Stop worshipping competence

I just wrapped my second residency for my PhD program. The difference between this one and the first? Night and day.

The first time around, I was flailing — trying to keep up with the language, the frameworks, the rhythm of academic life. I was surviving. I walked into that first residency in September like a tourist in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language. Everything felt new and hard and like everyone else knew what they were doing and I was somehow already behind. (Spoiler: I wasn’t. But Impostor Syndrome is a persistent, gaslighting bully.)

But this time? I was thriving. Still learning, still stretching, still challenged... but not paralyzed. I wasn’t trying to decipher the alphabet soup. I was in it. And I realized something that you might need to hear too:

Growth is not pretty. But it is powerful.

During this second residency I felt more grounded. Less like an outsider. More like a scholar. And it’s not because the work was easier. It’s because I had let myself stay in the discomfort long enough to see that growth is on the other side.

We talk a lot about growth. About striving. About leveling up. But what we don’t talk about enough is that growth…is awkward. And ugly. And uncomfortable as hell.

Stop Worshipping Competence

We’re adults. We’re praised — and paid — for being good at things. For being the expert in the room. For knowing the answer.

So it makes sense that we’d avoid the opposite. Why would we ever willingly stand in the space of not knowing? Of course we stay in our lane. Competence gets us applause. Comfort gets us calm.

But it also gets us stuck.

I learned this when I ran my first mile. (Yes, that sentence is correct.) Years ago, in the middle of a midlife crisis, I signed up for a bootcamp. I was sore, out of shape, and honestly, angry. But I showed up. And I ran one whole mile without stopping. A year later, I crossed the finish line at Mile 26.2 of the Boston Marathon. Not because I became an athlete. But because I became someone who could sit at the edge of discomfort long enough to grow.

You Can’t Find the Edge Without Leaving the Middle

When I walked into that first residency, I felt like I didn’t belong. Like I was pretending to understand — the pace, the lingo, the research. But the thing is, I chose to be there. Just like I chose to wear head-to-toe Limitless Yellow the first time I stepped onto a stage in front of 5,000 people.

Was I scared? You bet.

Did I do it anyway? Also yes.

Because what I’ve learned is that sometimes we have to borrow courage until we find our own. I didn’t feel brave that day. But I knew I wanted to become someone who could handle that moment. So I played the part until I grew into it.

You don’t grow by staying comfortable. You grow by showing up at the edge of your expertise, trying something you’ve never done, wearing something that feels like too much, and saying, "Maybe I am someone who can do this."

The Bleeding Edge is Where the Magic Happens

Back in my corporate days, I thought value came from competence. The more I knew, the more I was worth. But then I started working with leaders, teams, and change-makers who were doing really big things… and you know what they had in common?

They were constantly uncomfortable. Constantly learning. Constantly screwing it up and figuring it out. They weren’t afraid of incompetence — they embraced it. Because they understood that confidence doesn’t come from knowing everything.

It comes from knowing you can handle whatever comes next.

Because it is when we place ourselves in the vortex of discomfort, we learn what we are made of. We learn what we can withstand, what we really want, and what we are willing to fight to have.

Your turn: What’s the hard thing you’ve been avoiding because you’re afraid of looking like a beginner?

Do it. Sign up for the class. Raise your hand. Schedule the meeting. Wear the damn yellow.

Because here's what I know to be true this week: Growth is awkward. It’s messy. It’s not cute. But transformation lives on the bleeding edge of our incompetence. It’s where we stop playing small. Where we build new muscles. Where we do the messy, clumsy, gloriously hard work of becoming.

The hardest thing about going back to school as an adult is...

realizing just how little I learned as a kid.
I wasn’t well educated.
I didn’t build good study habits.
I never pushed beyond the comfort.
​
Maybe you had a similar experience?

We memorized. We regurgitated. We performed.

We never learned how to learn, how to think.

What has become most clear to me in the past two months of doctoral studies is that the house of cards that is my brain was constructed on a foundation of “good enough.”But good enough is no longer good enough.

The cracks, they are emerging.
The cracks, they are exhausting.
The cracks, they are elucidating.

Can the cracks be our friends? Let’s hope so.

Until then, you’ll find me wrapped in fetal position around my emotional support Juniper.

The only person who decides which voice wins is you.

Will you live in the center of your excellence, the thing you know how to do, and be satisfied?

Or are you going to leap onto the bleeding edge of your incompetence and see how much you can grow?

When was the last time you did something, on purpose, that you knew was going to be really hard? What about the last time you pushed yourself to do something where failure wasn’t just a possibility but a probability? How long have you waited to stretch and do something new? Hit reply. I want to hear about it.