The Counselling Shed
Do you feel incompetent?
It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it.
That is why many of us try to cover up our feelings of incompetence with a brave face, with distractions, with addictions, with affairs, or by carrying on as best we can whilst hoping that no one will find out that we don’t really know what we are doing.
Long term – this strategy seldom works.
Rather than look at the wider picture as to why we have not been able to grasp the task at hand, many of us quickly conclude that we must be stupid, not capable or confident enough, not up to the job.
In the 1970’s Noel Burch came up with a ‘Conscious Competence Theory’. He believed that when mastering a new skill – although we could also say here ‘when mastering life’ – we move through four stages of competence:
1. Unconscious incompetence (Ignorance)
2. Conscious incompetence (Awareness)
3. Conscious competence (Learning)
4. Unconscious competence (Mastery)
The good news is that if you are aware of feeling incompetent, then at least you are not at stage 1!
But many of us, because we fear and then ignore or distract ourselves from feeling incompetent, tend to stay at stage 2: the result is that the feeling of being incompetent follows us around.
Counselling can help you to look at the wider picture and it can support you to trace back when the seeds of feeling incompetent were first planted. For many, it goes back to School days.
Look, if the feeling of being somehow incompetent has been following you around, then there is no need to continue to struggle on alone.
If you need help in dealing with your feelings of incompetence then contact me now for a chat on:
M: 07757 859650
E: bradley@thecounsellingshed.co.uk