The people who beat you this year are next year’s measuring stick. Thank them in your head.

Whoever beat you handed you a number. Not a pleasant one, but an accurate one, and accurate numbers are rarer than encouragement. Resentment turns that into something you would rather forget, while treating it as a target keeps it useful. Most people who improve a lot have someone specific in mind.

Write down who beat you and by how much. Find out what they do in the off season if you can, and borrow one piece of it. Then check the same number against yourself in six months rather than next week.