Feeling Incompetent For Long?

Sometimes we see ourselves as deeply incompetent. That feeling can stay with us for years.

This is not a motivational speech. It’s what I came to see about how reality works.

After I started managing people, I realized how many bright minds carry invisible wounds, shaped by difficult relationships, toxic workplaces, or early experiences that left them doubting their worth. Many had been gaslighted, dismissed, or simply never seen for who they are.

Instead of giving up on them, I wanted to understand. For about 7 years, and still do, I read therapy books, cognitive science, psychology, and mental fallacies, then systems dynamics, to see how everything fits together.

Here’s what I learned:

When we feel fragile or inadequate for too long, what we often need isn’t correction, it’s recognition. We need to be reminded how far we’ve come. Despite setbacks, we kept going. We adapted. We grew.

I also managed parents balancing parenthood, work, and their own needs. No one had ever told them how much they do or how strong they are. When I did, it changed things. Sometimes recognition matters more than advice.

We might think we’re always dealing with some problem, but we forget our own resilience. Yes, challenges keep coming, but we never gave in. Many do unfortunately. They fall and never stand back up. Yet we do stand up, again and again. That in itself is a rare accomplishment.

Not everyone has the same story or opportunities. Some journeys are uphill from the start. Yet we forget how much strength it takes just to keep moving forward.

And here’s the part that changed how I see growth:

We think today’s problems are the only ones we’re facing. But there are countless others we’ve already learned to handle so well they’ve faded into the background. The problems didn’t disappear, we just learned to manage them until handling them became second nature. They’re still there, but we move through them almost unconsciously.

That’s growth in its purest form:

When your subconscious starts solving what once overwhelmed your conscious mind.

We are still in the same oven, there is still fire in here, but now there needs higher temperatures to make us feel the burn until our skins are even thicker than before.