Some of us wonder how come we are bad at everything. It looks like people we know have at least one strong point: they are very good at their job, say, or great athletes, or social and funny, or gifted with an unbeatable fashion flair – you know, something.
We compare ourselves to others and conclude everyone has a strong point, except us. And of course, we wonder what is wrong with us.
What is really happening when we believe we are bad at everything?
To summarize the issue, part of the equation may be about our real capacities: we may have innate or acquired challenges, such as neurological differences or scars from trauma. These challenges may make it very difficult to be good at some activities – but, and it’s a big but, not all of them. Plus, our issues understandably loom very large in our own mind, but may be barely noticeable to others around us.
Another part of the equation may be about our self sabotage. We do have what it takes to be good at certain things, but somehow, mysteriously, we end up blowing up the whole thing and making absolutely sure we will not succeed. This is mind-boggling, head-banging stuff. But it happens, and ususally for a reason as we will see.
And then, here is the most common issue: a misguided self-perception, or self-esteem. In other words, we have what it takes; we don’t particularly self-sabotage, and we are doing pretty well. The problem is that we don’t see it that way. Either we block the information of our competence from our self awareness (others do notice we are good, but we don’t), of we have distorted standards (we see that we are doing well, but it’s never enough). Welcome to the fabulous, and dreaded, world of perfectionnism.
After this somewhat gloomy summary, let’s look a bit more in detail at each of these categories to see if you can relate.
We have real, built-in challenges
Some of us are born different, for example neurodivergent. It’s actually quite common: in the US, about 10% of children are diagnosed with Attention Deficit – Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, and around 1% are being diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum (among other things). Both are considered mainly genetic neurological conditions, even if, of course, the environment can help – or not at all.
As a psychologist, I am very aware of the fact that neurodivergent children are often diagnosed late, and spend years wondering why they don’t have good social skills or why it’s so difficult to do well in school. A diagnosis can bring a tremendous relief: at least we can understand why we are not good at some things – even if it brings home our limitations.
That said, neurodivergence does not mean we can’t excel. It means some areas are more difficult for us, but not unfeasible. In some areas, there is no impact : neurodivergent folks are widely distributed along IQ and athletic abilities, with some of them very gifted indeed. And some people have unique abilities in, say, spatial skills or music.
The same goes for the impact of trauma. Unlike neurodivergence, challenges are not a result of our genetics, but a result of our history. Like neurodivergence, it is common: in the landmark Adverse Childhood Experiences study; 66% of adults declared at least one ACE, and 20% more than three ACEs in their childhoods. These Adverse Childhood Experience, spanning abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction, shape both lifelong health trajectories and life success outcomes, with increasing ACEs yielding worse results across physical, mental and social domains.
There are several mechanisms at play here, but one of the main ways trauma negatively impacts our performance is through impaired memory, attention, and emotional regulation.
I’m not saying we are temporarily distracted. I’m saying trauma has changed the structure of our brain. Like a neurodivergence diagnosis, I know it can seem disheartening. on the other hand, it can also bring relief to understand why we do not learn easily or have a basis of emotional calm like others around us.
To give you an example, one of my friends is famous for having a Dory like memory. She can forget what places she went to, names of the people she met, books she’s read, and movies she has seen. It can be handy for her entertainment budget, as she can read or see things twice without being bored, but it’s not fun at work. She can see her colleagues have a far easier time remembering what was said, what needs to be done, and the names of important people.
The thing is, people who went though trauma have a significantly smaller hippocampus than others. This brain structure is responsible for memorizing stuff. Trauma also impacts our amygdala, which plays an important role in regulating emotions, and our prefrontal cortex, which organizes complex tasks.
But if, like my friend (and myself), you experience challenges because of your history, take heart: we can and often do develop efficient strategies to compensate for these problems; you’ll be happy to knwo my friend has significantly improved her memory after good therapy.
Also, when we survive trauma, we can develop unique abilities: empathy, a keen understanding of others’ emotinal realities, and – if we recover – an ability to guide people through recovery. To my knowledge, there are no scientific studies on this, but I’m convinced it helps psychotherapists if they have experienced trauma – a little self serving as a belief, I admit, but that does’nt mean it’s untrue !
