Big positive changes don’t just reshape a person’s world, they can rattle the cages of those around them. Photo: iStock.
Ever noticed how big life changes are not always met with cheer squads and roaring applause?
Significant shifts unnerve most people. When you no longer fit their comfort-zone box, it shakes their own sense of identity.
What was safe and predictable is gone, replaced by awkward internal questions: Where does this leave me? How does their new life reflect on mine? Do we still fit? What does it say about my own choices?
Situations where applause can be missing in action are painfully familiar:
- Find romantic forever love and watch single friends find fault in your partner, bail on catch-ups and grimace at your wedding.
- Lose a bucket of weight and get super fit and suddenly lunch buddies drift, you are treated suspiciously or family nudges you back toward old habits.
- Come into/earn more money or upgrade your postcode and notice the passive barbs and ‘’must be nice’’ mutterings.
- Announce a pregnancy or become a new parent and notice child-free friends vanish in the woods or become quietly resentful.
- Launch a business and go out on your own after years as an employee and watch naysayers masquerade negative feedback as concern.
- Quit a miserable job or toxic workplace and cue the gossip or the cold shoulder from colleagues left behind.
- Land a dream role others desperately would love and receive faint claps if any response. Or get promoted and watch sarcasm fly and white-anting begin.
- Embark on a radical life or career change and receive passive-aggressive ‘’Good for you’’ replies, awkward silence or outright indifference.
Big positive changes don’t just reshape a person’s world, they can rattle the cages of those around them. They hold up confronting mirrors cracking the self-worth of friends, family and colleagues who feel trapped or lost.
Someone stepping out boldly or embracing a brilliant new path becomes living proof of what others wish they could do or fear they’ll never pull off. It stirs dashed hopes and bruised egos, and swirls the envy pot.
But negative or dismissive reactions don’t always mean people are bad humans. It’s often just human nature. But let’s be honest, as there are always mean-spirited types who would rather bite off their arm than offer a kind word or flicker of applause.
Sure, there will always be a cheer squad and applause, but it’s often not as truly genuine or as vocal as hoped for.
So why do people push back and niggle instead of celebrate?
Because big shifts and fresh happiness poke at unfinished business and jab sharply at self-doubt. They spotlight what someone isn’t ready or able to do themselves.
And yes, it stings like a wasp, but there’s psychology to explain the bite.
The psychology driving resistance
Psychologists call these uncomfortable reactions the ‘Social comparison trap’. It’s the uneasy tension between where someone is and where someone else has landed.
It’s not always envy in the obvious sense. Often, it’s a subtle self-check. Someone else’s joy becomes a mirror reflecting everything you haven’t done, tried, or achieved.
In a study published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science Journal, researchers Julia Minson and Benoît Monin coined the term ‘’Do-gooder derogation”.
They found that people often mock, minimise or ignore someone making positive changes. And especially so when changes feel morally or emotionally confronting.
Even something as benign as going vegetarian for ethical reasons can trigger defensiveness, because it quietly challenges someone’s self-image or unspoken regrets.
Whether it’s leaving a toxic job, transforming your health, or daring to pivot hard, the discomfort others feel is rarely about your actions. It’s about their internal conflict.
A 2020 chapter by Niels van de Ven and Marcel Zeelenberg in Oxford Academic’s Social Comparison, Judgment, and Behavior backs this further. They explain how upward comparisons stir two types of envy.
Benign envy motivates positive action, whereas malicious envy drives resentment, criticism and withdrawal. This nuanced lens helps explain why even your happiest news might be met with silence, sarcasm or support that feels rather performative.
Navigating the pushback
It’s an uncomfortable truth to navigate, but expecting applause sets you up for disappointment. As Buddhist wisdom reminds us: ‘’Letting go of expectations frees us from unnecessary suffering.”
Therefore, don’t always expect cheer squads with bright pom-poms and champagne corks to land on your doorstep.
Reassess your circle with clarity, not malice. If your shift makes others twitchy, it might be time to park those relationships. Their discomfort is their homework, not yours.
Appreciate that applause is a gift, not a guarantee. Some people need to be their own cheer squad first before they give the gift of applause to others.
Sue Parker is the owner of DARE Group Australia and a communications, job search and career specialist working with both public and private sector clients.
