Why being a natural genius can be painful

Do you get frustrated, or even upset, with yourself if you don’t pick things up first time?

Do you get frustrated, or even upset, with yourself if you don’t pick things up first time? Does your inner voice berate you because “You’re clever and you should be able do this!” Then you start to feel bad because other people seem to be able to do things much more easily than you and that must mean you’re not good enough.

Before you get too down on yourself, it may help you to learn that what you’re experiencing is a facet of imposter syndrome- the ‘natural genius’. You have exceedingly high standards and judge yourself by whether you achieve those standards first time around. If you don’t, you’re a failure. That’s an unpleasant place to find yourself.

Given how our brains work, it’s unreasonable to expect to be able to do something perfectly the first time around. To build the neural pathways that embed a new skill, we need to do things several times. Also, you’re not allowing for context. What works well in one set of circumstances may not be as successful in others. So the next time you feel you’re struggling with something new, remember:

Feeling stuck often comes before great learning.
Practice makes perfect, not wishing to be perfect.
Be kind to yourself – we never stop learning, no matter how old or experienced we become.