How To Turn Career Envy into Career Success

We've all been there. You get a notification on LinkedIn about a former coworker who has suddenly scored an unbelievable promotion. Or maybe you run into a classmate from college who doubled their salary after being headhunted. Whether it's on social media or in real life, the feeling that others are accelerating faster can be hard to bear.

Of course, it's great to feel inspired by others who are achieving success. But what do you do when someone else's trajectory leaves you consumed with envy? It can be hard to know how to turn off the negative self-talk when we're silently comparing ourselves to another person's skyrocketing success.

Where we work, what we do, what we earn and how we are recognized can become the benchmarks we use to measure our achievements compared to our peers. This article shares four strategies to help you process your emotions, anchor your goals, embrace a growth mindset and create a plan for your next chapter.

Prepare to Dig Deeper

First things first, remember we're all human and we all have emotions. Instead of trying to push the envious feelings away, dig a little deeper and explore the reaction.

Ask yourself, "what is driving the emotion I'm feeling right now?" Don't deny, dismiss or bury it. Use your identified feelings to your advantage and transform career envy into constructive and incisive actions aligned with your future goals.

Here are three questions to help you move past envy by refocusing on your career goals and the actions that will enable you to achieve them:

1. What do you want?

Answer this question honestly. Reflect on how you measure success, what you want to be known for and what you want to experience in the next chapter of your career. You may already know the answers, or this may require longer reflection.

2. What would it take to feel like you're making progress?

Look at your responses to the first question and then jot down three mini milestones that would indicate you're moving in the right direction.

For example, if your goal is to secure a promotion, one of the first milestones may involve clarifying any questions you have about the decision-making process. This may include ascertaining how leadership measures success and confirming the fiscal year timeframes for company-wide promotion cycles.

A second milestone could be jotting down your key accomplishments and quantifying their impact, to enable you to make the business case for your promotion. A third milestone may involve scheduling a meeting with your boss to get their input on your professional development goals.

3. What will you commit to doing next?

Choose one mini milestone and commit to outlining the next steps you need to take to move closer to it. If your goal is to be promoted and you've decided to be more visible, one of your immediate next steps might be to identify opportunities to lead a project or present to a client.

Silence Your Inner Critic

Now that you have an idea about your next career steps, it's time to stop overthinking and take action. Start working towards your selected mini milestone as swiftly as possible. This might be as straightforward as devoting an hour to research or reaching out to someone in your network with a career-related question.

In their bestselling book The Success Principles, authors Janet Switzer and Jack Canfield emphasized how you can create momentum by taking just one step, without the promise of success. This requires being willing to start and being prepared to see how your next steps unfold.

As you do this, the authors advocate the importance of transforming your inner critic into an inner coach. Our negative thought patterns can control our behavior.

If you find yourself struggling to silence critical self-talk, Switzer and Canfield recommend the following technique. When your inner critic manifests, ask yourself:

• Is this thought helping me, or hurting me?
• Is it getting me closer to where I want to go, or taking me further away?
• Is it motivating me to act, or is it blocking me with fear and self-doubt?

The authors advocate challenging harmful notions by "talking back." For example, if your negative thinking tells you:

"Whenever I apply for a promotion, I'm never successful."

Challenge that thought by confronting that claim with a turnaround statement. Here's an example:

"Achieving a promotion won't be easy, but I'm committed to working hard, learning new skills and continuing to ask for what I want."

Leverage Your Connections

Reaching out to others to discuss your career goals can help you troubleshoot obstacles and uncover ideas or resources that can aid as you continue to progress. Don't currently have a mentor? Set the intention to find one.

Start the process by talking to others and sharing the type of mentor you're looking for. The more people know, the more ideas or suggestions might come your way. Starting career-focused conversations with people you do know may lead to a connection who becomes a valued mentor over time.

Embrace Your Wins

Career envy happens to the best of us, even when we're happy for the people with good news to share. Instead of comparing yourself to others, focus on what you're building toward.

If you choose to, you can channel your envious thoughts into positive action. Your journey may not be identical to the person whose career you're coveting, so instead of comparing yourself to someone else, I want you to measure your progress based on where you are heading versus where you started.

I encourage you to turn your attention back to you by writing a list of what you've accomplished over the course of your career, what you've learned from any setbacks and highlighting the moments that have made you feel proud.

Review your achievements and your goals without the filter of anyone else's accomplishments to cloud your view. If you can't shake the perception that someone else is moving ahead faster, remember it's not a race. Even if you both started at the exact same point with the exact same skills, your journeys will not be the same. And that's OK.

Get real about what you want to work towards and channel your energy into taking one step at a time. Commit to silencing your inner critic while you're pursuing your goals. And don't forget, even if you're not where you want to be, someone is looking at you, feeling envious and hoping that one day they will achieve what you've already mastered.

About the Author

Octavia Goredema is an award-winning career coach at Twenty Ten Agency, author of Prep, Push, Pivot, and host of the Audible Original series How to Change Careers with Octavia Goredema. You can learn more about Octavia's work at octaviagoredema.com.