I’m not much of a jealous guy. I feel jealousy sometimes but it often passes pretty quickly and without the almost burning intensity some people seem to experience.

Still, I have of course thought about this problem and found a few ways to overcome it when it arises within. Hopefully this article can help you to decrease this destructive feeling in your life.

Stop comparing yourself to others.

Comparing what you have to what others have is a good way to make yourself miserable. It feeds your ego when you buy a nicer car or get a better job than someone else. You feel great for a while.

But this mindset and the focus on comparing always winds up in you noticing someone that has more than you. That someone has an even better job or car than you. And so you don’t feel so good anymore.

The thing is that there is always someone with better or more than you. So you can never “win”. You just feel good for a while and then you don’t.

A more useful way to compare is to just compare yourself to yourself. Look at how you have grown and what you have achieved. Appreciate what you have done and what you have, how far you have come and what you are planning to do. This will make you make you more positive and emotionally stable since you are no longer comparing and feeling jealous of what the other guy has that you haven’t.

Develop an abundance mentality.

Jealousy often seems to come from a perceived scarcity in some area of your life. Maybe you feel jealous because someone else got the job you wanted. Or because someone else got the opportunity that you had hoped for. Perhaps you are feeling jealous because you are afraid of losing something and feel that if you do then you have hit rock bottom.

Comparing yourself to others seems to be a symptom of this belief of scarcity. And you feel jealous because someone else has gotten one of those scarce things or opportunities that you wanted.

Focusing your mind on the scarcity can really screw with your thoughts, feelings and life. It can cause much stronger negative emotions than is really reasonable. And it gets you really stuck in the jealousy, intensifying it, making it stronger and more long-lasting by feeding it with more thoughts and emotional energy.

To get out of this confining and destructive mentality you can develop an abundance mentality. An abundance mentality tells you that there are always new chances and opportunities.

That there are always new business opportunities to find, new tests in school to take and new people to date/make friends with. This relieves much of the pressure you may feel if you have a scarcity mentality that makes you think that you only got this shot right now. Or makes you feel like an utter failure just because you just stumbled and things didn’t work out.

An abundance mentality allows you to feel more of an inner emotional freedom and it makes you more relaxed and positive. I believe that developing an abundance mentality is the most important step in reducing or overcoming jealousy because when you feel that there is always an abundance then there is little to feel jealous about. And whenever you feel jealousy starting to creep in you can stop or drastically reduce its power over you by switching your focus from the scarcity to the abundance in the world.

Surrender.

And develop a habit of not identifying so much with your thoughts and emotions.

Although just switching my focus to the abundance usually seems to work to overcome jealousy I thought I’d share another way to has also been helpful. This method is useful if you have been carrying the negative emotion for a while and don’t seem to be able to get rid of it.

And it’s basically this: stop fighting your jealousy. Surrender to it instead and just accept it. This may sound counter-intuitive. But the thing is that you are feeding the emotional loop with more energy by resisting the emotion.

When you surrender to the emotion and let it in then you stop feeding it. And it goes away. Here’s one practical way of doing this:

Say yes to the feeling.

Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labelling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems to physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two the feeling just vanishes.

I would also recommend to not identify so much with your thoughts and emotions. This basically means that you realize, learn and remember that you are not your thoughts or emotions.

You are the one observing them. They are just things passing through you.

If you learn to identify less with your thoughts and emotions then you don’t have to do the exercise above so often. You just accept your thoughts and feelings in a more automatic way and let them pass without getting all wrapped up in them.

Think about what’s in it for you.

I don’t know if this pretty analytical method works for a lot of people. But I have found it to be helpful in many cases when I have negative thoughts or when I’m behaving in a less than useful way.

Basically, I ask myself: What’s in it for me? And each time I fall back into that negative headspace and behavior I remind myself of this question and the answer.

This reinforces to me the pointlessness of what I’m thinking. And often I just think to myself: Oh, I’m being stupid again. Time to focus on something useful/fun/positive instead.

