3 Reasons Why Other People’s Success Should Inspire Rather Than Discourage You

By Nick Hill

Success should be celebrated and not condemned. Below are three all-encompassing examples of why we should meet peoples’ successes with positivity.

Learn From Others

Work to feel admiration and good will. Provide encouragement. Learn from people. If you want to start a business, do it. Propose to your girlfriend, travel in Europe, learn a new skill; chances are, you probably know someone who has already done it, so gain whatever valuable insight you can.

Look to the people who are doing what you want to do and ask them for counsel and advice. Which hostel in France was best? Where did you buy that engagement ring? What platform do you use for your blog?

Can you take a look at my business plan? These, and countless other questions, are things you can run by experienced peers.

Get all of the free advice you can because the people you are asking will likely be more than happy to help. These people understand the value of exchanging ideas, working together and collaborating. Use their wisdom to ensure you don’t make the same mistakes as those who came before you.

Absorb Success

Surely, we all wish success could be contagious, like the common cold — make out with a millionaire and wake up an entrepreneur. Sadly, this is not how it works; but, spending time with happy and successful people can inspire you to reach your potential.

Of course, luck and chance do play their roles in our lives, but it is also about seizing opportunity, being resourceful, adapting and making the most of any and all situations in which you may find yourself.

This is the key to success: The right combination of luck and being ready for an opportunity. Take action and experience the results.

You really are the product of those with whom you associate. We may suffer from delusions of grandeur, but really, if your friends are not living up to their potentials and challenging themselves, you likely aren’t either.

By spending time with and learning from driven, ambitious and successful people, you will start to adapt and, in turn, adopt their mentality. Put yourself in situations that hold the promise of adventure and opportunity.

This will allow you, in a sense, to absorb the successful traits of those around you so that you can incorporate them into your lifestyle.

Envy Is Counterproductive

Being envious of others will not affect their success but will only deter and prolong your own lack of it. You are wasting time instead of creating and seizing opportunity.

Do not compare your life to anyone else’s because you will never know the whole story. This will only lead you to second-guess every decision you make and further delay your eventual success and growth.

Separate yourself from the negativity because it will do nothing but bring you down. Examine other people’s successes with hope, not jealousy. Allow their successes to ignite your perseverance and determination. When you’re true to yourself, your life will be better.

5 Ways To Stop Resenting Other People’s Success

by Amy Morin

Jealousy is a normal emotion that everyone experiences. If you’re not careful, however, jealousy can grow into resentment and bitterness. And those destructive emotions could lead to a vicious downward spiral.

I’ve seen this happen countless times in my therapy office. Clients feel as though they’re not measuring up in life because they can’t compete with their friends and co-workers. Soon, they grow consumed with hostility because they feel like they’re not getting their fair share.

Social media seems to amplify resentment. Spend two minutes scrolling through Facebook and it’s easy to become convinced your friends are happier, healthier, and wealthier as they post their latest vacation photos and announce their good fortune. But studies show envying your friends on social media leads to depression.

Whether you envy a co-worker who got a promotion, or you’re resentful that your boss drives a car you can’t afford, resenting other people’s success is bad for your health, your relationships, and your career. It’ll drain your mental strength and hold you back from reaching your greatest potential.

Here are five ways to stop resenting other people’s success:

1. Stop comparing yourself to other people.

It’s easy to look at social media and think, “My family doesn’t have that much fun together,” or “My house isn’t nearly as nice as my friends’ homes.” But life isn’t meant to be a competition.

Drawing comparisons between yourself and other people is like comparing apples and oranges. Your journey is unique and it’s important to honor your individuality.

Whenever you catch yourself comparing your life to someone else’s life, remind yourself you’re not in a race. Your job is to do your best with what you’ve been given, regardless of what those around you are doing.

2. Reframe your scarcity mindset.

Thinking opportunities are scarce leads to a “Lord of the Flies” mentality. That’s why companies try to convince you products are in short-supply—so you’ll gobble them up before anyone else does.

