One of the most toxic things you can do is try to justify other person's success. Just do your thing and let them do theirs.
Justifying or minimizing someone else's success often comes in the form of a statement like, "Jane can accomplish that because she has X, Y, and Z – whereas I only have Y and Z." This way of thinking and living is debilitating.
What could you accomplish if you channeled even a fraction of the energy you spend on being bitter towards someone else because they were seemingly dealt a better hand, or because others, "Don't know what Jane is really like?"
Spending 15 minutes per day – ten minutes here, five minutes there – hate-following someone on Instagram or Facebook adds up to 91 hours per year. That's more than two 40-hour work weeks spent focusing on the negative. Over two weeks of creativity lost because of misplaced focus. And if we're honest, many of us spend much more than fifteen minutes per day focusing on competitors or frienemies.
What could you create with even just 10% of that energy and time if it were focused on making YOU better? If you can't ever seem to find time to exercise, how would your health change if you committed to just fifteen minutes instead of the desired-but-never-happening hour? What new product or service could you launch if you had two extra work weeks in the year?
You have more time than you think.
The original version of this post was published June 2009