Asking yourself what is in it for you is a good way to find distance from your thoughts and behavior and to motivate yourself to just drop the less useful stuff whenever you can.

Think about what your jealousy is telling you.

This is an interesting and useful way to look at jealousy.

As I wrote a few days ago – in Epictetus’ Top 7 Timeless Pearls of Wisdom – what you think and feel about the world can often tell you quite a bit about yourself.

So thinking about what your jealousy tells you about yourself can help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself. Think about what is reflected when you feel jealous of someone else.

Is a fear of rejection? Of not being good enough?

Or a fear that you will lose something/someone/some part of yourself you feel very attached to? If so, why are you feeling so attached?

Try to find a solution or help – from books, people, the internet etc. – for whatever fear or belief within you that you think is making you feel the jealousy. Ask yourself: what can the jealousy reveal to me? How can I grow from this insight?

Now, who is Epictetus you may ask?

He was a Greek philosopher that lived about 1900 years ago. When he was young he was a slave in Rome but was later released and started to teach philosophy first in Rome and later on in Greece.

Epictetus was somewhat of a lonesome minimalist.

He lived with few possessions and by himself for a long time. He also seems to never have written anything, but luckily his thoughts were recorded by his pupil Arrian.

Here are seven excellent pearls of wisdom from Epictetus.

If you are going your own way, prepare for reactions.

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

Besides being a funny quote I believe it is very relevant to self-improvement.

If you start changing then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is shining through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. Most likely they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

You choose to be insulted.

“It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common to react to different things. But that mostly just all it is. You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

But as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

Forget about what you think you know.

“It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”

If you think that you already know something then your mind will not be open to actually learning it. Whatever someone is telling you your mind will sort through based on what you think you know. You’ll only hear and learn what you what you want to hear and learn.

So whenever you want to learn anything it may be a good tip to disregard as much as possible of what you think you know. In my experience this makes it easier to pick things up and not disregard important stuff.

Of course, the ego often wants to jump in to meddle and strengthen itself by making you think that you already know whatever you’re about to learn. Be careful in trusting that somewhat arrogant inner voice. :)

Listen.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

This is a useful piece of advice in just about any interaction. It’s useful when learning something new. And it’s helpful just while in a regular conversation. It’s not always easy to stick to it though. Sometimes you get too excited about something to keep quiet. Sometimes you just want to brag or recount what happened. Having the attention of all the other people feels good. So how do you get around this habit of hogging the spotlight?

One useful way is to just forget about yourself. Focus your attention outward instead of inward in a conversation. Place the mental focus on the person you are talking and listening to instead of yourself. Placing the focus outside of yourself makes you less self-centred and your need to hog the spotlight decreases.

If you start to actually listen to what people are saying it also becomes easier to find potential paths in the conversation. By asking open-ended questions – the ones that will give you more than a yes or no answer – you can explore these paths and have better and more fun conversations.

Appreciate what you have.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

One good way to live a miserable life is to constantly focus on what you don’t have. If you appreciate what you have you’ll find everyday life more pleasurable. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on what you want.

To me it’s more about focusing on what you want and not keeping your focus in a more popular place: on what you lack. This will make it easier to get what you want since you always seem to notice and receive more of whatever you focus you mind upon.

Notice what is reflected.

“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”

I really like this one because I’ve become more and more interested in how we relate to each other. Like how what someone says about you may not be much of a reflection of you but of the person that said it.

This is a good thing to remember whenever someone is saying something negative about you. It’s also useful to remember whenever you feel negatively about someone else. It can not only help you forget about your negative emotion. It can also help you to learn more about yourself, what you fear and how you may be fooling yourself.

Suffering is optional. And so is happiness.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

“I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?”

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.”

Suffering is optional. And so is happiness. What you choose to think about determines how you feel. Now, again, it may be “normal” and common to go through a lot of mind-made suffering after the initial pain that ignited the suffering. And it’s easy to slip back into old thoroughly ingrained thought habits.

One tip that I have found helpful for this is to learn to reconnect as much as possible with the present moment. Suffering is to a large extent created when your mind is thinking thoughts about either the past or a possible future.

