What Envy Reveals About Your Identity, Values and Control of Life

“Core” is the heart of our philosophy. It’s a process of searching answers to three root questions: who am I, what do I want and am I in control of my life? Getting in touch with your beliefs on identity, purpose and control both increases wellbeing and impacts your behaviour. Often clients taking part in our coaching programmes have hardly given any thought to these questions. Another problem, as philosopher Esa Saarinen describes, is that our inner self may be confused. Rather than answering the questions for ourselves, we look outside for cues as to who we should be, what we should want and blame ourselves because “everyone else has it together”.

Understanding and addressing envy

Working with our corporate clients and attending Core mentoring myself, I have come to realise that sometimes clarification to these questions are found through less flattering, yet humane, feelings – such as envy. Oxford defines envy as “a painful reaction to an unflattering social comparison, revealing the lack of something desired but possessed by another person.” It often associates with feelings of inferiority and injustice. It’s a hostile emotion, embedded in anger, often increasing levels of stress and unhealthy shame. Evolutionary psychology explains envy as a source of motivation, as it inspires to gain equal or better access to same resources.

While culturally “frowned upon”, envy is commonly used, for example, as a marketing strategy to sell products and in organisational settings to create a competitive environment. Envy’s organisational outcomes appear as poorer leader-member exchange, lower job-satisfaction, lower group-performance and professional self-esteem, higher turnover and work absence, to increased performance in some cases. Despite its possible positive outcomes to performance through motivation, evidence suggests envy should be processed appropriately as it is associated with poorer physical and mental health and limits wellbeing promoting lifestyle.

Envy should be processed appropriately as it is associated with poorer physical and mental health and limits wellbeing promoting lifestyle.

While you are often aware of feeling envious, the reasons behind it may be less obvious. Understanding and addressing envy can navigate you towards better understanding of yourself and your motives, which is both healthy and helpful.

Who do you envy?

In the following scenarios, who would you envy more: A) your next-door neighbor, with similar education, but who is slightly richer, has a better car and house than you, or B) Bill Gates, the richest man in the world who (likely) has exponentially more money, nicer cars and multiple villas? Most people answer A. We tend to envy the people within our so-called relevant social circle. Think about who you envy. It’s likely they are people with similar backgrounds and qualities, but on some measures seem better off. Siblings, with shared DNA and upbringing, seem to form a particularly interesting reference group.

Identity is our understanding of who we are: how we are similar to others and simultaneously one of a kind. Who you envy, often tells who you really identify yourself with. While this in itself can contribute to further understanding of who you are, better wellbeing and control, it comes with an important continuation: to learn to recognize and value your personal, unique qualities. Shifting focus to your one-of-a-kind qualities can help to let go of envy and take better advantage of your strengths.

“Define what success means to you, before running after it in the wrong places.” – Dr Aki Hintsa, founder of Hintsa Performance

Why do you envy?

According to psychologist V.S. Ramachandran from brain and cognition institute and B. Jalal from Behavioral and Clinical Neuroscience institute, envy gives an honest answer of our values, since asking directly what you value might be colored by social influences, which makes honest reflection difficult.

Naming the objects of our envy isn’t always simple. The reasons may not feel culturally acceptable or they may be hidden under the “obvious”. For example, someone being richer may have many underlying causes to evoke envy: financial safety, admiration of others, access to better products and services etc. Labeling the initial object can help you to orient steps towards that goal. On the other hand, you might also find, that the object of your envy isn’t something you see as worth pursuing, considering the price to be paid.

It’s important to note, that sometimes envy is a secondary emotion. Consider a situation in which someone gets promoted over you, despite being inferior in their effort and performance. You might experience envy, but further reflection reveals the initial emotion to be that of unfairness and injustice.

Do you control the outcome of envy?

Perhaps the most important thing to consider are the consequences of envy. Research today shows how our physical wellbeing responds to our emotional state. While the consequences of envy are still limitedly understood, evidence suggests it to have a corrosive impact on human mental and physical wellbeing.

Another aspect to consider is its’ possible consequences to our relationships to one-another and ourselves. Envy can impact how we feel, treat and talk about the person envied and can cause rejoicing when person envied encounters misery. It can impact the way we feel about ourselves and can lead to devaluing attributes we possess. The Oxford publication on envy coins its’ impact as undermining relationships with others, and counteracting positive emotions and health-promoting approaches to living.

We can train our brain to react in a positive way, when someone has something we want

Luckily, we don’t need to let initial reactions dictate our actions or bodily state. Our brain is neuroplastic, which in short means its physical structures can be changed through cognitive effort. We can train our brain to react in a positive way, when someone has something we want. We can choose to react with the positive end of the same spectrum: admiration, inspiration, even added enjoyment from others’ success and accomplishments – and see how that feels.

Try these:

• Recognise the emotion/reaction to the situation.
• Consider the facts: establish who and what you envy. How are these factors related to your personal life, values and goals?
• Choose a better reaction: could you gain enjoyment through the others’ success, learn or be inspired and let go?