How to deal with jealousy and stay happy in your business?
Author: Mayur Bardolia
We know that jealousy is bad but we don’t how to deal with it without freely accepting it.
We secretly see what our competitors are doing. If someone is similar to us or does something that’s similar to us, we feel jealousy. If someone has what we want to have, we feel envy and hate. We don’t like to feel jealous but we have no control over the feeling of jealousy. It burns our energy and kills us from inside.
No matter whoever you are, either a common person who lives a normal life or a celebrity, poor or rich, everybody needs to do something about their feeling of jealousy. But nobody discusses jealousy.
So, how do we deal with this feeling of jealousy?
We are going to discuss
- Is it good to be jealous or not?
- How to stop being jealous?
- How to stay happy and motivated instead?
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I suggest a small experiment.
Take a good friend to his favourite restaurant for lunch/dinner. Tell him to order his favourite dish. Now, sit across from him and order what you like. The only rule is, throughout the meal, you cannot look at your plate. You should keep looking at your friend’s plate, talking to him and watching him eating his food while you are having your food. Please don’t cheat. Don’t look at mirrors. Don’t ask your friend to instruct you anything. Don’t look at your plate. Just keep looking at your friend’s plate.
Can you imagine how uncomfortable the meal would be?
In spite of having your favourite dish in front of you, you cant enjoy it. And it doesn’t matter that you have watched your friend eat every bite off his plate.
His plate is an analogy for his life and your plate is yours.
This is what happens when you keep watching someone else’s life instead of focusing on how we can do better in ours. There is really no point in doing that. This is what we do when we are jealous. You may call it hate or envy.
Facebook and other social media platforms were designed to interact with more people.
Its purpose is to connect people and engage them. It’s quite good. It has helped me and many others to connect with people we could have never met. Our life has changed. Our habits are different than before. People spend more amount of time on social media and sometimes it’s for good too.
But there are also some bad things about it.
I was talking to a friend of mine, Mr Dharmesh Joshi, who helps people in dealing with emotional problems. What he said that there is a huge rise of clients who are dealing with lower self-esteem, anger, and greed. Our discussion went on for 2 hours or so. He found out that most of his clients were using social media extensively. They have become jealous of others. They became jealous and the jealousy led to them feel unworthy and angry. They keep checking what others are saying and what others are doing.
Jealousy is driving people to good results at some level.
But if it’s not handled correctly, it can make you miserable. This jealousy or envy is found in everyone, including me. I admit it. I was jealous. I was envious. The jealousy builds up quickly and most of the time without your awareness.
We want our peers to succeed as long as they don’t see more success than we do.
Other people’s success makes you feel insecure. Other people’s success makes you think about your mistakes, failures and shortcomings. It is scary and it was these types of thoughts that ruin our life. You want to be happy and motivated, but the feeling of jealousy makes you frustrated. We don’t want to do business like that.
So, let’s find out, how to deal with jealousy and stay motivated instead.
We are going to discuss
- Is it good to be jealous or not?
- How to stop being jealous?
- How to stay happy and motivated instead?
Let’s find out.
Is it good to be jealous? Can envy help us?
In the summer of 2015, I had a chance to meet a swimming coach who was coaching swimmers who were playing at an international level. Now, swimming is a fast-paced game where you need to be at the high-energy level at all times. It’s one of those sports where you are required to have strong stamina. I asked him about what a swimmer must have to win the race. He answered, “Just keep an eye on your finish line and don’t look elsewhere.”
Feeling envy is a warning: you should refocus on yourself.
In business, we do random things. We are trying to find out what others are doing. We secretly follow our competitors on social media and find out what they are doing. Then we start copying. And it doesn’t work out. Why? Because we are not focusing on our efforts. We are focusing on what others have got. And we feel angry.
We look at people posting their income, their cars, their house and their holiday pictures.
We feel that others are having all the fun, I am not. Nobody posts their failure or miserable life on Facebook or share in public. We don’t see what they don’t show. We don’t live our dream life, and we feel hate and jealousy when others have what we don’t have.
Jealousy makes us ugly from the inside out.
It consumes your energy and turns them into negative energy. As a result, you feel tired, unworthy and depressed. Soon, you become lazy. You become addicted to jealousy and you want more proof to feel jealous. So, it keeps going on. This negative energy builds up inside you and drains even more energy. Guess what, you release more hate out.
You get angry and irritated.
Jealousy is a poison that occupies enormous space in the mind. As a result, You stop creating ideas. You struggle to focus and become lazy. You look elsewhere and don’t focus on your finish line. And you lose. Winners focus on winning and losers focus on others. That takes us to the second part.
How to stop being jealous?
In my journey, I have been doing a lot of things. I worked in textile companies, hotels, corporates, universities, colleges, and many more things I can’t even remember, I have seen the time where I had no work. When I started in the training and coaching business in 2010, things were not moving at all.
In fact, for a year, there was almost no work. I was going here and there but nothing significant was happening. I presented at places and almost none of them replied. There was no hope. It was complete darkness.
Then I got my first client. I at least began with.
Then, I served a few more clients. Fortunately, some of them liked what I did for them. They recommended me to more people. The darkness was moving away slowly. Then more people added to my list. There were many people I didn’t even know have recommended me. I got support from people. They were like angels to me. I started moving up. I was serving clients in my city, surat in India. Eventually, I started delivering training to people from all over India and the world.
My products and courses have reached more than 150 countries.
