A few months ago I posted a simple thought on Facebook. It was something like, “being jealous of another person’s success won’t make you successful. It will only make you bitter.” I was pondering the issue of my own jealousy, but also the jealousy of others.
As I thought about jealousy and what it really is, I realized that there is nothing about being jealous that will make you successful. There is literally zero benefit in envying another person’s situation.
I also said, “we need to stop envying others and start learning from them.”
Because that’s the thing, we could learn so much from others if we weren’t busy being jealous.
But too often, we occupy our minds and our thought life with jealousy. We envy another person’s success rather than seeking our own. We literally waste time casting judgements in our minds and speaking negativity over another person’s success.
We waste all that time envying what another person has and being jealous of their accomplishments when we could be devoting all that time and head space to our own dreams and desires.
Instead, we let jealousy hold us back.
The problem with jealousy isn’t wanting what another person has. I think it’s okay to see another person’s accomplishments and say, “man, I want that!”
It’s what comes after those thoughts that gets us into trouble. Whether it’s judging another person because they “have it all,” or deciding in your own mind whether they deserve it or not, the feelings that we can often have are just plain unhealthy.
But what if we just shifted our thoughts? What if our next thought wasn’t, “she has it all,” or “must be nice to be so successful,” or “I could never be that lucky,” but instead, what if our next thought was, “if she can do it, so can I!”
Or what if we took is so far as to reach out to that person and tell them how amazing their accomplishments are and asked them for some advice on how to get there?
What if we acted on our desires rather than judging others?
Because the thing is, we literally have no idea how hard someone has worked to be successful. We don’t know the thousands of hours of work they have put into their dream. We don’t know the sacrifices they have made or hurdles they have jumped. And it is quite possible that they have learned the tools to help us get there faster- if only we would ask.
And even if we don’t want to ask, because let’s be honest, pride and insecurity are real struggles, we can still make a choice to act on our dreams rather than sitting around and letting our jealousy hold us back.
Nothing about being jealous gets us anywhere. It only holds us back and occupies valuable time and head space that we could be using to kickstart our goals.
Instead of crossing the line into jealousy and judgement, we need to stop ourselves and redirect. The moment we shift our thoughts to, “if she can do it, so can I,” our next thought should be, “okay, how?”
Don’t let jealousy hold you back. If she can do it, so can you.
