Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success Podcast, episode sixty-four. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

Envy can be a powerful source of information about our desires and aspirations for our careers because it highlights where we feel we’re lacking and therefore it helps us uncover what we want to achieve. Envy is often seen as a negative emotion, but it can also be a positive force if we use it to our advantage. 

In this episode, we’ll explore this feeling of envy and examine specifically what we envy about others’ success to help us identify what it is we truly desire for our own careers. Embracing envy as a natural and valuable emotion can be challenging, but by practicing self-compassion and reframing envy as something more positive, we can grow from this place and use it to achieve success. 

Have you ever felt envious of a colleague who seems to have it all figured out in their career? Well, envy can actually be helpful in identifying what we see as most important in our own careers. For example, we might envy a colleague who has recently received a promotion and it may be a sign that we are eager to advance in our own careers. We can then use this information to set goals and develop a plan to work towards a promotion ourselves. 

If we notice that we envy someone’s flexible work schedule, it may be a sign that we value a different work-life balance than what we currently have. This is valuable information that we can use to then explore the flexibility available to us or consider looking into other jobs or career paths that prioritize flexibility and start moving towards that in the future. However, it’s important to use envy as a source of inspiration rather than negativity. 

Envy can easily lead us down a negative path of self-talk and generate feelings of inadequacy. Instead, we should use it as a starting point to learn more about ourselves and what we want from our careers. 

Envy is a natural emotion that arises when we desire something that someone else has. It’s often confused with jealousy, which involves the fear of losing something that’s already ours. Envy is common in highly competitive workplaces where we are all striving for success and recognition, but many people feel ashamed or embarrassed to admit they’re experiencing envy, leading to its suppression or denial. 

Suppressing or denying envy can have negative consequences on our careers. It can lead to feelings of resentment, bitterness, and disengagement from our work. It can also prevent us from identifying and pursuing our true desires and aspirations. When we acknowledge our envy, we gain a better understanding of what we want for ourselves and can work towards making it happen. 

While envy is a common emotion in the workplace, it can be challenging to identify our own envy triggers without getting stuck in comparison or self-criticism. Here are five tips to help you identify your envy triggers in a healthy way: 

1. Recognize your feelings
2. Understand the source of your envy
3. Focus on your own goals
4. Practice gratitude
5. Seek support

So back to number one, recognize your feelings. The first step in identifying envy triggers is to recognize and acknowledge what you’re feeling. Pay attention to when you start to feel resentful or envious of someone else’s accomplishments or success. It is only once you are aware of your feelings that you can start to dig deeper and understand why you are feeling that way. 

Number two, understand the source of your envy. Envy can stem from a variety of sources, including insecurity, fear of failure, feeling unappreciated, or undervalued. Once you understand the source of your envy, you can begin to address it in a constructive way. 

Number three, focus on your own goals. One way to avoid getting stuck in comparison or self-criticism is to focus on what you want in your career. Instead of comparing yourself to others, focus on your own path and progress. This will help you stay motivated and focused on achieving what matters most to you.

Number four, practice gratitude. Gratitude can help you shift your focus from what you don’t have, to what you do have. Take time each day to reflect on the things you’re grateful for, whether it’s your job, your health, your relationships, or something else entirely. This can help you cultivate a positive mindset and reduce your feelings of envy. 

And finally, number five, seek support. It can be helpful to talk things out with someone you trust and discuss your thoughts about your feelings of envy. This could be a friend, family member, or a career coach. They can offer a different perspective and help you work through your emotions in a healthy way. 

Identifying your envy triggers in the workplace requires self-awareness and a willingness to find a supportive listener when needed, in order to use these feelings to your advantage in helping you focus on your own goals. 

Exploring our envy can have several potential benefits in terms of career development, and here are just three of them for you to consider: 

1. Clarifying our passions
2. Helping in setting our goals
3. Overcoming our limiting beliefs

Envy can arise when we see someone else doing something we wish we were doing ourselves. By examining what it is about the other person’s work that we envy, we can gain insights into our own passions and interests as well as our values and priorities. For example, if we envy someone who has a job that involves a lot of travel, it may indicate that we have a passion for exploring new places, and maybe that’s something we can incorporate in some way into our career path. 

Envy can be a powerful motivator as it can help us see what we want more clearly. By exploring our envy, we can use it as a starting point for setting goals for ourselves. 

Sometimes envy can be a sign that we have limiting beliefs about what we think we are capable of achieving. By exploring this further, we can identify these limiting beliefs and work to overcome them. For example, if we envy someone who has a prestigious job, we may have a belief that we are not smart enough or qualified enough to do that kind of work. By recognizing and challenging that belief, we can begin to see new possibilities for ourselves. 

