Good Quote: On Feeling Incompetent

Posted on 19. Feb, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Musings & Inspiration
0 comments

“Accustomed to being efficient, competent, articulate, and able to navigate the various logistics of American life, in Paris I was often flummoxed: by doctors, medical insurance, renter’s taxes, voice mail, the laundromat and that wretched foreign keyboard which turned all my letters to gibberish.”

Christina Henry de Tessan – Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad

If this is where you are at in your expat life right now, please do not forget to be gentle with yourself. Even though you are not yet performing everyday tasks smoothly and effortlessly, this does not mean that you, as a person, are inefficient, incompetent or stupid. It simply means that you have to learn new ways of doing things, and that you need time to practice them. Without beating yourself up.

Are you beating yourself up for not being a faster, smarter, better learner? Maybe this post about the four stages of competence can help you remember that feeling incompetent is necessary and unavoidable during the learning process. In fact, two out of the four stages are about incompetence… in other words, when you are conscious of feeling incompetent, you are already halfway there!

Emmanuelle

Related post: 4 Stages of Competence