It is also very useful to realize that you are not your thoughts or emotions. They are just things that are flowing through you. But they are not you. You are the one observing them. This realization can gradually free you more and more from keeping negative thought and emotions going. Whenever they arise and you realize that you aren’t them, that you don’t have to identify with them their power over you fades and vanishes quicker than if you had identified with them completely.

As humans we tend to spend a lot of time in the past or the future.

We spend much time thinking about what was and what could have been. And we spend much time projecting into the future and wondering about what may happen.

This way of thinking is indeed a great way to make much of your life a lot more miserable and limited than necessary.

The key to solving this problem is of course to live as much as you can in the only moment that you ever really live in and control.

This moment right now.

The moment that is all there ever was and – probably :) – will be.

There are more advantages to being in the moment besides being able to decrease mindmade suffering. Some of those advantages are:

• Clarity. When you are in the moment you have a much better focus and things flow naturally out of you. This is very useful in conversations, at work, while writing or while on the tennis court.

• Calmness. You feel centred, relaxed and whatever you do you do more easily. Since you are not projecting into a possible future or reflecting on previous experiences there is very little fear holding you back or worry stopping you.

• Positivity. Since there is little fear, there are few negative emotions when you are in the present. Instead you move around on the positive part of the emotional scale.

Now, that sounds nice and useful.

But how can you step away from the thought loops that whirl back and forth through your memories and fantasies?

How do you actually return to the present moment?

Here are 8 ways. But before we get to them I’d just like to add that this is a skill.

You will slip back into involuntarily thinking about the future/past. But the more time and effort you spend connecting with the moment the easier it gets reconnecting with it. And staying there longer.

1. Focus on what’s right in front of you.

Or around you. Or on you. Use your senses.

Just look at what’s right in front of you right now (besides your laptop/phone and my blog). Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes and focus on how they feel.

For the last three days the dark winter seems to have left us here in Sweden. It’s been clear skies and sunshine all the time.

So I have been using the unexpected light and warmth of the sunshine on my skin to reconnect with the moment.

2. Focus on your breathing.

Take a couple of dozen belly breaths and just focus your mind on your inhaling and exhaling. This will align you with the present moment once again.

3. Focus on your inner body.

This is a bit similar to focusing on your breathing. In both examples you focus on what’s inside you rather than the outside.

What is the inner body?

Well, I guess you could say it is energy inside of your body. How your body feels from the inside.

A practical way to do this just to focus on your hand. To just put your focus there and feel how the hand feels to you and how the energy is flowing through it.

Yeah, this suggestion may sound a bit weird to the mind. But if you actually try it a few times you’ll probably find that inner energy within your hand.

4. Pick up the vibe from present people.

If you know someone that is more present than most people then you can pick his/her vibe of presence (just like you can pick up positivity or enthusiasm from people).

If you don’t know someone like that I recommend listening to/watching cds/dvds by Eckhart Tolle. His books work too. But cds/dvds are better than books for picking up someone’s vibe since the biggest part of communication is voice tonality and body language.

5. Surrender to the emotion that is already there.

It’s easy to get stuck in a loop of old memories. You may want to move away from them but there is a feeling there that brings them back over and over.

So you need to decrease the power that feeling has over you. And you don’t do it by fighting it. You do it by surrendering to it.

The feeling is a loop within your mind that you are feeding with more energy by resisting it. When you accept the feeling then you stop feeding it and it vanishes.

Here’s how you it:

Say yes to the feeling.

Surrender and let it in. Observe the feeling in your mind and body without labelling or judging it. If you let it in – for me the feeling then often seems to physically locate itself to the middle of my chest – and just observe it for maybe a minute or two the feeling just vanishes.

As you can see, this way is similar to ones above. They are all about observing.

6. See things as for the first time.

This one pretty similar to the first way. But it can be useful when you have a hard time just observing your surroundings.

That’s when you can look at things as for the first time. Imagine it like that, take that role.

Like someone who has never experienced this before. Like a child or someone who has never been here before.

