Feeling like you suck at your job can be disheartening. But you’re not alone. Many employees experience self-doubt, stress from learning curves, imposter syndrome, or frustration over poor job fits.
It mainly happens with new recruits and after a certain period, this feeling fades away. However, if you continuously experience the same feeling, then either you aren’t in the correct position or you are not performing your job duties properly. By following some simple tips, you can gain back your confidence and perform your job duties to the best of your abilities.
The good news is there are constructive ways to address workplace struggles. With self-reflection, skill-building, and gaining perspective, you can overcome workplace challenges. Or determine that a role change could be the best path forward. To help you with this issue, I have prepared a list of tips that can help you cope with the same. Let’s explore them below!
Why You Might Feel Like You Underperform?
Several common scenarios can leave you feeling inadequate:
- Normal Newbie Struggles: Starting a new job inevitably involves ramping up. Expect an adjustment period of 6-12 months before fully grasping responsibilities. Be patient with typical beginner mistakes as you navigate the learning curve.
- Job Mismatches: An employee skills gap survey found that 62% of workers feel underqualified in their current roles. But the disconnect could be a poor job fit, not personal shortcomings.
- Imposter Syndrome: Studies show 70% of people experience feeling like a fraud at work. It’s important to recognize unrealistic self-perception.
Rather than just feeling bad about work struggles, it’s most constructive to pinpoint exactly where difficulties arise so you can problem-solve.
What to Do If You Feel Like You Underperform?
When feeling like you underperform, avoid vague generalizations. Instead, analyze specifics to identify targeted improvement areas:
Step 1: Pinpoint Skill Gaps
Make a list of job responsibilities that are problematic.
- Which projects do you habitually avoid or delay?
- Where do you get stuck needing excessive assistance?
For each trouble area, break down precisely what skills are missing.
- Do you lack time management abilities to complete tasks efficiently?
- Are you unsure how to use a key piece of technology?
- Does interacting with clients make you anxious?
Take Skill Assessment Tests
Seek out job skill quizzes related to your role. Marketing, project management, customer service – major industries offer assessment tools to reveal capacity strengths and weaknesses.
Solicit Direct Feedback
Ask colleagues and managers where they see an opportunity for more development. Phrase gently, focusing the conversation on how they can help you improve.
Clearly defining missing abilities is essential for acquiring tools to close gaps.
Step 2: Review Negative Feedback from the Manager
Request a meeting with your supervisor to recap recent performance problems they flagged. Review written evaluations as well.
Parse constructive criticism from overly harsh judgments. Throw out vague, subjective critiques like “bad attitude” or “sloppy work.”
Isolate specific examples of where protocols were not followed, deadlines were missed repeatedly, budgets were overspent through negligence. Identify behavior trends.
Step 3: Compare Yourself to High Performers
Objectively notice colleagues who excel where you fall short. Rather than envy, use positives.
For example, if you lack confidence in delivering presentations but a peer communicates smoothly and effectively, make them your role model. What techniques can you borrow? Should you ask to shadow them?
Seek help without shame – we all have uneven abilities and can learn from each other.
Step 4: Take Stock of Work Habits holistically
Assess productivity levels, organization, time management, planning abilities, rapport with colleagues, attention to detail, manual skills, leadership capabilities. What overarching themes emerge? Establish focus areas.
Clarifying exactly where your struggles originate permits targeted improvement. Don’t allow vagueness. Determine if the issues are learnable skills, gaps due to inexperience, poor work processes or tools, lack of big-picture vision, interpersonal tensions, or core competencies missing from your wheelhouse. An accurate diagnostic assessment empowers your growth plan.
Step 5: Acquire New Hard & Soft Skills
Enroll in continuing education workshops related to your field. Attend conferences or online programs to absorb technical concepts from industry experts.
Shadow respected colleagues who have mastered abilities you lack. Analyze how they approach projects. What tools or systems do they use? Emulate best practices.
