Creative Jealousy and How to Deal With It As a Photographer

Photography Tips

Jealousy is a primal human emotion. We often feel resentment when we see someone more successful than us. A better photographer. A better singer. A better anything. This video by Sean Tucker is a must watch for anyone suffering from creative jealousy:

The source resentment and jealousy can be (and usually is) from within. It usually emanates from a feeling of being lonely, being unappreciated, or the lack of success in whatever you do. More often than not it also comes from ego.

When you get over that feeling of jealousy, that feeling of resentment, it can be a liberating experience. It will unclutter your mind, freeing up space so that you can put your mind back to creative work.

Understanding how to react to these emotional stimuli in a positive way and therefore not upset your own creativity is the first step toward a liberated state of mind. To deal with these emotions, you need to have what is known as emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is not the same thing as being emotional. It may actually be the reverse.

To overcome jealousy, realize that there will always be people who are better than you. But there will always be people you have surpassed in skill or success. You may find that there are people who aren’t in the same talent bracket as you who are more prone to be successful in life. Life’s not fair, and that means there will also be people who are probably more talented than you who never get the kind of opportunity that you do.

Realize that you can never control everything. You can try as hard as you can but there are always going to be elements that are beyond you.

Tucker suggests a very interesting and gratifying way to take your mind out of the negative emotional mode: send out a compliment to a person whose work makes you jealous. That’s the single most powerful way to force your mind out of a negative frame of thinking.