It took 10 years. It was not possible without those few angels who gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my skill. Those people helped me to kick off my business and gave me the confidence to create more content, courses, and products. They were way ahead of me in business, and if they didn’t have come into my life, I wouldn’t be speaking on this podcast. They gave me love, kindness and support.
This is what I don’t want to forget. It helps me in dealing with jealousy.
When I envy, I quickly remind myself of what I was when I started. I go back to the time when I started. It gives me pleasure and joy. This trick has helped me in staying focused on my work and on my finish line. I am still going forward. I am still in the process of learning more and delivering more. I don’t feel envy because the people who trusted me in the early stage of my business reminds me to be kind, caring and helpful.
Because we don’t want to be jealous, we also want to enjoy doing our business.
That takes us to the third part.
How to stay happy and motivated instead?
I was having a walk at the seaside near my place. At one point, I saw a man catching crabs. He had a big bucket full of crabs. I saw that every time a crab tries to get out of the bucket, another crab pulls it down. Each crab who could not get out was trying to pull the crab who was trying to get out of the bucket. They all were hating each other. If I can’t get out, by all means, I won’t allow you to get out of the bucket. But some crabs managed to escape and ran away. They survived being hunted and went back to the sea.
We are like those crabs trying to pull the other crab down, but it doesn’t work.
The crab has escaped and now we are left alone in this dark bucket and we are afraid. We see no light. Isn’t it what you probably are doing too?
You spent days and weeks and months in the bucket. Contemplating and wishing and thinking. You are tired of seeing the people around you doing well while you are trying to make the improbable, probable. They were making big money, getting a good life and you are in the same position or at the worst position.
You regret wasting your time, money and energy. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get ahead of others when you envy them. It’s pointless to follow someone and hate them at the same time.
You don’t need to keep checking others where they are heading to.
You haven’t got any clue where they are heading to. You don’t know their purpose. Their goals are different than yours. Yet, you secretly want to reach where they are going. Your envy gets you so distracted from the road that you go in a whole different direction you don’t want to go to. Instead, you can focus on what matters to you.
Your competitors have different plans. You can never know. By the time you know their plans, they are already many steps ahead of yours. They are ahead of us or probably we think they are ahead of us, that’s why we feel jealous.
Now, If I envy people ahead of me, I can not become like them.
You can’t get what you hate. So, if you hate what people have, you can’t get what they have. If you envy people where they are right now, you can’t get to that position. It’s because, when you hate, your mind starts avoiding it.
You are only competing with yourself because everybody is You.
To envy another is to envy yourself.
To beat another is to beat yourself.
You could learn from the person you envy if you are not blinded by hate and bitterness.
Learning feels better than hate. A better life is waiting on the other side of envy. Envy is a negative version of inspiration. Jealousy, envy, and insecurity are chains for your mind that bind you to the approval of others
Make the most of your precious time on this earth.
You weren’t created to live in guilt or envy. Every life is special in the sense that it is different. I can’t compete with you. And you can’t compete with me. The only person I can compete with is the person I was yesterday. Competing with others not only a waste of time but it is a waste of life…because it will get you off your track and will have you doing stuff you hate. Don’t compete with the crowd.
Just keep an eye on your finish line and follow your track with a smile on your face.
That takes us to the end of the podcast.
Let’s summarize what we have covered in this podcast.
Jealousy or envy is found in everyone, including me.
I was jealous. I was envious. Now, I know how to deal with it. The jealousy builds up quickly and most of the time without your awareness. We want our peers to succeed as long as they don’t see more success than we do. Other people’s success makes you feel insecure. Other people’s success makes you think about your mistakes, failures and shortcomings.
Then we discussed, Is it good to be jealous or not?
Feeling envy is a warning: you should refocus on yourself.
We secretly follow our competitors on social media and find out what they are doing. Then we start copying. And it doesn’t work out. Why? Because we are not focusing on our efforts. We are focusing on what others have got. And we feel angry.
Just keep an eye on your finish line and don’t look elsewhere.
Jealousy consumes your energy and turns them into negative energy. As a result, you feel tired, unworthy and depressed. Soon, you become lazy. You become addicted to jealousy and you want more proof to feel jealous. So, it keeps going on. Jealousy is a poison that occupies enormous space in mind. You stop creating ideas. You struggle to focus and become lazy. You look elsewhere and don’t focus on your finish line. And you lose.
Winners focus on winning and losers focus on others.
Then, we talked about how to stop being jealous? I have seen the time where I had no work for almost a year. Then, I served one client and a few more clients were added. And Things started getting bigger. It took 10 years. It was not possible without those few angels who gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my skill. They were way ahead of me in business, and if they didn’t have come in my life, I wouldn’t be speaking on this podcast. They gave me love, kindness and support.
This is what I don’t want to forget. It helps me in dealing with jealousy. When I envy, I quickly remind myself of what I was when I started. I go back to the time when I started. It gives me pleasure and joy. This trick has helped me in staying focused on my work and on my finish line. Because I also want to enjoy doing my business.
That takes us to the third part.
We talked about those crabs who could not get out and were trying to pull the crab who was trying to get out of the bucket because they all were hating each other. But some crabs managed to escape and ran away. They survived being hunted and went back to the sea. We are like those crabs trying to pull the other crabs down, but it doesn’t work.
It’s pointless to follow someone and hate them at the same time.
Competing with others not only a waste of time but it is a waste of life…because it will get you off the track and will have you doing stuff you hate.
Just keep an eye on your finish line and follow your track with a smile on your face.
NEXT: 3 false ideas most businesses believe in and how it makes their life miserable.
What are 3 things people suggest but you should never follow?
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