It doesn’t have to be a moral indictment.
If you’ve ever secretly felt incompetent, you’re not alone. And I’d love for you to consider another perspective.
.
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“I feel incompetent.”
I’ve said it before myself, in a multitude of settings – at work, at home, in certain relationships, and sometimes just existing as the human I desire to be.
Competence feels safe.
Incompetence feels unsafe.
Competent feels like a positive personality trait.
Incompetent feels like a painful, negative personality trait.
In fact, both are just labels used to describe level of knowledge, skill, ability or capability to do something successfully in a certain area.
competent (adj.) – having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully
incompetent (adj.) – not having or showing the necessary skills or knowledge to do something successfully
Our brains are meaning-making machines. Simultaneously, they are evolutionarily wired to look for shortcuts.
Sometimes these two functions can cause us to speedskate past truth and facts, and have us start problem-solving from stories instead.
When we know this about our brains – that they’re designed to help us make sense of the world through meaning-making while also filtering out stimuli by the millisecond so we can actually think and function in the world – we can see when our brains might be moving too fast and causing undue suffering.
Much of mindset and self-development work is the act of noticing when our brain’s default processes have become the bottleneck, and slowing down long enough to wiggle and loosen the obstructions to open the flow again.
In this case, the words we use are shortcuts.
When we say, “I feel incompetent” or “I don’t like not feeling competent”, we know we’re describing a constellation of thoughts in our heads about ourselves, the circumstance, and others — and the felt experience in our bodies as we move in that arena.
If you have those thoughts but they’re not impacting your performance or your emotional well-being, no worries.
But if the thoughts have you underperforming, avoiding, or acting in ways that undermine your ability to prove otherwise, your brain may be speedskating through meaning-making and efficient filtering.
This is where slowing down and offering new context can help.
Instead of repeating the thought using the shortcut label ‘incompetent’ or ‘competent’, next time try inserting the definition instead.
If you’re using a word against yourself, the word has turned subjective.
If you replace the word with the objective definition, you create cognitive distance and some separation from your emotions.
When you do this, you’re able to see the situation a bit more clearly.
“I feel like I don’t have or am not showing that I have the necessary ability, knowledge, or skills to do this thing successfully.”
Now there’s new potential for exploration.
Is it true? What can we challenge? Maybe new skills do need to be acquired – okay, let’s do that – and on from there.
What thoughts might your brain be speedskating past?