We are experts at self-sabotage
Some of us suffer from a tendency to self sabotage. As if life were not challenging enough on its own, we add a bit of spice by getting in our own way.
Sometimes, it is so obvious we realize we are doing it – like that time we spectacularly blew up the last interview for a great job. At other times, it’s so subtle and constant it goes completely unnoticed until we have an aha moment.The end result is the same: we miss out on opportunities, and it looks like we are bad at everything.
We are not bad. We can actually be really good, and have to self sabotage extra hard for it not to show. Why are we doing this to ourselves ?
This self sabotage issue deserves more than a few paragraphs, but to stay on the broader topic let’s summarize: in short, it has to do with our fears. – ususally because bad stuff happened in our lives when we experienced success.
It can happen, for example, when people important to us were threatened by us being good at something they valued – especially if we were able to go beyond what they were able to do themselves.
This is hard to believe, but is happens – sometimes with our parents, partners, colleagues and bosses, or with friends. Keep the overt or covert aggressivity going against us for a while, and we’ll learn how not to succeed to keep things smooth and peaceful. free of conflict. All of this can happen automatically and unconsciously : parents, partners or colleagues will find themselves angry without really grasping why, and we learn by experience that when we demonstrate success or competence, it will trigger angry outbursts down the line. So we don’t demonstrate anything.
An then one day we wake up and we wonder why we are bad at everything.
In fact, if we are really, really good at something, we are bound to be at the receiving end of some overt or covert jealousy, often masquarading as criticism. We may find it hard to stomach, but learning to tolerate it or fight back is essential to avoid self-sabotage.
Often though, the real issue is our self esteem…
It’s true that trauma or neurodivergence may have affected our emotional regulation, memory, attention or social skills. It’s also true that we can have some form of self-sabotage going against us. But :
- the truth is, a lot of us are struggling with at least one of these issues (and sometimes several)
- We are often very efficient at using whatever resources we have, and building from them a special gift, or skill
So people around us may not pick up on our difficulties at all. Does it prevent us from being eaten alive by our perceived deficiencies ? Of course not. Which brings us to the issue of low self-esteem.
Let’s illustrate: when he started to work, Allan joigned a consulting company which promised performance reviews at least twice a year. He found himself lazy, slow, and paralyzed by procrastination, with no people skills. He honestly would not have hired himself.
But his performance reviews were just fine. Not stellar, but actually good enough to get him promoted regularly. With all his perceived difficulties , the end result was good enough.
We all know people who are beautiful, but find themselves ugly. People who think they are stupid, whereas we are impressed with their intelligence. Sometimes, when we are navel gazing and finding totally useless, people around us see as doing great.
Like for self-sabotage, it’s hard to address the issue of low self-esteem in a paragraph or two. But all in all, our self esteem has more to do with how our environment has treated us than we are capable of or even what we actually did. It’s hard to have a solid self esteem if we grew up in a very critical environment. Even as adults, it’s hard to keep a solide self-esteem if we are subjected to, say, a very critical boss.
…or perfectionism
If you paused when reading “good enough” in the paragraph above, you’ll understand easily another issue we may have: perfectionism.
Yeah, because good enough is often not enough for some of us. We may need to be exceptional to feel good about ourselves. So if we start running, it’s to run a marathon. We want to loose weight ? We are aiming at skinny. If we pick up singing, we want to sound like an opera singer. And we want to achieve this fast.
Perfectionism is in fact a particular flavour of self sabotage. Because we aim so high, it’s actually impossible to attain, and after a while we give up. If we do not, we can succeed, but to the detriment of all other aspects of our lives – which allows us to find that we are not good at almost anything…
Sometimes when we say we are bad at everything, what we really mean is that we are not exceptional. But that’s okay to be just normal. We may need to learn this, but it’s perfectly fine to be normal.
In the meantime, take care of yourself the best you can. Please go on being bad at some things and good at others, and learn to feel at peace with it…
