Menu
iThemes
WordPress Security, Backups & Maintenance
  • Products
    • iThemes Security Pro
    • BackupBuddy
    • iThemes Sync
    • Why buy from iThemes?
  • Bundles
    • Essentials Bundle
    • Plugin Suite
    • WordPress Web Designer’s Toolkit
    • Customer Spotlights
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • WordPress 101 Tutorials
    • WordPress Ebooks
    • Weekly WordPress Vulnerability Report
    • The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Web Design Business
  • Training
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Free Webinar Library
    • Premium Courses
    • Become a Member
    • Member Login
  • Support
    • Documentation
    • Get Help
    • Product Updates
    • Upgrade Policy
    • Contact
    • Our Mission: Make People’s Lives Awesome
  • Log In
WordPress News and Updates from iThemes
Categories
  • Product Updates
  • WordPress Backup
  • WordPress Block Editor
  • WordPress Ecommerce
  • WordPress for Freelancers
  • WordPress Security
  • WordPress Tutorials
  • WPprosper

Jealousy Is Sabotaging Your Prosperity

Written by Cory Miller on May 27, 2015

Last Updated on May 28, 2015

In the early years of our business, I woke up one day to fully realize I had a real problem that was affecting my personal happiness and the progress and success of our business. It had eventually started to surface as growing bitterness and frustration. And it became a huge distraction for me and our team.

Ultimately I realized it had paralyzed and stalled the forward movement of our journey. It included a growing discontent, a sour attitude and deep lack of gratitude for what we had and were doing.

When I started to really dig down to the core of it all (or to just be honest with myself), I realized it was jealousy.

I was jealous and envious of what other people were doing and other people’s success.

The definition of jealousy is “the feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages.”

Simply put: We want something someone else has or is getting.

And that was me …

I had gotten consumed in seeing other people succeed with less effort and honesty, by taking shortcuts, getting more acclaim and traction while we toiled without our proper due. And I was mad. I felt it wasn’t fair. I felt we were justly entitled to that success. So I grumbled. I groaned. I got angry.

And it affected everything in my life and business. It crippled our progress and prosperity.

Sadly, it took maybe a year of this self-inflicted misery and self-sabotage, to realize and fully embrace one simple yet ironic truth about it all:

It’s not about them.

It was never about them. And it should never have been about them.

But for that entire time, wrapped up in my jealousy, I had made it (my life, our business) completely, 100% about them.

But the truth was and still is:

It’s about me.
It’s about my team.
It’s about my customers.

And our story, our journey together.

But by wallowing in my jealousy, and making it about others who weren’t on our journey, I betrayed that truth, deeply. I betrayed myself and our team and our customers. And the journey we were on and the progress we had made and were making.

You know … I’ve always looked at my life and my work as a journey to the summit of a mountain. I am an achiever. I like to always be heading somewhere. And I look at our team as all of us in unison, pulling, striving together for one purpose, one goal.

But being consumed in jealousy of other’s journey meant as the leader of ours, I had stopped and stalled myself and our team on a mountain pass in order to watch someone else’s journey.

I became a spectator.

A bitter one at that.

And because I stood watching, my team became part of the audience too.

Instead of a climber and a leader, I became a mere observer, watching others move forward while going nowhere ourselves. There was no real progress because in my foolish distraction I had put my energy and effort elsewhere. And began to seep into my team.

(Sidebar: In my experience as a leader, your health and happiness infects your team. If you’re miserable, your team will be miserable. If you’re distracted, they will be too. If you’re focused, happy, plugged in, they’ll likely follow your lead.)

Looking back, it was so wasteful. I’m embarrassed thinking back about it. I had squandered the finite, valuable resources of time, energy, talent and yes, money focused more on what someone else was doing than what we were doing.

Jealousy, you know, is really dumb.

Smart people don’t succumb to it. Good, focused, purpose-filled people don’t allow themselves to drown in it.

I had and I knew better.

But I know I’m not alone … I realize it’s part of the human condition — to be caught up in what other people get or have at the expense of your own prosperity and progress. And I’ve seen it in in our team, in the WordPress community and in our customer community as well as every other facet of my life.

So we have to battle our natural tendencies (as I still do every day).

That’s why I wanted to share my story and tackle this topic today because here’s the blunt truth:

Jealousy is an obstacle to your purpose, your progress and your prosperity.

So I want to help blow up jealousy in your life with this post and give some more thoughts and tools I’ve used to combat it and turn it into positive, productive progress toward my journey.

