Practical tips to free yourself from envy and achieve your goals.
"Envy is the thief of joy."
Theodore Roosevelt.
In this week's post I'd like to deal with an unpublished topic, apparently unrelated to the "classic" themes of the blog:envy. Yeah, what are we envious of with the best strategies to achieve your goals? Much more than you might imagine ...
Just in last week's article we were talking about self-confidence. Envy is closely linked with self-esteem. Like an evil spell, envy forces us to a continuous confrontation between ourselves and others, or rather, between what is wrong with our life and the distorted and superficial image of the life of others. From this obsessive and unequal confrontation we inevitably emerge belittled, balk, defeated. But envy can be overcome, or rather, it can be put at our service ...
What is envy
To defeat our enemy we must first know him thoroughly. In the essay "Human, too human“, Nietzsche states that envy is the fruit of a desire that cannot be satisfied, or rather, using the words of the great German philosopher:
"Envy arises when one is eager, but has no prospects."
Friedrich Nietzsche.
And how does the envious react when he cannot satisfy his desires? Denigrates them and denigrates anyone who has managed to achieve them. In short, the same old story of the fox and the grapes. Envy, therefore, with the same procrastination, is yet another defense mechanism put into action by our mind. Devaluing what we fail to achieve or what others have achieved is a kind of self-deception, used by our mind to preserve our ego.
'Mazza André how you erupted this morning! But with all these psychological blowjobs I get lost a little: let's get to the concrete go ...
The best (and most concrete) way to understand envy and how much it can ruin our lives, is to investigate the mentality of the envious.
Psychology of the envious
We all know at least one envious DOC Very often we know him so well that we find him in the mirror every morning.
The envious OCD spends his days mulling over what others have and he can't have. Perennial dissatisfaction is the feeling that haunts his mind. The success of others provokes him with outbursts of anger and resentment. He has little interest in his own goals; he is only interested in the goals of others. Ultimately, his achievements never have intrinsic value; their value always comes from comparison with the goals of others. There is a meme of an Asian boy who masterfully expresses this mentality; takes up a famous phrase of the American writer Gore Vidal:
“It is not enough for me to be successful. The others must fail. "
Gore Vidal.
The truth is that behind this hatred hides an individual with a low esteem, an individual who hates others, but above all hates himself and his inadequacy. Nice picture, huh ?! Of course, each of us has experienced envy in different shades and in different situations. In short, we are not all despicable beings ready to enjoy the defeats of others ... yet, little or a lot, envy is always a source of frustration. How can we overcome this self-defeating feeling?
Good envy
As well articulated in the manual "Therapy of jealousy and envy“, There is not only bad envy. The human being is also able to feel a form of good envy, which we could define admiration. This form of positive envy not only has no side effects, but can actually be a real catalyst for our success.
The secret therefore is not not to feel envy for the success of others, but rather to leverage this feeling to make our dreams come true. The envious "good man" does not therefore wish the failure of others, on the contrary his mantra is: "if he has succeeded, I can too".
But to defeat negative envy, it is not enough to change your mental attitude: you need an extra step, a step well known to the readers of GetPersonalGrowth ...action.
How to get rid of envy
Much of the negative effects of envy arise from dreams and disillusioned aspirations. We dream, we delude ourselves, we make reckless pindaric flights, and then crash in front of the harsh reality. Still dazed and in pain we lick our wounds and to safeguard our ego we begin to to envy others and their successes.
André, are you then suggesting me to stop dreaming? To settle for what I have and continue on my way with my eyes down? Azz… what a great motivator you are!
Dreaming and aspiring to ambitious goals can be an inexhaustible source of energy, but in order for the water from this source not to be poisoned, we must learn to have our feet firmly on the ground; we must learn to act relentlessly; we have to learn a stop procrastinating.
Yes, but ... how?
Acting without direction, just to keep us busy, is certainly not a solution. The first real act to overcome envy and realize our dreams (not giving a damn about the results of others) consists in a full and total assumption of responsibility. This isn't the first time I've told you about it, but this lesson can make a real difference. Responsibility literally means: ability to respond. The envious person always places the responsibility for his own situation on others, events and bad luck, depriving himself of the "ability to respond". To overcome envy we must therefore take full responsibility for the results we have achieved so far. Only in this way will we regain control over our life. Only in this way will we stop worrying about what others are getting, focusing instead on what we want to achieve. Only in this way will we be truly free to fully fulfill ourselves.
Now choose: you can continue to feel sorry for yourself, to rail against the world and to envy others. Or you decide to focus on what you can control, finally becoming aware that, for better or for worse, you are thesole architect of your life.
“Don't waste time with envy: sometimes you are in the lead, sometimes you fall behind. The ride is long and, in the end, it's just with yourself. "
The Big Kahuna.
