The Bronze Medal Effect
Olympic silver medalist sounds pretty great, right?
Second best in the world. Podium. Medal around your neck. You’re close enough to the gold medalist to smell their shampoo. It must feel incredible.
And yet, psychologists noticed something strange during the Olympics: silver medalists were often less happy than bronze medalists. Less authentic smiling. Less joy. More of that tight face that says, I am smiling for the cameras because I’m supposed to, but I’m internally spiraling.
Bronze medalists, meanwhile, looked like they’d just been told they were getting free guacamole for life
The difference is simple. Silver looks up. Bronze looks down.
One is haunted by what almost was.
The other is just thrilled to be invited to the party.
Once you see this, you start seeing it everywhere - especially in yourself, and usually at inconvenient moments when you’d prefer to believe you’re very mature and evolved.
Like the day I found out a friend’s child got into my daughter’s dream school…and my daughter got waitlisted. I love my friend. I love her kid. I also know - deep in my bones - that her kid is not smarter than mine. (There. I said it.) My daughter was still doing great. Truly. Nothing was wrong. And yet I felt that familiar silver-medal sensation rise up—the tightness in the throat, the sour edge of comparison, the quiet internal tantrum that insists this is deeply unfair.
I wasn’t reacting to reality.
I was reacting to an imagined version of reality where things went just slightly differently.
Or the Christmas my husband bought me a thoughtful, generous gift that was almost exactly what I wanted. I smiled. I hugged him. I meant my thank-you. And then, uninvited, my brain whispered, But you really wanted it in green… Silver medal thinking is sneaky like that. It can turn gratitude into a silent debate no one else knows you’re having.
It shows up in smaller ways too. Wanting to get paid, or recognized, a little more. Loving a healthy body but wishing it were ten pounds lighter. Imagining a kitchen island just large enough to suggest I host dinner parties instead of standing around eating chips straight from the bag. None of these desires are bad. But it’s revealing how quickly contentment slips when “good” brushes up against “could be better.”
Motherhood pours gasoline on this. The mom who’s doing well but knows someone doing better (at least according to Instagram). The family that’s happy and healthy but can’t swing the ultimate vacation to Cabo. The career dream that didn’t die, it just quietly quietly took a back seat to other priorities. Silver motherhood is exhausting because you’re constantly comparing yourself, and everyone you love, to the ghost of the life you thought you’d have.
Psychologists call this social comparison and counterfactual thinking. I call it the moment when a perfectly good life loses to an imaginary better one.
Bronze-medal living doesn’t deny disappointment. It just loosens its grip on the upgrade fantasy. It remembers how close you were to not standing on the podium at all. It notices the wins you do have. It stays present in the life that’s actually unfolding all around you.
Maybe the quiet work of adulthood is learning when to stop staring at the gold medals around other people’s necks and start noticing the podium beneath your feet. To look down once in a while and say, with genuine appreciation, Man, it’s kind of a miracle I’m here at all. This is pretty flipping awesome, actually.
And maybe that kind of Bronze medal joy—the kind rooted in presence and gratitude instead of comparison— is about realizing you’re already standing somewhere many people only dream about.