How I Rewire Jealousy for Productive, Positive Purposes

When jealousy creeps up, here are 5 ways I use to combat it and direct the energy it draws up in me:

1. Refocus and realign your thoughts, emotions and energy back to yourself, your journey, your story, your hopes and dreams, your goals and success, your progress and prosperity.

Say to yourself: “Hey, remember, it’s not about them. It’s about me. It’s about us. It’s about our journey and story together. Let’s get back to work on it. I am a player in my own game, not a spectator of someone else’s.”

I choose instead to put ALL the focus on us. Because as my dear friend put it, “Everything else is noise and distraction” to our journey.

Sometimes, I have to go back to ground zero and the roots of my purpose and passion and ask myself, “Why am I doing this again?”

More importantly: “Who am I doing this for?”

The biggest bump I get from refocusing and realigning myself is remembering the bigger purpose for my life and our business — to make people’s lives awesome.

I reflect on the stories our customers have sent us saying we’ve changed their lives in some way. I think about specific people I’ve met and their stories they’ve shared with me. I think about my own unique talents and strengths and contribution to helping make people’s lives better as well as those of our team. And like a fog lifting from the air, I find the gloom, misery and destructive force of jealousy start turning into the bright, positive, inspiring, energizing vision of the journey we’re on together.

2. Reset your expectations. Happiness and success are not a fundamental right. You are not entitled to them. You are not owed anything in this world.

In fact, I know I’m merely a steward of anything I have or get.

So say to yourself: “I’m not entitled to anything, and I refuse to feel entitled about anything in my life. The only thing I can control is what I do with the time, talent and treasure I have. And I choose today, this day, to apply them for maximum impact in order to make progress on my goals and my journey to make people’s lives awesome.”

My business mentor gave me this amazing quote: “Anger and frustration come from unmet expectations.”

Whenever I feel jealousy, or anger, or frustration creeping up in my situation, I reassess my expectations and ask why I feel that way.

Most of the time, the reasons I have unmet expectations are completely and utterly out of my control. And I choose instead of seeking to control something that is uncontrollable, I focus it more positively and productively – the things I can control: my emotions, my focus, my energy and effort, my time.

But I also seek to ask: Am I seeking to lay claim to someone else’s achievements and advantages?

And I remind myself … I have been given today. This moment. These resources. With these set of rules to play by. Everything I have, these things, are my only advantage. How I elect to utilize them creatively, innovatively, strategically, uniquely for the benefit of others is all on me.

How will you choose to use your allotment of time, talent and treasure?

Don’t squander it in buried in entitlement.

3. Redirect the energy and effort produced by jealousy to make great, more meaningful, positive progress toward your own goals for the benefit of others.

Jealousy summons an enormous amount of energy within us. We get mad and angry. And if we use that energy for jealousy, it’s simply a draining resource hog, depleting our precious resources that could be used for worthwhile progress. But since the jealousy energy engine is already revved up, I say we should simply utilize that energy for good, positive, constructive progress of our own.

In this way, I seek to use every emotion as fuel for my fire. Leaving nothing unused, I throw it all, positive or negative, onto the fire of my passion, my drive, my focus, my vision.

When jealousy wells up within you, say to yourself: “This is just more fuel for my fire, my journey, my story. It’s a reminder that I need all of my energy for this effort. And I’ll use this amped up negative energy to make positive and productive progress toward my journey, to get refocused on what I’m doing and to take it to the next level.”

4. Reorient yourself to thankfulness for your own achievements and advantages. For what you have, or done. And most importantly, who you have in your life. All of them.

This is my favorite action against jealousy and the one I’m seeking to use more deeply in my life.

Gratitude is the perfect antidote to the negativity of jealousy. They are mortal enemies.

Deep, sincere thankfulness destroys any attitude of entitlement.

Ask these two questions to prompt gratitude:

  • What are the achievements you’ve made in the past and present and will most likely be making in the future?
  • What are the advantages you have had and enjoy now?

My thankfulness in the face of jealousy often centers on the opportunities and advantages I have now that millions and billions do not, from living in the most prosperous time in history where I daily enjoy clean, ever-available water, electricity for light, heat, and cooking elements, fuel to travel virtually anywhere I want, abundant food sourced literally from all over the world but available minutes from my home, and access to the best healthcare in history, among many others ….

