Suppose your best friend gets a promotion or does very well at school/uni. You are happy for them, but secretly you are also a little jealous. These kinds of feelings are quite confronting to experience, because you shouldn’t be jealous at all. You just want to cheer on your friends, right? This is how you can still be happy for that person.
Accept your feelings, even if you are not proud of them
The best way to get over a feeling is to first accept that you feel that way. In this situation we understand that it is quite confrontational. You feel something you don’t want to feel. But ultimately you have to be honest with yourself to turn your jealousy into a feeling of pride. Give yourself some time to feel your feelings. For example, write it down. You can only start thinking in terms of solutions if you accept that you are jealous.
Learn to separate your self-worth from your performance
If you’re jealous of your bestie because they’ve accomplished something, it could be because you’re tying your self-worth too much to your achievements. Remember that you are worth more than what you perform at work or at school, for example. The fact that someone has something that you don’t have doesn’t make you inferior. We know it can feel like you have to perform all the time, but life is about so much more than good grades or pats on the back at work. We do everything at our own pace and that’s okay. Being jealous only brings down your own performance.
Remember, there is no competition
You and your best friend are not in competition with each other. Sometimes we forget that because we are so focused on constantly achieving performance. But there is no one who will pit you and your bestie against each other except you. There should certainly be no competition in a friendship. You should help each other up and your friend’s success is therefore not a threat to you. Just because someone else wins doesn’t mean you lose.
Be honest with your friend if the situation allows it
Whether you should discuss this feeling of jealousy with your boyfriend is a tricky question. We wish we could tell you exactly how to have this conversation without coming across as wrong, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. There are risks involved in having this conversation. The best advice we can give you is that it is best to have this conversation one-on-one. Then, be careful what you say so that it doesn’t come across as if you think you deserve their success more or that they don’t deserve their success. In other words, don’t make it about you. Above all, be honest. A close friendship can really have a conversation like that.