But, just because your neighbor is wealthy doesn’t mean he’s taking money away from you. And a co-worker’s promotion doesn’t mean you can’t have a good job too. You may need to look at other companies or other departments, but there’s more than one perfect job out there.

It’s easy to get caught up into thinking that everything is a once in a lifetime opportunity or that other people’s success means you can’t succeed too. But in reality, very few things in life have a limited supply.

One thing that is limited, however, is time. And every minute you waste resenting someone else’s success is 60 seconds you give away.

3. Look at the big picture.

No one has a perfect life. But, the small snapshot you’re seeing may look more glamorous than it really is—especially if you’re looking at someone’s life on social media. Just because your co-worker earns more money or your neighbor is more attractive, doesn’t mean that person has a charmed life.

Rather than staying focused on someone’s good fortune, zoom out and keep things in proper perspective. You don’t know what hardships someone else may be experiencing. Even if an individual doesn’t appear to be struggling on the outside, you have no idea what sort of mental battles that person may be fighting.

4. Don’t judge what’s fair.

Sometimes, it’s tempting to make generalizations based on what we think is fair in life. She didn’t deserve that raise because she doesn’t work as hard as I do. He doesn’t deserve to have a successful business when he treats his employees like dirt.

The truth is, life isn’t always going to be fair—at least not in the way you view fairness. Insisting you deserve more and someone else deserves less wastes your time and energy. Accept the things you can’t control and focus on being the best version of yourself, without keeping score.

5. Create your own definition of success.

It’s hard to be resentful of someone when you realize they’re not running the same race as you. In fact, you can celebrate their accomplishments when you view life as an opportunity to cooperate, rather than compete.

Write down your definition of success and know your values. Recognize that other people are working on their own accomplishments. Their achievements don’t have to diminish or minimize your own.

Keep your eyes on your own path to success. The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday. Try to become a little better every day and you’ll feel less threatened by other people’s achievements.

Here are a few reasons how and why celebrating others can lead to your own happiness and success:  

By Cator Sparks

1.     Be Authentic – When someone tells you their good news, truly be happy for them. This happiness can show your co-workers that you are a team player. Depending how well you know the person, you can even arrange a little after work celebration. Positivity goes a long way. 

2.    Learn from Others – Be open minded to hearing how they got their raise, new home, won that award. If you can focus on the perspective of ‘what can I learn from them?’, their accomplishment can help you better yourself.  

3.    Practice Gratitude – Ok, you didn’t get the raise, but what is happening in your life right now to be grateful for? When we reflect on everything good in our own life, it can be easier to be happy for others.

4.    Success Breeds Success – Celebrating successful people can benefit you in a plethora of ways. Those people could invite you to events, or meetings that could boost your career or they could keep you in mind when they need to expand their team.

We get it, celebrating others can be difficult at times. Working with a coach is a great way to work through this and see fresh perspectives.

Other People’s Successes Are Not Your Failures

How to genuinely celebrate the achievements of others like they’re your own (because they are)

By Jamie Jackson

Regulating how you react to the world is the key to inner peace.

If events continuously turn your emotions upside down, then it doesn’t matter how rich, successful or good looking you are, you’ll still be a victim to the ups and downs of life.

And life is a rollercoaster, as ex-boyband singer Ronan Keating reminded us in his middle of the road, toe-tapping hit ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’.

Rollercoasters have lots of ups and downs. I guess that was his point. Thanks again, Ronan.

Anyway, one of the big emotions to regularly sneak up and steal that precious inner peace is jealousy. Or, envy. Whatever, it’s those two peas in a pod.

It’s when you see someone with something you don’t have, or achieve something you haven’t, and it makes you feel shit.

I used to be so envious. It was secretly a big personality trait of mine, but over the years I’ve worked out an effective way of dealing with it, and the point is I’m going to tell you about it; starting with this subheading:

How to Stop Being Jealous

Everyone gets jealous, everyone feels envy. But that doesn’t mean it needs to steal your joy. It’s possible to reframe the feelings around other people’s successes to make them work for you, rather than against you.

I mean it. This isn’t an empty promise. I used to be bitter and angry every time a friend achieved something I didn’t. I’d drive past big houses and hate the owners and myself. But now I’m all good. Really, no false words, no hyperbole. In fact I love it when people do well. Let me explain why.