(By the way, you’re reading this post via the most innovative communications tool ever devised, the web, on a computer that is likely more powerful than those that were on spacecraft that orbited the earth — oh yeah, while living in the era of space exploration! — created and accessed with free software.)

But most of all I’m thankful for WHO I have in my life. The most valuable thing I have are the people in my life and who by their presence in it make me infinitely wealthy.

Ask: What are you thankful for? What opportunities and advantages do you have that others do not? And more importantly, WHO are you thankful for in your life (past and present)?

5. Recognize bitterness and reject it for what it is — poison.

Jealousy leads to anger and then bitterness. Learn to be watchful for the early signs of it in your life and attitude and make it your enemy. Thankfully, I got to it before it led to fully poisoning me.

For me, I think those emotions come to the surface when I feel powerless to do anything about my situation.

But that’s a lie. I can always do something about my situation but more importantly especially my attitude about it.

One remedy for bitterness, beyond the many of the previously mentioned steps, is to simply take one or two meaningful, positive actions toward your own dreams and goals.

Progress makes me feel more in control of my situation and attitude and it shrinks the feelings of bitterness in me.

No one wants to feel helpless and powerless. But when we succumb to jealousy we will feel more helpless and powerless and inevitably the most bitter are the ones who feel like victims because of it.

I choose action. I choose to stand up, take one step in the direction of progress and prosperity.

***

So those are my thoughts, ideas and tips for you on how to counteract the negative force of jealousy in your life.

I hope you’ll put them into practice as I seek to do every day and remove this obstacle so that you can make maximum progress!

My life has changed drastically for the better because of these positive actions and when I decided to shift my thinking, energy and focus onto things I can control and things that matter most.

When I practice these truths in my life, I’m not consumed by negative energy and thoughts. But I use that energy to make great forward progress toward my own prosperity.

And I’m healthier and happier and yes, wealthier.

Cory Miller
Cory Miller

Founder of iThemes.com

Share via:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • More
Other related posts
Productivity Tips for Website Owners
Productivity Tips for Website Owners
Personal Brand Website
How to Build a Personal Brand Website: 5 Essentials to Include
online marketing strategies
Best Online Marketing Strategies: 16 Tips for Beginners
Customer-Pain-Points
How to Find Customer Pain Points: 10 Questions to Ask so You Can Help Others

Comments

  1. John Turner says:
    May 28, 2015 at 7:51 am

    Hey Corey,

    Excellent article, thanks for sharing! I too have struggled with this in the past. Like you one way I combat this is a get up every morning and focus on what I have and what I’m thankful for and what my goals are for the day. I realized that comparing yourself or your business is a death spiral. Someone will always have more success, have a better business, have a bigger house, have a big wallet etc than you. Comparing puts your brain on a destructive infinite loop.

    Reply
    • Cory Miller says:
      May 28, 2015 at 9:22 am

      BOOM – thanks for this John.

      Reply
  2. Tim says:
    May 28, 2015 at 9:58 am

    Thanks Cory for the positive energy! Jealousy is like drinking the poison and expecting them to die.

    Reply
  3. Laura says:
    May 28, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    Thank you, Cory, for your honesty and for sharing this experience so openly. I so appreciate you for talking about the issue of jealousy in business and for offering your wisdom on how to deal with it. The timing of your post is perfect – exactly what I needed to read today!

    Reply
  4. Robert says:
    May 29, 2015 at 10:22 am

    Literally, as I read this article, the song, “Jealous Guy” by Monarchy randomly played on my Spotify. Weird!

    Thank you for the honesty. I would suggest looking at those that we are jealous of and figure out what we are jealous of. What aspects of them do we feel are lacking in us?

    Jealousy and being judgemental of others are always judgements of ourselves. But we project the feelings onto others because it feels like it’s about them. But it never is.

    Cheers.

    Reply
  5. Deborah says:
    May 29, 2015 at 12:32 pm

    Thank you Corey, for bringing this topic into the light. I have to deal with this daily. But I also think it would make an excellent speech for graduation classes at this time of year. We all need to understand that it’s not what we have, but what we DO with what we have, that matters.

    Reply
  6. Nathan says:
    May 30, 2015 at 9:05 am

    Great article Cory, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you in person a few times and this article just reinforces what a positive leader you are in the community. Keep up the great work!

    Reply
  7. Nemanja says:
    May 31, 2015 at 10:25 am

    Interesting article, thanks for sharing, I also spend a *lot* of time reading what others are doing etc.

