Does anybody else get depressed after seeing entrepreneurial successes?

[MJ DeMarco]

The key is to not compare yourself to others but to be the best you can be period.
The key is to not seek others approval or disapproval. The key is to not see others as a benchmark. The key is independence.

Ditto.

The key to happiness is just to be better than you were yesterday. Constant improvement. Kaizen. That's it. The battle is solely with yourself. If you can make a point to be better than yesterday, you will experience accomplishment, fulfillment, and ultimately, find the key to being happy.

The key to unhappiness? Always compare yourself to others. That's a war that's almost always lost because there's always someone better looking, bigger muscles, bigger business, bigger bank account, tighter abs, prettier wife, more successful, blah blah [enter anything here].

When you realize that the war your waging is with yourself, you should be able to see the accomplishments from other people with a greater understanding of the battles that that person fought.

I'm in the gym at 4:30AM and my workouts have never been better. Part of that reason is this: At that hour the gym is packed with the dedicated and the committed. Their fitness level is far beyond mine. When I see them I don't get jealous, I get inspired. I work harder on improving myself because while I've been a morning rat only for several months, these folks are probably been doing it for years. I look at it as what is possible. At the end of the day if I know I have improved on some level, I feel good about myself.

Win the war with yourself and you'll win the war period.

 

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[CommonCents]

re: comparing yourself to others.

It can be helpful if you compare yourself to those LESS fortunate than you, in the form of volunteer work.

1. You realize you don't have it as bad as some others so you appreciate what you DO have, instead of focusing on what you don't have when you compare to more successful people at the moment.

2. Helping people is actually selfish. It has big payoffs. It makes you happy.

 

[HenkHolland]

Jealousy is one of the worst and in my opinion most destructive emotions.
Put all your efforts into getting rid of it.

As to your apparent inability to become successful, why don't you team up with someone with skills and talents that are complementary to yours?

I have done that in several ventures and, with the exception of two cases which ended in a virtual war,the results were quite astonishing.
Make sure, in order to prevent the war-like situations that I referred to, that you put all agreements and procedures to deal with eventualities on paper in a properly drafted contract. Put the signed contract in a safe and hope that you will never need it. But if you do, it will be of great value.
Apart from tapping into the knowledge, talents and experience of others, teaming up with one or two other people can also be great to prevent motivational dips.

 

[RogueInnovation]

Getting over angst and the competetive mindset takes some time. And it takes "loving the hell" out of people as icecreamkid says.
Ultimately these guys are your allies. They don't have it all sorted out, they have doubts and fears and are always looking for ways to handle it better.
It sucks when you feel like you have nothing to offer them and then feel short of the mark and don't know how to get where you need to be.

The process is shitty, stressful, and takes time, but it runs out of steam before you do, at about 80% total commitment, you just "adopt" the behaviours and become present with your business improvement (or kaizen) and you feel better.

Then you kinda don't notice anyone elses successes, you notice their processes. You start admiring how they do things, rather than what they achieved, and you understand that paths are different, and successes are a converging of things both positive and negative. Sometimes a success is a limitation, and the seed to the next issue, sometimes an issue gets you ahead of the competition, sometimes running on fumes conditions your business to be effective and pivot on the spot easier than larger and more bulky players in the scene.

To be angry and depressed is really just to be possessive, and entitled, and you have to beat the hell out of that with obscene amounts of hard work until you make it effortless.
Once its effortless you offer competition free advice and generosity, just because you can and it is better for you and gets your mind moving.

Try to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and shake free from whatever cyclical thoughts are telling you that you NEED to be angry and depressed, because they are the real enemy.
Like socal and MJ said, don't compare yourself to others, run your own race, and take your opportunities to step up when they appear for you.

To make that process easier, believe in what you do, cuz if you believe in it, you won't mind the pain so much.

 

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[Deleted15476]

Hey bro... when you rejoice in the energy of accomplishment it will flow to you.

It's nature.

Hang with winners you will win. Simple. Hang out with more winners and they will push you to win.

 

[PeeVee]

Hey bro... when you rejoice in the energy of accomplishment it will flow to you.

It's nature.

Hang with winners you will win. Simple. Hang out with more winners and they will push you to win.

Well said. Short n sweet but so true.

 

[cristian tello]

what is screwing with you in this situation is that you are over-thinking about it.
In Buddhist psychology , they define two types of pains : First Dart and Second Dart
first dart is natural and unpreventable, the hurt you felt that they made it and you didn't was the first dart
Second dart is what screws you up and can be prevented by not over-analyzing or making assumptions,

I began to doubt myself and started having self-defeating thoughts like "I'm not smart enough, why aren't I up there pitching a startup", etc etc.
It made me extremely depressed. And, as I write this, I'm still depressed.

^ This is that shit ^ , and you have no way to know whether the assumptions you are making are correct or not, there are 154 other reasons while they may have won . and sadly as our brain is wired to remember negative experiences better than positive ones , you end up thinking those thoughts whenever you get into a similar kind-of situation

 

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