Professional jealousy: motivation or desire to sit up?

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Yesterday at the meeting, the boss praised his colleague, but did not even remember about your merits. Today an interesting task was not assigned to you at all, but to a new girl who still does not know anything. You feel yourself slowly boiling, you don't even have the desire to look in the direction of your rivals, let alone talk to them - and even more so. You torment yourself with questions: “Well, why did the boss choose them and not me? Why am I worse? - and you yourself do not understand why you so badly want them all to quit at once. Do not think that something is wrong with you: everyone could be in your place, and the feeling that took possession of you is quite common, and it is called professional jealousy.

Even at school, we competed with our classmates: who would answer better at the blackboard, who would help the teacher take the notebooks to the class and thereby win his favor. We considered those who too actively sought the love of teachers as suckers, but still, deep down, we envied them - we wanted the teacher to treat us in the same way. We grew up, got a college education, got a job, but did not stop struggling to earn the respect and trust of management. Others' successes delight us less and less, sometimes it even seems to us that others are not worthy of the praise that their bosses give them.

Some, realizing that someone is ahead of them, put even more effort, increase the pace and achieve real heights. Others remain in place, but try by any means to "bring down from heaven" and lucky, to prove that they are not so great.

Professional jealousy can be both positive and negative, and it is very important to understand when the harmless spirit of competition develops into a desire to humiliate, sit up and survive from the team.

How does it manifest

Professional jealousy is different from that which arises in the relationship between a man and a woman. If in the second case you are fighting for the attention of your beloved, then in the first - for success, recognition and respect. That is why the symptoms are somewhat different:

1. Seeing that your colleague's career is going uphill, you begin to intensely catch up with him. For you, someone else's success is a motivation for moving forward; without it, you would most likely stand still. But the fact that someone is smarter, faster, or more forward-thinking makes you discover hidden resources in yourself. This is positive professional jealousy.

2. The fact that the boss praised a colleague, and not you, unsettles. You take someone else's success too painfully and try to make it not so significant in the eyes of others: dissolve gossip, over trifles find fault with your comrade in the shop - the culprit of your torments. Everything starts to annoy you - from raising the secretary's salary to buying a new computer for the accountant's office. This is negative professional jealousy.

The fact that your boss praised a colleague and not you is unsettling.

3. Someone else's achievements make you want to congratulate the winner. You are sincerely happy for your colleague and calmly continue to work at the same pace as before. You do not feel professional jealousy for one simple reason: you know your worth and are sure that no one’s success can affect your career growth and relationships with your boss.

How to deal with professional jealousy

If you understand that your jealousy is a desire to prick, do petty nasty things, or even sit up and survive a colleague from the team, then you definitely need to do something about this. Firstly, such negative emotions do not benefit you at all and undermine your psychological health. And secondly, in an attempt to somehow offend a more successful person, you completely forget about your role in this company and can eventually lose your job, carried away by intrigues, and not performing official duties. So, if you feel like jealousy is escalating into seething anger, follow our advice.

1. Admit to yourself: what you are experiencing is banal envy. As soon as you realize that your colleague has not offended you in any way, but has only completed his work by five points and you truly envy him, the anger at a more successful person will recede. He's not guilty of anything, it's only you.

2. Try to calm down and not look for a dirty trick where it is not: the boss does not try to "push" you, he just distributes assignments to subordinates, based on their abilities and workload at the moment. And if now you have not been given the task that you dreamed about, take a close look at your desk: it may be littered with such a pile of papers that you will have to rake it for at least another week.

Deal with irritability first, and then get to work.

3. Distract yourself with something else. If negative emotions are overwhelmed, it is better to drink tea and “look through” a women's online magazine, rather than go to the “smoking room” and there, with envy in your voice, discuss other people's achievements. Deal with irritability first, and then get to work.

4. Concentrate on your work … Instead of caustically discussing your opponent's success with colleagues, start striving for your triumph. Praise and recognition will not fall on your head just like that, they need to be earned, and now is the time for active action.