Invest in courses to advance weaker soft skills like communication, emotional intelligence, and collaboration. These interpersonal abilities exponentially impact workplace success.
Create an Individual Development Plan
Catalog specific skills needed to address struggling aspects of your job. Outline milestones for acquiring them. Define how you will close gaps – mentor partnerships? Job shadowing? Online tutorials? Mark progress.
Step 6: Update Inadequate Equipment, Methods or Software
Critically examine the workflow. Present research to management on state-of-the-art systems or new evidence-based processes that could amplify success.
For example, design software, CRMs, analytics programs, communication platforms, and more evolve continuously. Request upgrades.
Step 7: Seek Wisdom from Mentors
Connect with respected veterans at your workplace or externally to function as guides.
Pick their brain about industry “unwritten rules”, strategies they employ, common pitfalls, and solutions.
Ask for candid feedback about your skills gaps and work habits. Their seasoned input becomes your roadmap.
Step 8: Work Smarter, Not Just Harder
Conserve mental bandwidth for complex aspects of your role by systematizing repetitive tasks.
Build templates, checklists, and manuals to standardize procedures. Set up automatic reminders.
Declutter files and streamline reference materials for quick access when needed.
Automate recurring actions using available tools.
With a commitment to building capabilities plus consistent practice, skills gaps close over time. Celebrate incremental improvements. Pat yourself on the back for investing in growth.
When Is a Job Not a Fit?
Despite best efforts, not every work situation pans out long term. Recurring issues after sustained efforts could indicate the need for a change.
Signs It Might Be Time to Move On
- Consistently missing deadlines/targets in spite of hard work
- Ongoing negative feedback from the manager about poor performance
- Repeated mistakes in one’s area of responsibility
- Misalignment between job requirements and personal strengths
- Values conflict between organizational culture and personal ethics
Listen to nudges that a position is not meant to be. Be realistic about your abilities to ever fully catch up. Then plan your next career move.
Bouncing Back from Workplace Discouragement
Setbacks are part of professional life at all levels. Regaining confidence requires self-care.
- Maintain Perspective: Everyone experiences doubts sometimes. Stay balanced.
- Quiet Inner Critic: Halt self-bashing talk and replace it with encouragement.
- Celebrate Small Wins: Notice daily accomplishments vs. focusing on flaws.
- Have a Life: Allow downtime for recharging spirits and creativity.
- Don’t Compare: Follow your own career path, not others’ assumed trajectories.
Staying positive amidst work struggles lets you demonstrate resilience—an important leadership skill. Patience, perseverance, and tweaks can help you excel.
Frequently Asked Queries
How can you improve job performance?
Strategies to boost job competence include taking courses to sharpen hard and soft skills, updating outdated tools/methods, seeking advice from mentors, streamlining workflows for efficiency, allowing more time to master difficult responsibilities, and fundamentally assessing if the role is not the right fit.
When is it time to quit a job you are failing at?
Signs it could be time to move on include consistently missing targets despite strong effort, repeated negative feedback from the boss, ongoing mistakes in one’s responsibility area, mismatched strengths and job duties, and core values conflicts with company culture.
Why do I feel so stupid at work sometimes?
Feeling stupid at work is often caused by normal newbie challenges, imposter syndrome, unfair inner self-criticism, or comparing oneself unfairly to coworkers. It helps to maintain perspective – everyone doubts themselves sometimes. Stay encouraged.
How can I regain confidence after messing up at work?
Bounce back from workplace mistakes or failures by halting self-bashing talk, celebrating small daily accomplishments, allowing downtime to recharge, realizing everyone has doubts, and focusing on your own path rather than unfair comparisons. Patience and small improvements add up.
I hope this detailed article helps provide encouragement and strategies around feeling inadequate on the job. With some adjustments and skill-building, many people overcome early work hurdles. Remember to be kind to yourself. Balancing patience and persistence along with knowing when it could be time for a change can help you thrive. Please leave a comment below with any other questions. Thanks for reading – you’ve got this!