I like this one and I have been doing it from time to time for years (although back then I didn’t really understand why it felts nice when I did it).

Note: These last two ways are certainly not the best ways to reconnect with the moment and I’m not really recommending them. They aren’t that healthy (especially in the long run). But they work to some degree. It’s up to you if you want to try them.

7. Punch your leg.

Try punching your leg. Or pinching your arm. Or have someone else do it.

And focus on that sensation to quickly bring yourself back to the moment.

8. Drink a beer or two.

It’s Friday so I thought I’d include this one.

This is probably the most common way to connect to the moment (at least over the weekend). You may have said or heard that it’s nice to grab a beer or two after work to take the edge off.

What is this edge?

I think it’s the clutter of thoughts that can run around in your mind after a long and busy week at work.

The alcohol quiets down these thoughts (and the decreases the number of thoughts in your mind). And you feel more relaxed.

You don’t think about the past or future as much. You just enjoy your beer and the company. You enjoy the moment.

Drinking a couple of beers – or getting really drunk – can remove the past or future from your mind.

It can add calmness and positive feelings. However, it throws the clarity out the window. :)

So besides the health aspects of drinking, this isn’t exactly an ideal way to be in the present moment. Use it at your own risk.

Or just try out a few of the more healthy and effective techniques.

I have been reading, listening to and watching various personal development information for a few years now.

I have noticed a few mistakes I have made. And so I have made a few adjustments to how I take in and use this information. These adjustments have helped me make more practical progress.

The five mistakes are pretty obvious things really. Maybe you’ve already changed things to avoid them. Maybe you are at a different place and have a different experience and don’t need to avoid doing these things because they work for you.

But anyways, I thought I’d share them and hopefully these pointers will be of some use to some of you.

1. Taking in too much information.

Up until about six months ago I took in lots and lots of self-help information from all kinds of sources.

It helped me but it also often made me a bit confused and I tended to forget quite a bit of information that could probably help me.

So I decided to trim down. Instead of reading a few books simultaneously I started to just read one at a time. Instead of reading 10-15 personal development blogs I now read 2 or 3.

The last few weeks I have taken this a bit further and delved into just one author. I have used almost all my study time listening to/watching stuff by Eckhart Tolle to both pick up his vibe of presence and to gain a deeper understanding of his work. I will probably do something similar with other authors later on (possibly Wayne Dyer next month).

Having this narrow focus has helped me get a clearer understanding of Tolle’s thoughts and just “being in his presence” a lot has made it easier for me become and stay present more of the time.

2. Just reading through things once.

I have found that by rereading information from time to time I have been able to gain a deeper knowledge because my overall knowledge and experience has grown. So one chapter of a book that once had one meaning can have a pretty different meaning once I reread it. And things that I first half-ignored while reading now seems so much more important.

3. Not applying or testing the information.

I believe that this one ties into the first mistake. When you have a continual information overload in your mind it becomes hard to determine what to try next. Or you may fall into a common self-help junkie trap where it feels like you are making progress in your life just by reading about self-improvement. This is however mostly just a sort of emotional high that you can get hooked on.

4. Not reinforcing it.

Maybe it’s just me but I have a tendency to forget what I should do. So I need to post external reminders – written notes on the fridge etc. – to reinforce what I am striving for and what changes I am working on right now. If I don’t use such reminders then I tend to slip back into old thought patterns pretty quickly. 

5. Go looking for magic pills.

A book will not change you. You change you. You have to put in work. A book may be just perfect for you at the right time, when you are ready for it. But you still have to follow the advice given to change your life.

I believe that the search for magic pills is one of those thing that can drive someone to make the mistakes above over and over and make little actual progress.

So if you know that you may have spent a bit too much time looking for magic pills I suggest that you focus on fewer ideas, actually applying them and reinforcing them.

Lately, I have been focusing quite a bit on creating and strengthening an abundance mentality for myself. It’s not so easy to maintain it though.

Much of society seems to be built on a scarcity mentality. A mentality that tells people that there is a lack in life. That opportunities are few and far between.