Abundance Verses Lack

At one time, I couldn’t be happy for anyone having success because I had a mindset of lack rather than abundance.

I believed that other people’s successes diminished my own chances for success. I believed they were taking something from me, as if there was a finite amount of luck, ambition, money or results.

If you were a pedant, you could argue that technically there is a finite amount of everything, but that kind of thinking is called arguing for your limitations.

Instead, lean into this idea of abundance and formulate an argument for your successes.

Nothing is being taken away from you when someone else achieves a goal.

Not a thing.

Don’t immediately go to the false feeling of loss, because you’re losing nothing.

Feeling loss for no reason isn’t just painful, it’s actually a very limiting mindset.

Neuroscientist Dr Tara Swart says in her book ‘The Source’:

“Loses have twice as powerful an effect on our brains than the equivalent gain. So we’re more likely to go out of our way to avoid a potential loss than we are to try to gain a reward.”

If you see other people’s successes as a loss you’re going to hunker down and do even less with your life. Your mind is going to try and protect you. Believing you’ve lost something isn’t empowering, it just fucks you up. And that’s a technical term.

One of the things I say to myself is this:

There is enough.

There is enough money, opportunity and love. There isn’t a shortage of anything we need in life. Not even food or water. Sure there are lots of socioeconomic problems with how they’re distributed, but in this world, there is enough.

You are enough. There is enough. There is abundance. Every time you feel those thoughts of loss creeping up, repeat this mantra.

Help Not Hiderence

The second point is that when someone achieves something that you want, not only are they not taking anything away from you, they’re actually helping you.

Let me give you an example. If you want to write a horror novel and your friend does that same thing and gets published, then great! He’s carving out a path for you.

His success is creating and enforcing a market for your product also.

Remember when Britney Spears became famous and then an army of clones also grew famous? Mandy Moore, Christine Aguilera, Shakira… Britney Spears didn’t take anything away from her competition, she in fact enabled them.

This is how whole musical genres begin. One band gets big and everyone wants more of the same. If someone is successful in what you’re trying to do all it means is that there will be more opportunity.

Inspiration Not Disincentive

Another trick I use is to make other people’s successes an incentive for me to do better. It’s an arse-kicker. In fact, I don’t even need to repeat this to myself anymore because I’ve seen it in action so many times. I know it will be an arse-kicker. It’s guaranteed.

Jim Rohn famously wrote that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Whether or not this is accurate, the influence of your peer group is undoubtedly profound.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

If my friendship group starts knocking it put the park with money and goals, it will make me do the same. It might hurt that they’re roaring ahead of me at the time, but I’ll get pulled along in their slipstream.

My standards will naturally rise.

So not only are they not taking anything from me, not only are they creating opportunity for my own achievements, but they’re giving me motivation to do it too.

As author Mandy Stadtmiller asked:

What if other people’s success wasn’t an indictment, but an inspiration?

Do you see how with some simple reframing, suddenly, when someone else is successful, it can only be a good thing for you? It is a gift!

This is why I love it when people achieve. It means one way or another it will come back to me.

Final Thoughts

It doesn’t seem worth mentioning, but here I am, mentioning it anyway, that negativity is negative.

I don’t need to give you a bunch of reasons for being positive, we all know negativity will corrode your life, and celebrating other people’s successes is positive. It is a celebration of possibility.

I genuinely believe hidden within other people’s successes are an abundance of gifts for you, and me.

We just need to find them.

Changing your mindset can be hard, but personally, I found changing my mindset around this topic relatively easy. Perhaps because it’s natural to be happy for others, if we just stopped listening to our own insecurities.

These days, when I drive past huge houses, I don’t feel bitter, I want to congratulate the owners. I get excited that one day, I could own a house like that too.

It’s a vibes thing. If people are achieving, it’s putting those can-do vibes into the world. It’s for us to soak up and use how we wish.

Be the good vibes antenna, pick up on those signals, boost your life through their achievements. It’s all there for us to use.