The Competence Paradox: Why You’re Better at Everything But Believe You’re Worse

How midlife makes you sharper while convincing you you're slipping

At 50, you can read a room faster than you ever could at 30.

You spot patterns others completely miss. You handle complicated situations without breaking a sweat. You make better calls under pressure than you did twenty years ago.

And yet.

Something feels off, doesn’t it?

Even with all this evidence staring you in the face, you’re questioning yourself more than ever. Wondering if maybe you’re past your prime. Second-guessing choices that would’ve felt obvious a decade ago.

Here’s what’s actually happening: You’re not losing it. You’re caught in one of the weirdest psychological traps of midlife—where you get objectively better at things while simultaneously believing you’re getting worse.

Your performance vs. what you believe about it

The research on cognitive aging is pretty clear about this.

Sure, some things slow down. Processing speed dips a little. You might need an extra minute to remember someone’s name. But your ability to solve complex problems? Regulate your emotions? Make solid judgments? Handle multiple layers of information at once?

That stuff peaks in your 50s and 60s.

You’re literally at your best for the skills that actually matter in real life.

But nobody’s out here celebrating that, are they? Instead, we’re swimming in a culture that worships youth. “Young” equals “capable.” “New” equals “better.” The tech world obsesses over 25-year-old founders. Media fixates on fresh faces.

And somewhere along the way, you started buying into it.

The data tells you one thing. The culture screams something else. And you’re stuck in the middle, feeling like maybe you really are slipping.

The weird thing about getting really good at something

Here’s what throws people off: The better you get at something, the more complicated you realize it is.

When you’re starting out, you think you’re doing pretty well because you don’t know what you don’t know yet. But as you gain real expertise? You start seeing all the nuances. All the ways things could go sideways. All the depth you haven’t even touched yet.

So your actual growing skill feels like you’re becoming less competent. It’s backwards, but it’s how our brains work.

I see this all the time with clients. Someone will tell me she feels like she’s falling behind at work. Then in the next breath, she’ll mention how she just steered her team through a massive crisis, coached three people through their own meltdowns, and pulled a failing project back from the brink.

“But I had to ask someone how to use the new system,” she’ll add, like that somehow cancels out everything else.

She’s comparing her deep knowledge (which shows her how much there is to know) with some 25-year-old’s shallow confidence (which confuses not knowing with being good).

It’s not a fair comparison.

Your memory is messing with you

You think you were sharper at 30, right? More on top of everything?

But what you’re actually remembering is a greatest hits compilation. You’ve conveniently forgotten all the times you said something ridiculous in a meeting. The projects that went off the rails. The situations you completely misread. All those moments of confusion and screwing up.

Psychologists have a name for this: “rosy retrospection.” We remember the past way better than we actually lived through it.

So you’re not comparing current you to actual 30-year-old you. You’re comparing your messy, real present self to some idealized, edited version of who you used to be.

Of course you feel like you’re declining. You’re comparing reality to fiction.

The thing nobody talks about: You’ve become invisible

When you’re young and you do something well, people notice. They’re a little surprised, honestly. “Wow, she really handled that!” It stands out because it’s unexpected.

When you’re 50 and you do something well? That’s just... another day. You’ve built up a track record. Nobody’s throwing you a parade for being excellent anymore. They expect it from you now.

So here’s what happens: Your actual performance gets better. The recognition you get for it goes down. And your brain reads this as decline.

But it’s not decline. You’ve just become less visible.

We don’t really have good stories in our culture for celebrating experienced, competent women. We’re obsessed with young prodigies and big breakthrough moments. The steady build-up of wisdom over decades? That doesn’t make for good Instagram content.

What’s actually going on in your brain

Let’s talk about your 50-year-old brain for a second, because the news is actually good.

Your prefrontal cortex—the part that handles decisions and keeps your emotions in check—is performing at its peak. You’ve got decades of neural pathways built up for solving complicated problems. Your brain has rewired itself to be more efficient at the stuff you do regularly.