This is of course useful for society because if people feel that there is a lack, then you can get them to buy stuff. And so the economy and society can continue to live and prosper by reinforcing a scarcity mentality in people.

But the scarcity mentality can be quite painful for the individual and create a lot of unnecessary fear, anxiety and desperation.

An abundance mentality, on the other hand, tells you that there are always new chances and opportunities. This relieves much of the pressure you may feel if you have a scarcity mentality that makes you think that you only got this shot right now. Or makes you feel like an utter failure just because you just stumbled and things didn’t work out.

An abundance mentality allows you to see life in a more long-term perspective. And it can help you improve your performance since with it you’re creating a lot less pressure and anxieties within your own mind.

If you have a scarcity mentality then you will probably take things too seriously. You may think to yourself: “If I fail, the sky will fall”. It probably won’t, though. But you think it will, you become overly nervous and POOF! you have created a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure because your inner, self-created negativity puts obstacles on your path to success.

If it’s a game, then you may fumble with the ball. If it’s an exam, then you may not have been able to sleep and will perform poorly on the test. If it’s a date, you may come of as too needy and nervous and not as your usual, more relaxed and confident self.

Here are a few tips that I’ve found to be useful to create and reinforce your own abundance mentality.

Focus on the abundance, not on the lack.

What you focus on, you will see in your world. Since you can’t take in all impressions around you, your reticular activation system – your focus system in the mind – will bring into focus what you focus your thoughts on.

This will allow you to see the abundance in your world that you may be missing right now. If you for instance have a lack of money, then don’t focus on your lack. Focus and think about the abundance of possibilities in the world to make money.

Focus your mind on that and soon ideas and opportunities to make that happen will start to “pop up” in your world. It’s almost a bit freaky how things that holds solutions for you – perhaps books or acquaintances – that have been there in the background for quite a while just one day suddenly jumps out at you.

Appreciate.

One quick way to revert from the pretty normal habit of thinking about what you don’t have is simply to appreciate. Appreciate your food, life, your roof, your friends and family and so on.

This can not only turn a sour mood into a more positive one within minutes but also help you notice possibilities you have missed or forgotten. And create a more open vibe within you, a vibe that makes it easier to focus on the abundance. So, make habit of appreciating for a few minutes each day.

Get an abundance vibe from other people.

Since you get a scarcity mentality from the input from, for instance, advertising and media then you can change your input to change your mentality.

Cut down on watching the news. Tivo your favourite shows and skip the commercials. Or just cut down on your TV and media consumption, period.

Replace the scarcity vibe your get from that input. How do you do that? “Hang out” with people that have an abundance mentality.

Read, listen to and watch personal development material. Besides reading your favourite personal development blogs, check out products by people like Brian Tracy and Wayne Dyer. Read success stories in books and magazines. Have a positive attitude to the abundance and success of your friends, family and co-workers. Hang out with people in real life that has more of an abundance mentality and less of a scarcity mentality.

Be selective with what you put into your mind. Create your own environment of abundance.

Remind yourself.

Even if it feels like you have a scarcity right now, you can turn that around by reminding yourself of all the things to appreciate in your life.

Or you may remember previous times when you had an abundance. Perhaps you had several business or job opportunities lined up. Remind yourself of such times. Realize that you can recreate similar circumstances once again.

Remind yourself on a daily basis.

It’s very easy to slip back into your old thought patterns. You just forget about what you should be thinking about.

A useful tool to keep yourself from slipping is to use external reminders. You can for example use written notes posted at places you can’t avoid seeing several times each day – your workspace, fridge and mirrors – or put a bracelet on your wrist. Seeing encouraging words or quotes that reminds you of your new abundance mentality can help your mind snap back into the right headspace once again.

Finally, try to adopt a more positive mindset in general. Without such a mindset, if you are bogged down with negative thoughts all the time, then it will be hard to create and believe in an abundance mentality.

One starting point for positive thinking with practical tips can be found in Take the Positivity Challenge!