Your jealousy is smart. Listen to it.

Why this ‘negative’ emotion is actually super productive

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In one of our group sessions at our recent retreat, we ran an exercise on jealousy. But not how to eliminate it, rise above it, or be grateful instead. (That’s all fine and dandy—it just wasn’t the point.)

Instead, we did something a little more uncomfortable and a lot more fun: We leaned into it! We didn’t reject the feeling or try to pretty it up. We let it speak. And it turns out, jealousy is a good teacher—if you have a framework for hearing what it’s actually saying.

This isn’t a tacit endorsement to go full Talented Mr. Ripley on the people you envy! It’s not about becoming obsessive or unhinged. Rather, it’s about taking the signal seriously, because jealousy is meaningful.

No, it doesn’t mean you’re a petty loser. Jealousy is a signal that means you really want something—but maybe not what you think. It also means you believe, correctly or not, that that thing is out of reach for you.

The exercise we walked people through in the session breaks all of this open: what you’re really reacting to, what you actually want, and where the gap truly is (or maybe isn’t!).

Afterward, several participants told us it was one of the most unexpectedly impactful parts of the week. So we’re taking it outside the retreat!

This week, we’ll unpack a bit more what we’ve taken to calling “productive jealousy.” Plus, we’re running a free workshop later this month to explore this idea more deeply and walk you through the same exercise we led at the retreat.

The thing vs. the feeling

We’ve talked before about the distinction between wanting a thing vs. wanting the feeling that we believe comes with the thing. In that post, we were talking more about desires and goals in general, and examining whether we would still want to pursue them if we could just snap our fingers and have the feelings underneath:

A relevant thought experiment: Let’s say you feel unworthy today, and you’re given the following choice:

• Work for the next 10 years on an incredibly ambitious and risky project that will consume your free time and cause immense stress and personal struggle, but you believe at the end of it, you’ll have solved your unworthiness problem

• Take a pill that erases all feelings of unworthiness for the rest of your life

I think most of us would choose the pill, no?

When we operate from this understanding that what we’re really chasing are feelings, it opens up a whole new way to see jealousy—one that allows us to examine it without shame and to take direction from it without it consuming us.

Most of the time, when we feel envious or jealous, we focus on the object or outcome and assume that’s the thing that we want, like:

• Job title

• Income

• Lifestyle

• Material goods

• Appearance

• Relationship

• Influence

• Creative output

• Awards

• Etc.

The problem isn’t that we want those things; it’s that most of us stop the analysis there and then do one of two things:

1. We try to get the exact thing we’re jealous of, or

2. We squash down the jealousy and live in resentful envy because we have a story about how it’s not realistic to get what we want

Let’s break down the mistakes of each.

Mistake 1: Just trying to get the thing

In the first case, when we run after getting the house, the job, the raise, the girlfriend—whatever it is—we might end up tilting at windmills. (Or I guess acquiring windmills.) We risk wasting time, energy, and other resources on grabbing a brass ring that, once we get it, ends up being exactly as satisfying as holding a big-ass heavy brass ring.

The step we skip? Defining the feelings that we believe the object or situation will provide us.

For example, we might want a house, but what we really want is to feel secure. We want a promotion, but what we really want is to feel appreciated at work. More money? We probably want freedom. To get in physical shape? We want self-confidence.

Suddenly, it’s a lot easier to see how maybe the Thing = Feeling equation isn’t so simple. We all know physically attractive people who have crippling self-image issues. Or the cliché stories of those who chase fortunes and are still unhappy when they have all the money they could ever need and more.

Above, of course, a certain level of our basic needs being met and rights being honored, humans overestimate the impact of our external circumstances on our internal states. This means we don’t really understand why we don’t feel [insert desired feeling] in the first place. It’s like looking at a leaky pipe and being like “Hmm, let me go fix this with peanut butter!”

Mistake 2: Believing we can’t get the thing

In the second case, where instead of pursuing the thing, we have a story about why we simply can’t have the thing we’re jealous of, we rarely stop to ask ourselves whether or not that story is true.

Where did we develop that story? Why do we believe it? What do we believe other people either are or have that allows them to get the thing we want? What do we believe other people can do that we can’t? Sometimes just asking that question will shake loose a big ol‘ limiting belief you didn’t know you had!

And again, if we drill down into the feeling that undergirds the thing we want, we might realize we have waaay more expansive and permissive stories about how to get those feelings!

I can only imagine a few ways to get a car; I can imagine many ways to feel like I have more agency. I might be limited in my ability to have time only to myself, but I can imagine many ways to practice self-care. You get the idea.

Sometimes, you really can’t get the thing; limitations, constraints, obligations, and restrictions are real! But other times, the story really just is that—a story. If we get stuck in the story, we get stuck on the lack, envy, and resentment that comes from ignoring what we really want.

How to listen to your jealousy instead

Well, first thing is you can come to our free event! We’ll be leading folks through a framework for unpacking all of the above.

Barring that, we’ll give you a couple key questions to ponder the next time you feel a pang of jealousy before you go about racing to obtain it:

1. What feeling(s) do you believe you would have if you got the thing you were jealous of?

2. If you could have the thing, but not the feeling, would you still want the thing?

And just remember: There are no “bad” emotions! Even when they’re uncomfortable and unpleasant, they’ve giving us valuable direction.

Over to you…

Was it easy to answer the two questions above? Let us know if your answers surprise you!

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But wait! There’s more…

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