Second place stings, but it shows you exactly how far away first is. That’s useful information.

Coming close is its own kind of painful, partly because you can see exactly what you missed by. It also means you were measured against the top, and the gap is now a number rather than a mystery. Somebody who never got near has no idea what the real distance is.

Before the feeling fades, write down where the difference actually was. Not a general sense of not being good enough, the specific moments or skills. Then pick the one that would close the most of that gap.