How to Use Jealousy to Learn What You Want to Do in Life
Take agency of your jealous doomscrolling, and find out what your next step should be.
We’ve all been there, doomscrolling Instagram and boiling with envy. Seeing old friends, celebrities, and ex-partners living it up in their careers, family dynamics, and relationships. But have you ever stopped to think, that you could use that emotion to figure out your own path?
Jealousy might be the most useful emotion you’ll have to confront when planning for your future. While it can feel excruciating to see friends, loved ones, or strangers succeeding, it’s important to learn to harness jealousy to create prospective prosperity. By using jealousy to our advantage, we can understand our dreams better, and go after them with purpose and, in the end, without envy.
In a world where we are bombarded with ideas and opinions, it can be difficult to stay in your own lane. Whether you’re at a crossroads in your professional life or making big decisions in your relationships or finances, jealousy can lead us to the right path. The emotion might be an indicator that right now you’re on the wrong one.
Using Jealousy and the Absence of It as Signals
Jealousy can reveal your repressed dreams and desires. Seeing friends succeed and accomplish their dreams can be difficult to watch, but jealousy is often triggered only by things that you wish to have. According to Bréne Brown, judgment and comparison reflect the area of shame and vulnerability in your own life.
We rarely feel jealousy for someone succeeding in a field that we’re not interested in pursuing. I don’t feel a tinge of envy when someone succeeds as a professional swimmer because water sports have never been an interest of mine. However, because I wish to thrive in my creative endeavors, it’s sometimes difficult to watch others succeeding in their craft, be it art, music or writing.
The absence of jealousy is also a great indicator of what you want and need. Look at someone who is three steps ahead of you in your career path — what do you feel? If you feel no jealousy towards someone who is succeeding in your field, you might be in the wrong one.
I’m working on a diploma that prepares me for the corporate world. Now that I’m halfway through my degree, I feel stuck professionally and academically. When I look at the people succeeding in my field, I don’t feel like I want to be in their position. However, the creative success of others has been a source of of envy throughout my life. I had been repressing my dream and ended up sitting in a boiling soup of envy studying something that didn’t fulfill my needs. By analyzing these emotions I realized just how important the arts were for me and I’m now working towards a change of course.
The Scarcity Mindset
Seeing other people’s success, money, weddings, bodies, families, and career accomplishments online and in real life can make us green with envy. I used to be jealous of everyone around me. From a young age, I learned to compare myself to friends and strangers. I was only focusing on all the things I was lacking instead of embracing what I had and celebrating others.
Jealousy can be a poisonous emotion if it’s not harnessed properly. Jealousy can be used for good, but it often needs some work. All jealousy and envy come from comparison. Comparison creates a feeling of lacking because you are comparing yourself to fictional narratives of what others have.
We compare our clothes, skills, experiences, careers, and relationships as if someone else’s success reduces our possibilities of happiness. When you are envious of someone, it feels like someone else’s success takes away from your own. You live your life believing there is only so much success, money, love, or friendship in the world.
Brene Brown describes this mindset as The Scarcity Mindset. Because it feels like there is a limited amount of happiness, it’s as if someone else's success is robbing your possibilities. But happiness and success are not finite. Enough is the opposite of scarcity. Moving from a scarcity mindset towards an attitude that celebrates abundance is key. There is enough in the world. No one is in competition with you.
If someone is doing great in something you want to succeed in, it’s a sign that it’s possible. If something excites you and you have the resources and a realistic idea of what that entails, go for it! There is enough success to go around.
The Grass isn’t Always Greener — Sometimes It’s Better Advertised
When we’re analyzing our feelings of jealousy, we need to remember that someone else’s life always looks like a highlight reel on the outside. The Instagram feed or LinkedIn profile of someone you look up to doesn’t paint a complete picture. Observe your wants and needs outside these biases.
Sometimes, it’s not as straightforward as wanting to do or have the thing that someone else has acquired. You might want to have the recognition, the success, and affirmation that someone is getting but accomplish it in your own way. Or perhaps, you’re attracted to a field because of the money it can bring you. Or maybe, another field is painted in the media more glamorously than the one you’re pursuing right now. Remember, that a yearning for success, respect, and fame can also be a sign of low self-worth instead of professional or social satisfaction. Analyze and study these feelings of jealousy and envy as neutrally as possible to make your next step.
If you’re itching to try another hobby or career path, learn about the ins and outs of it. Does your personality fit the requirements in a certain career path? Are you interested in the process of learning a new skill or just the possibility of the outcome? Study these feelings objectively and without judgment. Dissecting our needs and emotions is crucial when we’re looking for change to see where the urge is coming from.
When utilized correctly, jealousy is a great tool for understanding what we want to accomplish. By noticing and validating our jealousy we can see the ways in which we’re denying our dreams. When we learn to accept and respect our jealousy, we can find what we want our life to look like.
There is nothing inherently wrong with feeling jealous. It’s what we learn from it and how we act on it that matters. The emotion is telling us something. We just need to tune in to it.
By utilizing jealousy and letting go of the mindset of scarcity, we’ll learn to understand what excites us and celebrate other people’s successes, as well. Success and happiness are not limited resources — there's enough to go around if you go and get it.
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