    Reply
  8. Roger says:
    May 31, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    Wow Corey, I commend you for this post. I think this is a demon many people, especially entrepreneurs, deal with, but it’s a deep, dark secret that no one wants to reveal.

    This is a very timely topic for me, as I too began to identify envy as a massive distraction to our business. In addition to some of the topics you mention, I like to take a moment and look back at the achievements I’ve made so far and consider that they were achieved without looking over my shoulder at what others around me were doing or waiting for a pat on the back. In fact, my achievement are a direct result of not doing what others were. I accomplished them because they were what I wanted to do. I hold higher expectations for myself than anyone else, and pushing myself to meet them will result in the life that I truly want to live, and that is really all I need to think about.

    I particularly like your bit about gratitude and that is something I’m going to be working on this year.

    I got involved with WordPress in 2010 when I decided the best website for our business would be one that I build myself (who would’ve thought I could build a set of skills and second career along the way! #gratitude). When making the decision of which technologies to use, I always like to think of it as a horse race: which company or product will be in it for the long haul, will continue to evolve and improve over the years rather than disappear? To me, this is the most important question you can ask yourself when choosing what tools you should use to build your business. You should be happy to know that I found iThemes to be one of those companies that would be in it for the long haul, and I’ve been a happy customer ever since. And I’ve enjoyed seeing iThemes become a major player as the WordPress industry grows and evolves. Mad props, Corey. Keep it up.

    Cheers,

    Roger

    Reply
  9. stephen navazio says:
    June 4, 2015 at 1:36 pm

    Hey Cory,

    Great story to hear. Thanks for sharing it.

    Other may have different issues (other than jealousy) as I did in the past (anger), yet finding a away to be happy(ier) is the real goal.

    What I’ve found is being Humble, Grateful and Compassionate to yourself (1st) and others is a good universal way to live. With that, every issue becomes an exercise in learning how to live this way.

    The hardest part (for me) was/is learning to separate myself from my feelings. When I do separate, then I can easily let the feelings “move on” without me.

    It’s really great to have that level of self control and very self inspiring.

    It really, helps dealing with the teenagers in my house!

    So, glad to hear you “got it”, too.

    Best Wishes,
    Stephen Navazio

    Reply
  10. Nathalie Lussier says:
    June 4, 2015 at 1:57 pm

    Ooh, this is good stuff! I can definitely relate to getting sucked into the “outside world” and derailed from my own journey, every now and then. I love your advice for refocusing and aligning to what really matters.

    Thank you for being such an open book, your journey and contribution to this WordPress community and the web at large is definitely felt. 🙂

    Reply
  11. Brad says:
    June 4, 2015 at 9:48 pm

    Brilliant. So honest, so true. This is me. I’m 63 years old and have been in the biz since 1978 and so much negative energy has gone into being jealous of other designers, their projects, and their success. David, the Psalmist and King Solomon in Proverbs warns us repeated to not be jealous of those who prosper, but it is this piece that has given me hope. Thank you.

    Reply
  12. Brad Dalton says:
    June 23, 2015 at 5:14 am

    Very brave and honest Corey.

    Need more of this on the internet and in the WP communities.

    I have experienced jealousy to the point people start malicious campaigns using social media and blogging.

    I wish they would read this post and get on with and enjoy their own journey rather than try and get in the way of people who enjoy and succeed in their own.

    Reply

Respond

Click here to cancel reply.

Get updates on new themes & plugins plus special discounts

About iThemes

  • The Team
  • Contact Us
  • Website Accessibility Statement
  • Sitemap

Resources

  • Blog
  • Documentation
  • WordPress Tutorials
  • Free WordPress Ebooks
  • Free Webinar Library
  • Free Upcoming Webinars
  • iThemes Training
  • Affiliates

Customers

  • Member Panel Login
  • Support
  • FAQs
  • Upgrade Policy
  • Licensing
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Refund Policy

Top Products

  • BackupBuddy
  • iThemes Security Pro
  • iThemes Sync
  • Restrict Content Pro
  • WPComplete
  • WordPress Plugins
  • Content Upgrades
  • WordPress Landing Page Plugin
  • BackupBuddy Stash

iThemes Media LLC Copyright © 2023 All rights reserved | Privacy Policy

© 2022 All Rights Reserved.

Visit StellarWP Visit Nexcess
Share via
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Mix
Email
Print
Copy Link
Powered by Social Snap
Copy link
CopyCopied
Powered by Social Snap