And your amygdala? That’s the part that freaks out about threats. It’s calmed way down. You’re not as reactive anymore. You can sit without knowing something and not spiral. You can hold conflicting ideas in your head at the same time without losing it.

This is what actual wisdom looks like. Not just being smart—being wise. You see bigger pictures now. You can deal with uncertainty. You make good calls even when you don’t have all the information.

None of this feels exciting or dramatic, though. It just feels normal to you. So you don’t count it.

Social media makes everything worse

Scrolling through LinkedIn, watching people half your age announce promotions doesn’t help. Seeing Instagram influencers talk about their perfect morning routines doesn’t help.

Your brain automatically makes comparisons. That’s just what brains do.

But here’s the problem: You’re comparing your messy internal experience, the doubt, the uncertainty, all of it, to everyone else’s carefully edited highlight reel.

That 30-year-old posting about their big promotion? They’re not showing you the panic attacks or the relationship that’s falling apart because they’re working 70-hour weeks.

You’re not getting the reality. And you’re beating yourself up with it.

What it costs you to believe this

When you buy into the story that you’re declining, you start acting like someone who’s declining.

You stop taking risks because you figure you’re past your prime anyway. You defer to younger people even when you know more than they do. You question your gut. You make yourself smaller.

And that becomes a self-fulfilling thing. Not because you were actually declining, but because you believed you were and changed how you showed up.

I’ve watched really capable women in their 50s step back from opportunities they were perfect for. Why? Because they’d absorbed this idea that they were “too old” or “not current enough.” Meanwhile, they were literally the most qualified person in the room.

That’s not aging. That’s what happens when you internalize all the ageist garbage floating around out there.

What actually declines (and why it matters less than you think)

I’m not pretending that nothing changes. Some things do slow down.

Processing speed drops a bit. Multitasking gets harder. Your ability to tune out distractions decreases.

But here’s the thing: You don’t really need those things the way you used to.

You’re measuring yourself with metrics that don’t actually matter anymore.

What you can do about this

First thing: Stop comparing yourself to your 30-year-old self. She doesn’t exist anymore. And romanticizing her is just wasting your energy.

Instead, start paying attention to what you’re actually good at right now. Make a real inventory, not some gratitude journal thing, but an honest look. What problems can you solve now that would’ve stumped you twenty years ago? What do people come to you for? What feels easy to you that you watch other people struggle with?

Also, recognize that the culture’s obsession with youth is their hang-up, not yours. You don’t have to buy into it.

And yeah, grieve what you’ve lost. Because you have lost some things. That’s real. Your younger body. Certain kinds of options. Some social currency. It’s okay to feel sad about that.

Just don’t let that sadness trick you into thinking you’re less capable than you are.

Why this pattern even exists

Here’s something most people won’t say directly: This competence paradox exists because powerful, experienced women are threatening.

Young women are easier to manage. Easier to underpay. Easier to dismiss. They’re still figuring things out, still looking for approval, still trying to prove themselves.

But a woman in her 50s who knows what she’s worth? Who’s seen enough to spot bullshit from a mile away? Who’s done playing small?

That scares people.

So the culture has to find a way to cut you down to size. And the easiest way? Convince you that you’re in decline. That you’re losing your edge. That you’re not as sharp as you used to be.

It’s gaslighting on a massive scale.

The way out? Trust what you actually know from your own experience instead of the story everyone keeps telling you. Believe in your own competence instead of the culture’s insistence that you’re declining.

The real question

So here’s what I want you to sit with: What would actually change if you believed you were at your peak right now?

Not in some fake self-help affirmation way. But what if you took the actual evidence seriously, that your judgment is better, your emotional regulation is better, your ability to handle complicated stuff is better, and you acted like it?

What would you do differently? What would you stop apologizing for? What opportunities would you stop talking yourself out of?

Because here’s the truth: You are better at almost everything that genuinely matters.

The only thing you’ve gotten worse at? Believing it.

That's the only thing worth fixing.

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As always, tell me what’s on your mind. I’m reading every word here. I can’t respond to everyone, but thank you for sharing.

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