who knows you well how pride manifests in your life. Don’t argue with their answer. Don’t explain it away. Just listen and consider that they might see something you can’t.
