For years, I carried around a quiet belief that I was “bad at math.”
Not average. Not rusty.
Bad.
It wasn’t something I talked about, but it lived underneath every technical conversation, every algorithm discussion, every moment someone mentioned calculus or proofs or discrete math.
It was a shadow that followed me into adulthood—even as a programmer.
Then one day, that belief broke.
And the moment it broke, something big clicked:
**I was never bad at math.
I was scared of math.**
Those are not the same thing.
The fear started long before adulthood
In junior high, things I once understood instantly suddenly felt foreign.
Math stopped being concrete and became symbolic.
Steps weren’t obvious.
Teachers taught faster.
Everyone else seemed to get it.
So I made the same mistake many kids make:
I didn’t say, “This is confusing.”
I said, “I’m not good at this.”
And once a belief like that takes hold, it doesn’t stay small.
It grows roots.
It becomes identity.
Not “I’m struggling.”
But “I’m not a math person.”
The belief lasted years—even through success
Even as I wrote software for a living.
Even as I built systems and solved complex problems.
Even as I taught other people how to code.
That childhood fear stayed lodged somewhere in the back of my mind.
So whenever someone brought up topics like:
- Big O
- Recursion
- Trees
- Graph theory
- Probability
- Linear algebra
- Algorithms
…I felt that old panic rise.
Not because I couldn’t understand those things—
but because part of me still believed I shouldn’t be able to.
That’s what fear does:
It outlives the evidence.
The moment the story cracked
Years later, I was deep into a CS topic that relied on math I once avoided.
Something clicked—really clicked.
It made sense.
It was even interesting.
And I remember thinking:
“Wait… if I were truly bad at math, this shouldn’t make sense.”
That thought hit me harder than the concept itself.
Because it meant the story I’d believed for years—the insecurity I’d dragged into adulthood—was wrong.
Completely wrong.
I wasn’t bad at math.
I was inexperienced at math.
And worse:
I was convinced that inexperience meant inability.
Fear hides itself as incompetence
It disguises itself as:
- “This is too hard.”
- “I’m just not wired this way.”
- “Other people get it faster.”
- “I don’t have the natural talent.”
But fear isn’t about capability.
Fear is about exposure.
Fear says:
“I don’t want to feel stupid.”
“I don’t want to be judged.”
“I don’t want to reveal what I don’t know.”
It’s not the math itself—we fear the feeling of not knowing.
Once I removed the fear, the ability showed up
As soon as I approached math without embarrassment…
As soon as I let myself learn it slowly…
As soon as I stopped assuming I was defective…
Everything changed.
Concepts that once felt like walls turned into steps.
Steps turned into patterns.
Patterns turned into confidence.
The skill wasn’t missing.
The permission was.
This wasn’t just about math—it was about how we learn anything
Most people don’t struggle because they’re incapable.
They struggle because they’re ashamed of being beginners.
But here’s the truth:
You can’t learn anything while trying to protect your ego.
Beginners improve.
Pretenders don’t.
When I finally allowed myself to learn instead of hide, the fear disappeared—and the competence showed up right behind it.
If you think you’re bad at something, ask yourself this:
Are you actually bad at it?
Or are you scared of it?
Are you truly incapable?
Or did you stop at the moment things got uncomfortable?
The difference matters.
Because “bad” is permanent.
“Scared” is temporary.
And if my journey taught me anything, it’s this:
Most people aren’t bad at the things they avoid.
They’re just afraid of the moment before things start to make sense.