How to Avoid Feeling Jealous of Other People’s Success

Most people recognize jealousy as a malign force that stunts personal growth and the ability to forge meaningful, honest relationships. Despite acknowledging its corrosive nature, knowing how to avoid being jealous of others' business success can be tough. It can be even tougher when our own career path isn’t going as we hoped or expected. 

Setting envy aside in favour of proactive strategies that help you understand the steps that led to others’ success will have a transformative effect on the way you see your own career. Embracing others’ joy and success will invariably be a help to your own successful future, but only if you can understand the root causes of jealousy and implement positive strategies to counter it. 

1. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Starting to focus on our own successes is only possible when we stop comparing ourselves to others and using other people’s stories as a barometer for measuring our own journey. They say that comparison is the thief of joy, but unfortunately it’s never been easier to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves with others. Social media is a constant reminder of what seems to be others’ accomplishments. Perhaps you see your friends’ businesses enjoying rapid growth or former colleagues receiving the promotion they were vying for. But remember that social media is deceptive and shows a very carefully orchestrated version of success: namely, the one they want others to see.   

The reality is that the promotion, business growth, or sale you see likely doesn’t tell the whole story. After all, most success stories have a great deal of struggle and failure behind them on the way. While envy is a very human reaction, remember that someone else’s progress is probably a result of many factors coming together at the same time and doesn’t make your own journey any less worthy.

Refocusing negative emotions on positivity requires a mindset shift

2. Recognize the Dangers of Envy

Envy is a destructive feeling that only serves to drain your energy, distract your focus, and lead to poor decision making. This is because obsessing about others’ careers or business journeys rather than your own will inevitably divert your attention from your own goals. Instead of focusing on how to achieve a reasonable goal for your career, focusing on others’ journeys will brew resentment.

Remember that jealousy is a very human reaction and feeling it doesn’t make you a bad person. However, acknowledging this feeling and any other harmful thoughts that can impact our mental health is crucial in avoiding the dangers of envy. Try replacing harmful feelings with faith in yourself; this will foster an environment conducive to growth, innovation, and resilience. 

Top Tip

Mindfulness or meditation are useful ways to recentre yourself and focus on what motivates you. Avoiding being distracted by others will help you refocus yourself on your path and how to achieve the goals you envision for yourself and your career going forward.

3. Use Goals to Motivate, not Demotivate

Setting goals is a great way to stay on track and gauge your progress as time goes by. Using others’ success as benchmarks isn’t necessarily a harmful starting point to set your own goals, but setting goals entirely based on other people’s journeys ignores your own unique circumstances. Remember, we have minimal context about the metrics used to gauge another person’s success and can easily forget that each person’s trajectory is totally different.

A common mistake when comparing ourselves to others only focusing on the perceived chasm between us rather than focusing on the reasons why. When we do this, our insecurities and damaged self esteem come to the fore and maintaining positivity becomes more difficult. In this situation, we replace motivation, energy, and passion with envy, hopelessness, and doubt.

Establishing a set of realistic goals is a great way to refocus your efforts. However, make sure you apply metrics relevant to your circumstances, not others’. This will help you find joy in every goal you reach, no matter how small.

4. It’s Not Milestones That Matter, But Methods

Poring over another business’s KPIs like sales or profits ultimately has very limited value to your business. Instead, study what successful businesses do to make them successful. If you’re someone that suffers from bouts of envy, this will require an active change of mindset. Try not to think about others’ success in the context of your own progress, Rather, analyse it as something valuable you can learn from and find ways to apply the lessons to your own business.

Try to understand what distinguishes the most successful individuals and businesses from others. Try to understand:

• What they do them differently and how their actions translate to success

• The strategies they use to overcome challenges or growth obstacles

• What their customers like and why they stay loyal

• Their approach to business concepts like management, customer support, hiring practices and more

Your goal here should be to turn envy into curiosity and eagerness to learn. If you’re going to engage in comparisons, you must at least make it productive. A healthy approach to taking inspiration from success stories will help you use them as a foundation to become savvier, happier, and more successful yourself.

5. Focus on Positive Emotions

Feeling jealous of someone else is a clear sign we’re letting negative emotions take control. Making a concerted effort to readjust our focus on positivity will help you feel genuinely happy for someone else when they reach their goals. Change is always hard, and changing your own mentality will likely require significant effort on your part. The key thing to remember is that someone else’s success doesn’t diminish your own as the path to success hinges on so many variables. This means simple comparisons aren’t useful or fair. You’re doing yourself an injustice by comparing yourself in the first place!

Ultimately, the only person you need to compete with or answer to is yourself. Make sure your choices align with your values and where you want to go in your career. Use these as anchors that keep you on the right path and focused on your goals. 

Being happy for someone else is a sign of self-worth and emotional stability.

Develop Emotional Intelligence

Envy is characterised by several other character traits including low self-esteem, harmful ambition, and a deep sense of injustice. If you’re a business leader or owner, part of your role is to model positive workplace behaviours that contribute to team success. A 2021 study on workplace envy reported that the role of a leader is to guide their team towards emotional stability and provide an environment in which frustration can be replaced with positivity. 

As a leader, you can promote positivity in your workplace by developing your employees professionally and creating a work environment that prioritises emotional intelligence. Doing so will set the scene for a workplace that embraces self-worth and gratitude rather than dwelling on individual frustrations.

6. Cultivate a Mindset of Gratitude and Abundance

Business owners and freelancers alike will build a more fulfilling business journey by focusing on gratitude for what they’ve already achieved rather than what they lack. Company cultures that recognise what each person contributes and celebrates their successes will cultivate a positive atmosphere that pervades every aspect of your day. Individuals must do the same by acknowledging when you reach your goals or go above and beyond for someone else.

A mindset shift will promote personal well-being and create a positive ripple among everyone around you. Your positivity will boost team morale, customer satisfaction, and, ultimately, your bottom line.

A Change in Perspective Will Lead to a Positive and Prosperous Future

Overcoming feelings of jealousy is a process that will require high levels of self-awareness, intentional effort, and a change in perspective. However, it’s possible to cultivate an outlook free from envy by focusing on our own personal growth, gratitude, and empathy.

Ultimately, dwelling on negative feelings is harmful to career progress and can lead to a spiral of emotions that impact our self-esteem. Many find that taking inspiration from others’ success is a great way to refocus your goals and learn aspects of success that can be applied to your own situation.