Thoughts | Is It Right To Feel Envious As A Blogger?

This post is one I've written in my head a thousand times over but have never had the courage to actually write down and publish. But I've realised lately that this is a legitimate issue within the blogging community and something that I feel a conversation needs to be started about. I'm talking about feeling envy as a blogger.

It's human nature to see the successes of other people as something of competition; as something to envy. We want to have achieved x or to be doing y successfully and that desire can often come out as jealousy towards the people who already have these things ticked off. This envy can emerge within all different areas of life but it is extremely prevalent within blogging.

You do almost feel a level of envy and frustration when you see bloggers really succeeding and you're still trying to get off the starting line. I do wish I could say that blogging is all sunshine and rainbows and cheering for each other, but this negative element to blogging does exist and should be talked about.

Ultimately no blogger can stand there and say they haven't experienced feelings of envy with regards to their progress as a blogger. You may see some fantastic content or photography and feel jealous of the blogger who has created it. An extremely common example is when we look at each others social media statistics and think 'she has 10k instagram followers; I want that'.  

Something I've definitely experienced, and I'm not ashamed to admit this, is feeling envious towards bloggers and posts which are successful when I don't necessary deem them to be deserving of such. I appreciate that such a statement makes me out to be a horrible person but I think we've all experienced this and are lying to ourselves if we say we haven't. I've read posts that have had a much better reception and much more success than my posts and my first thought is 'well I want and arguably deserve that success'.  I think anyone would find it tricky to not feel disheartened when they work for hours and hours on a post for it to then not get the reception you were hoping for. This disheartening feeling can often manifest into feelings of envy and that's ok.

Experiencing these feelings doesn't make you a bad person or a bad blogger; it's how you react to them that does. Sharing this negativity online is never going to have a positive outcome, it'll merely bring the fellow blogger down and paint yourself in a bad light. Instead we should recognise these feelings of envy and learn from them. If I'm jealous of a certain blogger's photography, what can I learn from their photos and how can I use this to information to positively influence my own content? If someone else is having great success in collaboration with brands, why do I think they're having this success and how can I work towards the same success on my own blog? Use envy as a spark for getting your creative juices flowing and bettering yourself as a blogger.

What is your view on envy in the blogging community?

2 comments:

  1. I totally understand that sort of envy. There's a lady who started blogging maybe four months before me and she already have over 10,000 followers on Instagram, has had tons of collabs with brands, and has even gone on brand trips.

    I have 2.7K, haven't had that many offers for collabs, and definitely haven't gone on any brands trips.

    It's been important for me to remember, however, that success comes in many different forms.

    Great post! x

    Michelle
    dressingwithstyle-s.com

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  2. I think every blogger would be lying if they said they didn't feel envious of other bloggers sometimes! I definitely feel envy towards bloggers occasionally but whenever I do, I try to take a step back and just think "one day it'll be my turn for success". Celebrating the success of other bloggers is something that I will always do and I think is something that we should all be doing! It's important for us to stay united and celebrate the wins - we all share a mutual love for the same hobby after all!

    Great post :) xx

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