Don’t Let Professional Jealousy Sabotage Your Career
Do this instead …
Happy Friday, Intentionalists!
This week we’re talking about the green-eyed monster: Jealousy.
While we encourage everybody to ‘feel their feelings’, jealousy is one emotion we suggest you acknowledge, analyse and turn into positive action as quickly as possible. It’s toxic and dangerous to stew in it for too long.
The feeling is referred to as a ‘monster’ for a reason. While it is human to feel jealous from time to time (the emotion very likely helped our evolutionary need to compete over limited resources), left unchecked it turns to bitterness and could have us direct arrows at good friends, supportive co-workers or our siblings.
However, properly processing it can be a useful tool for progress.
Today, we are focusing on ‘Professional jealousy’, which is the envy of someone else’s achievements (as opposed to romantic jealousy or jealousy of another’s possessions). It can take place in the workplace, on the sports field, or even in the family.
Grab your journal and a pen and let’s get started:
PROMPTS
1. Think of a time you felt jealous (the more recent the better). What were the circumstances and who was the target of your jealousy? What exactly did you feel jealous about?
2. How and where did you experience the jealousy in your body?
E.g. A tight feeling in your stomach, tingling around your hairline, etc
3. What thoughts came up for you while you were feeling that way?
E.g. ‘Why do I never get any lucky breaks like that?’ etc
Here’s something to ponder: We usually don’t get jealous of people we consider out of our league. Very few of us get jealous over the success of Hollywood stars or towards the royal family. We tend to envy those we consider our equals in ability and status (or sometimes, even people we consider of lesser ability - ‘How did that ding-dong get promoted over me?’)
4. Think back to your encounter in prompt 1. Being honest with yourself, did the person in question do something better or with more dedication than you did to earn that achievement? Write down a list of what they would have done to succeed.
5. Circle the items in that list that you are not currently doing but could do to improve your own performance. Make a plan of how you are going to do them.
This is the time to take your focus off the object of your jealousy and to look at ways you can improve your own achievements and quality of life. Sometimes other people do have advantages that aren’t available to us. Perhaps, they have the resources to employ a coach or personal trainer, they have a supportive spouse, a trust fund, etc
We can’t control any of the above, but what we can control is improving our performance. Even if you improve your life by 25%, that would be vastly better than simply cooking in your jealousy.
Go through these prompts whenever the green-eyed monster rears its ugly head. When people don’t use jealousy as a useful tool for clarification, they tend to become bitter and nasty. Backbiting and spreading rumours will only reflect badly on you.
However, people who are happy about other people’s successes and keen to learn from them will very often create their own good luck.
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FEEL GOOD AFFIRMATIONS
The only person I am competing with is the person I was yesterday
Other people’s success teaches me what I am capable of
I transform my jealousy into positive action
(Say or write out this affirmation slowly ten times)
KELLY’S SILLY BIT
There’s no jargon like corporate jargon to make you want to scratch your ears off, is there?
A few that are like nails down a chalkboard include:
Circle back | to come back to something
Are we aeroplanes?!Ducks in a row | to be well prepared or well organised
Can’t we just be ready? Sorted? Prepared? Quack!Touch base | to make contact
No one is touching my base without my permission.
I'm sorry I put your eyes through that. Go and splash them with some water and come back when you’re ready.
Ok. I found some business language from the 1910s and 1920s for you that honestly, sounds a lot cooler (but also harsher). These gave people the irrits back then as the above does for us.
Stop in | To visit someone briefly
Deliver the goods | To produce the promised, desired, or expected results
Win out | To achieve victory or success after dealing with many difficulties
The straight dope | The true information; the full story
Make good | To fulfil something. To do what is required
Get away with it | To succeed in avoiding punishment for something
Put one over | To fool or hoax
Showdown | A final test or confrontation intended to settle a dispute.
Come across | To give over or furnish something demanded especially: to pay over money
Get wise | To become aware of or see through a deception
On the level | Honest. Truthful
Bawl him out | To reprimand loudly or severely
Got his number | to know a lot about someone and so have an advantage over them
Get his goat | To make someone annoyed or angry
Get warm around the collar | To get very annoyed, angry, or excited about something
Hit the ceiling | To suddenly become very angry
Fall for it | To be tricked into believing something that is not true
Get busy | Start working, become active, as in Stop dawdling
‘Get busy and make good by getting the straight dope!’
I can’t read these without thinking I’m a gangster with a toothpick in my mouth.
What do you think? Are any of these worth giving a burl in the office?
Be an intentionalist.
Belinda & Kelly XX
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