Jake looked at his Maths midterm exam paper and felt very bad. He couldn’t believe it! He finished his exam
most quickly
in the class. He got a terrible grade.
Although he studied
harder
for the exam than he usually does, he didn’t do well. In fact, he did
worse
than all his friends in the class!
As Jake sat in the classroom, he looked around. Many of his classmates were smiling. They all seemed proud of
themselves
, but Jake wasn’t. “I’m so unhappy with
myself
,” he thought. “I want to be a great
scientist
one day. How will that happen?” Negative thoughts started filling his mind. “I’m just not good at Maths,” he said to
himself
. “Everyone else seems to learn Maths
more easily
than I do. I’ll never be good at it. I’m not good at anything.”
Jake often had thoughts like these. He was really hard on himself. His negative thoughts never helped him, but it was hard for him to stop thinking this way.