Why It Doesn’t Feel Good When Someone Else Succeeds

Just because you have negative thoughts doesn’t mean you have to believe them. The advantage of cognitive therapy is coming up with more helpful, more adaptive, and more realistic ways of thinking. 

Here is one such automatic thought which you might be familiar with.

Category: Awfulizing

Automatic Thought: "It's terrible thing that they've got this recognition and I didn't"

Alternative: No it's a simple momentary thing for someone else to be in the limited spotlight.

My friend has secured 100% marks in her final year examination.

And I secured 97.5%

And I had this exact same awful thought that I did not get much spot light attention by my school but she did.

But when I remembered back our school days, I realised that she had always been a quiet and shy hardworking girl who did not get much attention by her teachers.

And this was her time, her chance to shine!

To take the stage and inspire her juniors by her journey!

When I realised this...It just reshifted my thoughts from a feeling of "envy" to a feeling of "compassion".

(Continue reading in the next stash)