I used to be jealous of other people's wealth and success — here's how I finally got over it
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It happens to most of us at some time or another.
A neighbor will buy something extravagant, like a gorgeous new car, and you look at your older car in the driveway and feel some envy.
A relative will get a great job and make more money in a year than you ever have. You'll overhear talk of that person's salary, think about your own salary, and feel some envy.
You'll visit an old friend who has a huge, nice house with plenty of room for their family and some really beautiful decorations. You'll go back to your own small home or apartment, look around, feel like it's a dump, and feel some envy.
Envy. It's an emotion that we all feel at some point.
It's also a really dangerous emotion when we're trying to build a strong financial life. After all, envy encourages us to make some pretty poor decisions.
Envy causes us to buy things to "keep up with the Joneses."
Envy causes us to get in way over our head with a car loan or a mortgage or a furniture loan.
Envy causes us to start buying lots of luxury brands that we can't really afford, draining money away from much more important things.
Envy is pure poison to a healthy financial life.
Like every other character flaw, however, envy can be overcome. You can directly reduce the envy itself, or you can at least reduce the bad choices you make as a result of envy.
Here are seven strategies I use to cut envy out of my own life.
1. Take time to focus on the good things you already have.
Even if you don't happen to have everything that other people have, that doesn't mean that you don't have an amazing life. Almost everyone's life is full of a lot of amazing things if they take the time to consciously look for them.
Look for the "amazing" you already have in your life and feel grateful for it. Look at the people who love you. Look at the positive things you've achieved. Look even at the simple pleasures, like the warm feeling of a ray of sun on your skin. Your life is loaded with goodness, so make that the focus in your life.
Action step: Take a few minutes each day to write down five things you're grateful for. Do this in an ordinary notebook, and make it part of your daily routine.
2. Remember that no one has the 'perfect' life and you're often merely seeing a carefully prepared 'public face.'
It's easy to get caught up in the idea that other people have a "perfect" life — or one that's much closer to "perfect" than your own.
However, one needs to always remember that when we see people in public, they've often got their public face on. They're trying to show themselves at their best, most of the time.
When we see people on social media, they're almost always showing their best. They want to show the greatness of their life, not the flaws.
Don't judge your own life by comparing your whole to only the positive facets of the lives of others. You'll almost never win that comparison, and it's a false comparison to boot, so just don't bother with it.
If you must compare yourself, remain mindful of what's not seen in their public appearances and their social media profiles. What's just outside of the camera lens? What's
Action step: Reflect on the sacrifices that person had to make in order to have that thing you're envious of. How many years of study did it take to get there, earning very little and suffering difficult situations? How much debt are they taking on to buy that thing? Is that really a trade off you want in your own life? Likely, when you step back and look at the sacrifices involved, it's not just a big positive and it's often not even a trade you'd want to make for yourself.
3. When someone else succeeds, celebrate it rather than be envious of it and remember that the world is an abundant place.
Envy often is born from a view of the world in which every winner must be paired somehow with a "loser," that for every person who gains, there must be a person who loses in return.
That's a false view of the world. The world is an abundant place. Take love, for example; a loving relationship has no loser. Both people win. A productive professional relationship has no loser. A good friendship has no loser.
Thus, when a friend finds something good, you didn't "lose" because of it. No one did. They merely had a good thing in their life, and that's worth celebrating. It is good for everyone when a friend finds something good in their life.
When your friend sees success, be happy for them for their own merit. That success does not mean that you lost — it merely means that your friend won, and that's something to truly be happy about!
Action step: Whenever you notice a friend's good fortune, don't dwell on what you don't have. Consciously choose to be joyous for what your friend has gained, and express that joy publicly in honest congratulations.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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