When taking on new responsibilities, you may not excel at them immediately. As a result, you may begin to question your professional abilities and feel incompetent. Instead of criticizing yourself, you can take the time to understand that everyone encounters professional challenges and learn methods of combating these feelings. In this article, we discuss feeling incompetent at work and provide steps you can take to navigate this situation.

Signs that you’re feeling incompetent at work

Incompetence refers to an individual’s inability to complete a task. When starting a new job or taking on a new responsibility, you may not always know everything. If you make mistakes or encounter failures, it can affect your self-esteem and confidence at work. In some cases, these feelings may affect your attitude toward the job and lead to burnout.When you are new, your managers or colleagues do not know the full extent of your skills and experiences, so they may ask you to do tasks you have not done before. They do not mean to cause issues, but the experience may lead to stress and feelings of incompetence. Here are some other examples of situations that may make you feel incompetent at work:

• You feel confused by the buzzwords or jargon used by your colleagues.
• You avoid voicing your thoughts or asking questions because you do not want others to judge you.
• You are asked to make decisions but feel you do not have sufficient information.
• You receive the names of people to contact but do not know who they are.
• Your colleagues or supervisors ask you to complete tasks with the assumption that you already know their processes.

The four stages of competence

As you embark on a new job or take on a new task, feeling discomfort regarding your abilities is normal. As you learn these new skills, concepts or behaviors, you move through four stages of competence. These four stages consist of:

• Unconscious incompetence: This initial stage represents doing something for the first time. You often do not know how to do it correctly, though you also do not realize when you do it incorrectly. As a result, you may not realize you need to seek support or ask questions.
• Conscious incompetence: In this stage, you realize that you do not know how to do something or did it wrong. You begin to feel discomfort because you acknowledged your mistakes or shortcomings. While it may be easy to pull back and stick to what you know, this stage can also motivate you to learn new skills and move to the next stage.
• Conscious competence: When you commit to practicing your shortcomings, you increase your competence. You can perform the task independently and effectively, though it may require more focus while you continue learning and gaining familiarity. As you obtain successes, they can help rebuild your self-esteem at work.
• Unconscious competence: In this final stage, you internalized the knowledge or skill, making it become second nature. No longer in the learning stage, you can perform this task without intense focus and often more efficiently. Feeling comfortable in your abilities, you may even find opportunities to train others to complete the task.