Tennis superstar Carlos Alcaraz, the youngest player in history to win the four Grand Slam tournaments, recently explained his huge success to the fact that tennis is the easiest game in the world.
‘All you do is smack a ball and there’s no basket or tackling or anything’, said Alcaraz. There’s nothing to it – you just move side to side in a small square and tap a soft, fuzzy ball with an oversized racket. Anyone could do it.
OK, Alcaraz didn’t actually say that. The quotes come from an article published in The Onion, a satirical magazine that specialises in straight-faced absurdity.
The joke works because we immediately see what’s missing. The incredible talent, the years of practice, the physical conditioning, the mental resilience and ability to perform under pressure – all are edited out.
The Onion is just joking around, of course, but it’s actually something many people do, albeit more subtly, in their own lives.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) places much emphasis on the cognitive distortions, or thinking errors, that sometimes trip us up. One such example is a thinking pattern known as discounting the positive, which shows up in small, almost throwaway thoughts: “That went well, but it was easy”, “Anyone could have done that”, “It’s not really a big deal”.
On the surface, especially in an Irish context where a little self-effacement is almost a social norm, this can sound like simple modesty. And to be clear, this article isn’t a call to swing to the other extreme and start broadcasting our achievements from the rooftops, Donald Trump–style.
There is a serious point here, however. Over time, this habit can have a different effect. It negatively distorts how you see yourself: achievements don’t get counted as achievements, and strengths don’t get logged as strengths.
Low mood, particularly, can distort how we process information. When people feel low, they often filter out information that might challenge that feeling. Successes become exceptions, or accidents, or things that “don’t really count”.
Additionally, there’s another layer to this. When you’ve practised something for long enough, it can start to feel easy. That’s not because it is easy, but because you’ve become good at it.
Think of skills you use every day – in work, in relationships, in problem-solving. At some point, they required effort and concentration, but now they feel automatic and unremarkable.
As a result, a blind spot can form. Because it feels easy to you, you might subconsciously assume it would feel easy to anyone.
You may be a bit like the skilled tennis player who forgets what it was like to learn their craft, who thinks that because they can do it without thinking, there was never much to it.
This habit might seem harmless, even socially desirable, but it has consequences. If you consistently explain away what goes well, it leaves you with an incomplete picture of yourself, a picture that is more negative than it needs to be.
Over time, this can feed self-doubt – “I can’t rely on myself. Sure, I managed to do XYZ, but anyone could have done that”.
It can leave you feelings of imposter syndrome, where even objectively successful people find themselves fearing that others will eventually see through them and realise they’re less capable than they seem. Someone with this mindset may fear he or she is a fake, a fraud, and that they will eventually be “found out”.
BREAK HABIT
It’s a good idea, then, to break this habit of discounting the positives. The alternative isn’t to start singing your own praises, but simply to aim for a more accurate account. That might mean gently adjusting the language you use with yourself.
So, instead of saying “that was easy”, try “that felt easy to me.” Instead of “anyone could do that”, try “not everyone would find that straightforward.” Instead of “it doesn’t count”, try “it may be small, but it’s still evidence.”
These are small corrections, not grand affirmations, but they allow the full picture to come into view.
Another useful exercise is to reverse the perspective. If a friend did what you just did – handled a difficult conversation, completed a piece of work, kept going through a stressful period – how would you describe it?
It’s often easier to see skill, effort, and resilience in other people. Again, the aim isn’t to inflate your own achievements, but to apply the same standard, to be more objective instead of routinely downplaying your strengths and achievements.
It’s a small adjustment, but one that can positively impact how you see yourself. And with practice, this more accurate way of thinking can begin to feel as natural as the old habit once did.
(First published in Southern Star on 4/6/2026)