In my last post, I wrote about what happens when I compare myself to other authors. To quote myself (how uncool is that?):

I can be demotivated in my writing by reading something really, really excellent. I get all hopeless and Eeyore about my own talent. And bad writing isn’t motivating. Being better than terrible is too easy. I get most fired up by mediocre writing, which gives me a just-right goal to shoot for. I want to be better than mediocre.

I recently stumbled upon research that appears to explain some of this.

The researchers, who have done all kinds of interesting work on envy*, find that “benign envy” is more motivating than all-out admiration or “malicious envy.”

Admiration, which is what I feel when I read authors whom I consider way out of my league (Diane Ackerman springs immediately to mind, and Erik Larson), tends to come with a dose of “I’ll never be that good, why bother trying?” I admire them and will read anything they write, but comparing myself to them leaves me feeling like chopped liver, so I try not to.

Malicious envy is when you feel that the advantage another person has is undeserved, which is certainly what I feel about published authors whom I consider lousy writers (naming no names). Especially best-selling lousy published authors. Perhaps this is not motivating because they’re so bad; I don’t feel compelled to try harder in order to best these authors; I assume I’m already better. (Ego run amok? Sure, why not.) And there a small dose of, “This is what gets published? Why do I even bother…?”

Benign envy is what I feel for writers I think are wonderful but whose skills, in some way for some reason, seem attainable for me, if I just hunker down and work really, really hard. (Anne Tyler and Nick Hornby). Maybe I’m delusional, but it’s a useful delusion. Nothing wrong with aiming high if you’re willing to work for it. (In yesterday’s post, I talk about mediocre writing. That is most emphatically not what I feel about these authors…mediocre is the wrong word. I But for whatever reason, what they do seems achievable to me.)

It’s for this reason, too, that I particularly like workout DVDs that include “regular” people among the gorgeous hardbodies. Recently, during a sleepless night, I watched several episodes of the reality show The Biggest Loser and found them very motivating. I won’t ever work as hard as those contestants did (particularly without Jillian all up in my face), but seeing people twice my size sweat and grunt their down way to my size and smaller has inspired me to get more serious about my exercise program, which has been slipshod of late. Seeing gorgeous models with six-packs and surgically enhanced busts just makes me want to take a nap.

The researchers hasten to add that admiration is not a bad thing:

Positive emotions, such as admiration, generally signal that things are going well, which can lead to creative exploratory behavior and strengthen the bonds between people. Also, more-recent research found that positive emotions such as pride can activate specific action tendencies as well (Harth, Kessler, & Leach, 2008; Williams & DeSteno, 2009). The functions of admiration thus remains unclear, but it could, for example, inspire novel ways to reach one’s goals, to focus on new domains of performance if one is severely outclassed in one, or to enhance the relationship with the admired person.

But the implications of this research are interesting in terms of whom we choose to compare ourselves to. Like the bowls of porridge that Goldilocks samples, one type of achievement might be too hot, one too cold, and one is bound to be just right to get us going.

* Envy is different from jealousy. Jealousy is what you feel when your special someone is treating someone else special. Envy is what you feel when somebody has something you wish you had. Interestingly, in the Netherlands, where this research took place, they have separate words for benign and malicious envy.

Photo by Suicine via Flickr (Creative Commons)

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Sophia Dembling (June 7, 2011)

Sophia Dembling (June 7, 2011)

Mental Health Social (June 7, 2011)

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PsychCentral (June 7, 2011)

    Last reviewed: 7 Jun 2011