How do I stop being jealous of other people's success?
By No Rush · Updated November 8, 2026
The short answer
Jealousy of someone's success often points at something you want too. Research from Tilburg found that this kind of envy can push people to do better, when the goal feels within reach. Name the one thing you envy, then do one thing this week that brings it a little closer.
Why am I jealous of other people's success?
Envy shows up when someone close to you does well at something you care about. Richard Smith and Sung Hee Kim, who reviewed years of research on envy, describe it as a mix of feeling smaller and feeling that it's unfair. A stranger winning the lottery rarely stings. A classmate getting the job you wanted often does.
How to overcome jealousy of others' success?
Researchers split envy into two kinds. In studies by Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg and Rik Pieters in the Netherlands, one kind made people want to move up toward the other person. The other kind made them want the other person to come down a step. The first kind came more often when people felt the success was deserved. Asking what that person actually did to get there can move you toward it.
Can envy actually help you?
Sometimes. In the Tilburg studies, students who felt the upward kind of envy toward someone who did better said they would put in more study hours. They also got higher scores on a word puzzle test. Students who just admired that person scored no higher. One thing had to be true: they had to think they could improve. When that seemed out of reach, the envy faded into admiration, and nothing changed in how hard they worked.
How do you stop yourself from being jealous of others?
Write down in one line what exactly you envy. "Her life" is too big to do anything with. "She gets to work with her hands all day" is something you can look into. Then ask if you'd still want it if nobody could see it. If yes, take one small step toward it this week, like asking someone in that work how they started. If not, it was more about how it looks from the outside.
In the No Rush app
Under Where are you stuck, you can tap Everyone around me is moving forward, and I'm not. Then the app sets other people aside for a moment, and first looks at what's yours, apart from what you see in others.
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Sources
- Smith & Kim (2007). Comprehending envy. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 46-64. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.46
- van de Ven, Zeelenberg & Pieters (2009). Leveling up and down: The experiences of benign and malicious envy. Emotion, 9(3), 419-429. doi.org/10.1037/a0015669
- van de Ven, Zeelenberg & Pieters (2011). Why envy outperforms admiration. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(6), 784-795. doi.org/10.1177/0146167211400421
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