Why do so many who are good at what they do think they are no good? And why do so many who are no good at what they do think they are good at it?
The question was prompted by an acquaintance’s grumbling at unsatisfactory work that had been done on his kitchen during the Celtic Tiger years.
He was not the only one who had been a victim of this particular tradesman: it was one of those cases in which a tradesman works his way around several houses in an estate until people find out he is not much good at his trade.
Neither my friend nor his neighbours got anywhere with this fellow in terms of getting him to correct his mistakes. It seems he was convinced he was absolutely top-notch at what he did and that faults were in the eye of the beholder, who was always wrong.
He was an example of a phenomenon I have mentioned before: incompetent people are sometimes too incompetent to realise that they are incompetent. He has since gone to another country where no doubt he continues to spread angst among his customers. And no doubt he remains convinced of his own excellence.
At the other extreme are people who are good at what they do but who go through life believing themselves to be a disappointment. Who is better off?
I suspect it is the incompetent person who doesn’t realise just how incompetent they are. Like it or not, this individual’s experience of life is actually more satisfactory than that of the unfortunate person who does not believe in his or her own worth.
That lack of belief sometimes goes so far as to lead people to take their own lives, convinced they have let everybody else down.
They seem to have taken on a sort of “incompetence” identity. Their conviction that they are not good enough always wins out over the facts.
Those who are told often enough in childhood – or who tell themselves – that they are stupid, useless and so on are at risk of ending up with such an identity.
That sense of incompetence can follow them around like a shadow. People with the feeling of not being good enough turn away compliments by reflex. They fail to seek an adequate reward for what they do. They allow others to treat them in a cavalier manner.
Paid peanuts
I once advised a young person in the IT industry who was extremely good at what she did but who was paid peanuts by an employer. The employer thought nothing of landing her with a great deal of unexpected work on Friday evenings. This work often ate into her weekends but her employer never paid her for it.
We established she had always had a feeling of not being good enough, even though she had many things to her credit: medals in sports and a very good Leaving Cert, for example.
When she realised what was happening, she was able to begin to say no to the Friday evening dump of work. At first she felt really bad about saying no and it actually took a number of weeks to get the word out of her mouth.
Gradually, she realised the real issue was that she had been undervaluing herself. In time, she left and got herself a decent job with decent pay.
But the main change I noticed when I met her next was in her physical bearing. She actually looked confident. She even looked taller.
She seemed to have taken a leaf out of the book of William James, the great psychologist who suggested more than 100 years ago that if you want to induce a feeling – such as competence – you need to physically carry yourself as if you already feel that way.
It’s good advice. If you think you might be saddled with a negative identity, try it out. The worst that can happen is that you’ll feel better about yourself.
Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness on the Go. His mindfulness newsletter is free by email. pomorain@yahoo.com