I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.
Today’s tip is to challenge negative thoughts, find an alternative interpretation.
Recently I had a bad day. I felt I didn’t do something well and spent a lot of time complaining to myself in my head, second guessing my actions, and feeling that I wasn’t really good at that task.
After a couple days of on and off negative thoughts, I finally started to snap out of it. I looked at things as learning opportunities. I need to grow and do better in the future. My past actions are sunk costs, they’re gone and can’t be changed. I can, however, look back and realize that I didn’t prepare well, hadn’t thought of a few things (which I have learned), and needed to make decisions quicker.
In other words, I wasn’t as adept as I’d have liked, even though mentally I thought I was ready. A good lesson and accepting this helped me to feel better.