For a variety of reasons, many people today are unaware of the subtle differences in their emotions. So they drop everything into either the negative or positive emotional category.
Envy is an emotion with subtleties.
Very often a person sees someone else’s acquisitions and thinks to themselves: “Wow, I’m motivated by the acquisitions of that person. I sure wish I had what they have.” The first statement leads to proactive responding and an increase in desire that has no downside. The second response leads to negativity and blaming.
So, when you think in terms of beliefs creating emotions, and envy being the problem you’re having, my tips are:
1) Look at all the things that you envy people for and try to put as many as possible into the category of, “Wow, this window shopping for ‘what everyone else has’ is great for me as far as motivation goes! Let’s see what I want.” With this attitude and activity, you’ll immediately have less envy.
2) Now that you’ve got those acquisition-envy beliefs out of the mix, you can look at the ones where you have true, strong, envy and ask yourself, “Do I actually want what they have or am I thinking I want it simply to avoid something else?” This is an important piece because often negative emotions are just our way of avoiding what we actually want, and we’re often taught to want more than we can even possibly have.
3) Tip three is the most important but it won’t be as useful till you’ve done one and two. So number three: You make your list. Your list is what you actually want. It’s like setting a goal and when a person sets a goal they are less susceptible to getting sidetracked. An example: “Even though I’d like to do every job in the world my first goal is to be an accountant, so I won’t do guitar lessons right now.” It’s the same with acquisitions and accomplishments. When you have a goal then you know that other people’s acquisitions and accomplishments don’t fit into your goal and you can just admire them for it. As well as partner with them. So that you’re now able to have access to even more. It becomes not, “I wish I had what they had,” and instead, “Thank goodness they have what they have, now I don’t have to.”
There are many other tips and ideas for harnessing your envy; personalize them. Create them for yourself. Find and impliment all the ways that you are best at taking advantage of this emotion.
How much fun I’ll have envying your ability to do so!
;D