Bottling up envy in the workplace can have significant negative consequences for our mental health, our relationships with colleagues, and our career development. When we refuse to acknowledge or deal with our envy, it can fester and grow, leading to feelings of bitterness, resentment, and inadequacy. 

One of the most significant risks of bottling up envy is the toll it takes on our mental health. When we are consumed by feelings of envy, we can experience anxiety, depression, and other emotional challenges. If left unchecked, these negative emotions can impact our work performance, making it harder to focus and achieve our goals. 

Furthermore, when we bottle up our envy, we are less likely to seek out opportunities for growth and advancement. We may convince ourselves that what someone else has achieved is out of our reach, and therefore we don’t even bother trying. This can limit what we see as possible and hold us back from reaching our full potential. 

Another issue is that when we bottle up our envy, it can affect our relationships with colleagues. If we feel envious of someone else’s success, we may unconsciously distance ourselves from them or treat them with hostility. This can create a toxic work environment that can damage our reputation and prevent us from forming important connections with others.

In addition, when we fail to address our envy, it can become a limiting belief that holds us back in our careers. We may start to believe that we’re not good enough or talented enough to achieve the same level of success as others. This kind of negative self-talk can be damaging and can prevent us from taking risks or pursuing opportunities that we are actually qualified for and could lead to growth and success.

Envy is something we all feel, but sometimes we like to pretend we’re above all of that. But the truth is, envy is a complex emotion that can be both a motivating force and a source of negativity. On one hand, it can push us to strive for excellence and improve ourselves when we see others achieving success, but if we let it consume us, we can become resentful and bitter towards ourselves and others. 

The good news is that there are ways to deal with envy constructively and build a more positive mindset. One important step is to acknowledge our envy and accept it as a normal and natural emotion. We can then work to reframe our envy as a source of inspiration and motivation, rather than a negative force that holds us back. Instead of focusing on what others have that we don’t, we can use our envy as a way to keep us going, to focus on our own goals, and to work towards them in a realistic and achievable way. Starting small and setting measurable interim goals can help build our confidence and momentum. 

Let’s be real, though. It’s not always easy to embrace envy as a natural and valuable emotion. It can be uncomfortable and even shameful to admit that we feel envious. But recognizing envy as a common emotion in the workplace can help us use it constructively and grow from it. 

Another crucial step is to practice self-awareness and self-compassion. By recognizing our limitations and being kind to ourselves, we can build a stronger sense of self-worth and increase our confidence. We can also identify our limiting beliefs and work to challenge them. Replacing that negative self-talk with more empowering thoughts that reinforce our strengths and capabilities. 

Envy often arises when we compare ourselves to others and feel that we are falling short in some way. That’s where self-compassion comes in. We can learn to be kind and supportive to ourselves even when we’re struggling or experiencing difficult emotions. 

Experiencing envy can feel very isolating, especially in the workplace, but connecting with others who share similar experiences can help us feel less alone and gain support and perspective. So envy can be a double-edged sword, but we can learn to wield it in a way that propels us forward by reframing it as a source of inspiration, practicing self-compassion, setting realistic goals, and connecting with others who may be feeling the same way, we can use envy to grow and improve ourselves.

One thing to remember is that harnessing the power of envy can be a beneficial and powerful source of information about our desires and career aspirations that can help to clarify our goals and motivate us to take action. Envy can be seen as a signal that there is something we desire but do not yet have. And this can provide valuable insight into our ambitions and the direction we want to take in our careers.

Knowing what we want is half the battle. By examining the source of our envy, we can identify the skills, experiences, or accomplishments that we value and work towards achieving them. However, it’s important to focus on using envy as a source of inspiration and motivation, rather than a destructive force that causes us to resent others or feel inadequate. 

Instead of trying to suppress or deny our envy, we can use it to our benefit. When we see our colleague achieving success, instead of feeling resentful, we can use their accomplishments as a motivator to work harder and strive for excellence ourselves. By identifying what it is about their success that we admire, we can gain insight into our own desires and what a successful career means to us. 

We can also use our feelings of envy to learn from our colleagues. Instead of seeing them as competition, we can view them as mentors and seek out opportunities to learn from their experiences. This could mean asking them for advice or guidance, observing their work processes, or even collaborating on a project together. By learning from others, we can expand our own knowledge and skill set and develop new perspectives on our work. 

It’s also important to recognize that envy can be a sign that we are not yet fully satisfied or fulfilled in our current job. Instead of ignoring or denying these feelings, we can use them as an opportunity to reflect. Are we in the right job or industry for us? What other kind of work would we find truly fulfilling? By exploring these questions and taking actions towards our true aspirations, we can use our envy to create positive change in our career. 

By focusing on our own journey, we can build a sense of unshakable self-confidence and fulfillment that is not dependent on external validation or comparison with others. 

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide to Analyze Your Envy at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode sixty-four.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch, I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked this show, please tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thanks for joining me.