How to Stop Being Jealous of Someone's Success

Do you ever wish that you had something that someone else had? Come on, you know you have. So have I. 

Every single one of us has at some point wondered about what it would be like to have someone else's lifestyle. So I have a confession to make. There are times when I think about what someone else has. Like maybe their lifestyle, their social media followers or even their cats or dogs. (actually, I'm a cat person). So yeah, maybe even their cats. And you know what?

It is okay. Here, I have a question for you. 

Do you feel envious of others? Are you jealous of someone else's life, lifestyle?

Come on, I just confessed. So if you've ever felt envious of someone or jealous of someone, then you have to learn how to handle the green eyed monster because it impacts your goals in a huge way.

So today I thought I'm going to talk to you about this innocent feeling and this feeling can vary from an innocent harmless one to a full blown obsession. How to control that green eyed monster which can help you with what you're trying to achieve in your life.

Do you wish you had something that someone else has? I'll be the first one to raise my hand. Depending on what you really want out of your life, who doesn't want more of that? It could be more in terms of money, in terms of relationships, in terms of something fancy. We as human beings are wired to feel jealous.

Did you know that there is a difference between feeling envious and feeling jealous? Envy and jealousy are two distinct feelings, but people confuse them for the same thing.

Now there is a difference between the two. And these two terms, envy and jealousy are used interchangeably. Envy is when you look at someone and they have something that you want. For example, when you see your friend with a new designer bag or a new gadget or even a promotion.

Jealousy is when you already have something or you want to have something and you feel threatened by someone else.

For example, let's say you are jealous of someone else's success or you are jealous of your partner getting close to someone else or your best friend getting close to someone else. which out of the two is the most toxic and the sinister one?

Jealousy is something that is common to almost every one of us. And now before you dismiss that and say, no, not me, there is a scientific angle to it.

From a survival perspective, all people are hardwired to feel jealous. When we feel jealous, instinct of protectiveness kicks in and we take all the necessary action to protect what is ours whether it is physical or material. So the question is which is worse envy or jealousy? Well in my opinion feeling envy is a lot lesser toxic emotion than jealousy.

Because when you're envious of someone, it is relatively short-lived and you can get over it much faster. However, when you're jealous of someone, then that...at the heart touches to deeper insecurities.

Here are four ways on how you can learn to be a lot less jealous because this is fundamental to how you pursue your goals and reach them.

First, acknowledge it. Only when you acknowledge how you're feeling can you learn to actually deal with that emotion. What happens many times is there is a lot of shame that is associated with our emotions and particularly feeling jealous. You need to get over that hurdle of feeling internal shame that how can I feel this way and how can I be jealous and more importantly how can I even accept that I'm jealous?

You've got to understand that there is absolutely no shame in you feeling jealous because you may not have control over how you feel but you have absolute control how you want to react to this emotion and if you don't learn how to deal with it in a positive way

then it can cause unnecessary problems for yourself, both internally as well as externally with someone else.

Second, investigate. When it comes to emotions, the right way or the positive way to handle your emotions is not to suppress them or to ignore them. When it comes to emotions, you have to become like an investigator. You have to try to find out what is this emotion trying to teach me.

Why am I feeling jealous? What is the potential cause behind this? For example, if you are feeling jealous of someone else's success, ask yourself what is it that you are really feeling jealous about?

Could it be that your own emotion of jealousy is trying to teach you that maybe you perhaps are not doing everything within your potential to get the same level of success? The potential causes of why you're feeling this way and try to focus on what you can do about this feeling instead of getting disturbed by whatever is causing you to feel this way. Remember you have a choice and a responsibility to figure out what this emotion is trying to teach you.

Third, own your insecurities. Now we all have things that we are insecure about. When I was growing up, I had a huge insecurity around the way I looked, especially my eyes. And for the longest time, I even considered getting a double eyelid surgery done. Now looking back, I find it extremely funny, but...

It was a real thing. I was extremely insecure about it. That's the thing with insecurity. The moment you say screw it and let's get on with it. And yes, this is something that makes me uncomfortable, but I'm owning it.

There is a huge power in that and it liberates you and it is extremely free. So the point being when it comes to feeling jealous, you have to look at the other picture, which is what are your insecurities? Because that might be coming into play when you are feeling jealous.

of someone. Learning to deal with your own insecurities is probably the hardest thing to do when it comes to working on your feelings of jealousy.

Fourth, there is enough. So if you are jealous of someone's success, you may actually believe that someone else being successful limits or reduces your chances of being successful. Which isn't the case.

There is enough and more to go around. So whatever that you want, you have to first fix the belief that there isn't enough. Which gives rise to feelings of jealousy in the first place. If you truly believe that there is enough of success, love, health, happiness or any material things that you want for yourself. If you truly believe that there is enough of that in the world to go around for everyone, then the chances of you being jealous of someone else is drastically reduced.

If you’d like to stop being jealous of someone and instead cultivate a feeling of collaboration, join the Goals with Paden community where you can work with like-minded people and access weekly group coaching sessions and work on your life goals.