How to Deal with Blogger Envy

If you run your own blog, you may have felt a twinge of recognition reading that headline.

I doubt there hasn’t been a time when you have looked at another blog and secretly envied their level of success.

We might envy a fairly new blog with lots of comments, readers  and social shares. We might turn slightly green admiring a high quality design or even a fantastic looking theme. We might envy a blog that can afford a designer at all!

In a nutshell we envy someone else’s success.

Here are my tips on dealing with your envy (hint most of these apply to non-bloggers as well).

Stop reading other people’s blogs

From what I have seen and experienced most bloggers read other people’s blogs.

Of course there are a lot of reasons for this. They might be looking for information, inspiration, checking out the competition, supporting others in their community or niche or forging relationships with other bloggers.

If your envy is out of control – for now stop reading the particular blogs that trigger your envy.

To get your envy under control, keep reading.

Focus on doing your best

Stop comparing yourself to others and focus on what you want to achieve.

Make sure you set SMART goals for your blog. Make sure you have a plan for success. I need to work on this one more myself since I have been a bit hit or miss lately!

Put your focus, passion, energy and excitement back on your blog. Work towards doing the best you can.

If it’s design envy, try making some small changes to your blog that make a big difference. You don’t always have to go the full redesign to have an impact.

Related post – Considering Starting a Blog – Read this first

Learn from the competition

Drop the envy and step into learning mode instead.

What are the other bloggers doing that you are not?  Learn from them instead of simply wishing things were different. Wishing won’t get you anywhere.

Don’t directly copy other people. One it might tick off the other blogger and two you will lose your authentic voice. Learn what you need to and then apply it using your own unique style.

Appreciate your own level of success

This point is about appreciating your own level of success whatever that may be at this exact moment and being grateful for what you have instead of coveting what someone else has.

Let me give you an example. Whilst I might not have as much traffic to my blog as I would like, from a success point of view, I have 10 times more than when I started. Not too shabby.

Would I like 10 times more traffic than I have now? Absolutely, no denying that however I am confident that will come in time – that time just isn’t right now and I have to come to terms with that.

Related post – Does Other People’s Success Make You Feel Bad About Yourself?

Do the work

Some blogs are more successful because the bloggers work their butts off!

Yes folks sometimes it is that simple.

The blogs you envy are sometimes more successful than yours because the other bloggers put in the hard yards.

Related post – The Mind-Boggling Truth about Starting a Blog from Scratch with No Prior Experience

Understand there is always more than meets the eye

I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning and I noticed a health related article written by one of the bloggers.

I have always been amazed at how great their blogs are. To be honest this is probably a case of awe instead of envy.

After reading the health related post, I was blown away.  The blogger had been incredibly sick (as in hospitalized several times) and was going through a terrible health ordeal. I was shocked.

I have been in awe and okay feeling perhaps a sliver of envy this whole time when they were going through something I would not wish on anyone.

Moral of this particular story – everyone has their hardships to deal with and overcome. Everyone. Just because we don’t see it on the surface, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Suck it up!

With all types of envy sometimes we just have to suck it up, acknowledge the feeling and then send it on its merry way.

Blogger or no blogger most of us have our occasional moments of envy or jealousy. Hell we are human!

We all have our vulnerable moments which is when envy usually pays us a visit.

While we might prefer to phase this sort of thinking out of our lives altogether, a more realistic approach might be making these moments fleeting and rare.

As in no wallowing or dwelling on them.

Whether it’s a relationship, car, house, job, blog or business that someone else has that you would like, it doesn’t help you to dwell on it.

I will give you a very personal example. I was on Facebook the other day – a hot breeding ground for envy because people tend to put a spin on their lives to make them sound better than they really are – when I noticed my ex who is now married with kids just bought a new house. Was I happy for him? Yes.

Did I also feel a pinch of envy at his news? Yep.

Considering my own life isn’t quite going to plan at the moment and I am feeling vulnerable, I could have let my envy get the better of me. Instead I accepted it, felt it for a few seconds and let it go.

The magic is in those three little words – let it go.

Holding onto envy doesn’t help you, in fact it does the opposite. It hurts you. It hinders your growth and success.

Your blog, business, relationships or whatever you value in life, will be a lot better off without envy constantly interfering and messing things up.

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