If you are someone who strives for excellence in your professional life, you know the feeling of the Invisible Checklist that plays in your head:
- Worrying about the vast areas of tech you still haven't learned.
- Critiquing your own solutions as "not smart enough" or too simple.
- Comparing your behind-the-scenes reality to others' polished public profiles.
- The code you wrote last week already feels messy or unclean. This relentless cycle of self-critique and comparison breeds constant anxiety and fatigue.
❌ The Cost: This tension doesn't drive you to learn faster; it hinders you. Anxiety creates mental fog, making it harder to absorb new information and draining the enjoyment out of your work.
✅ The Solution: The path forward is not more grinding, but simply more awareness.
We must acknowledge that we have already done well, that we are competent, and that growth is a marathon, not a sprint.
The Pivot: Stay curious, but release the need to be stressed by that curiosity.
By reducing the internal pressure and celebrating your current competence, you free up the mental energy needed to actually absorb new knowledge faster, improve your skills more efficiently, and—most importantly—rediscover the fun in what you do.
Top comments (4)
Simple code is the best code. It is also the most maintainable code.
That is a good thing, because now you learned it can be improved.
Excellence is not knowing everything, it is knowing enough to solve problems and build solutions.
Thanks! That’s such a positive way to look at things. Particularly like the improvement part.
It is good to aspire to great things, but at the same time you need to be realistic.
The main thing is can you get the job done or not. If not you need to learn more, that is why some tasks require research.
Learning everything all at once doesn't get you anywhere, because it is too much.
Learn about the things that affect you in the short term. And read about the things that interest you, maybe one day they give you a eureka moment.
Thanks! Knowing what to learn and how to break things down into small manageable pieces is in itself a skill!
I wrote this article because I was stuck on a difficult issue all afternoon and couldn’t solve it. I realised later that I had gone into tunnel vision — and the problem probably isn’t even my top priority right now. When I step back, I can see that what I’ve already built is impressive. There’s no need to feel inadequate just because I couldn’t get something working in that moment.
Great suggestions from you! Thanks for the thoughtful replies.