I’ve been thinking lately about inadequacy.
It seems like an odd thing to spend time thinking about because most of us work hard to avoid it. We pursue knowledge. We gain experience. We build confidence. We want to feel prepared before we step into whatever comes next.
Yet I’ve noticed something.
The moments that matter most almost always arrive before I feel ready.
I felt it the first time I found myself helping my mother with the ordinary tasks of daily life. I remember thinking, Can I do this? Am I enough for what she needs?
I’ve felt it as I’ve shared my writing with the world. It’s one thing to write for yourself. It’s another to write something you hope will matter to someone else. There are moments I still wonder, Do I have enough to say?
I feel it as I think about growing older as a solo ager. There is no blueprint for my life. No one can tell me exactly what decisions I’ll have to make or when I’ll have to make them.
I’ve felt it in my work as a dean. Every difficult decision carries real consequences for real people. Even after years of experience, there are moments when I quietly ask myself, Am I making the right decision?
Different circumstances.
The same question.
Can I do this?
For a long time, I thought that question meant I wasn’t ready.
Now I think it means something entirely different.
The truth is, I have never been prepared for any of those specific moments.
How could I have been?
No one prepares you for your mother becoming dependent on you.
No one prepares you for releasing your words into the world.
No one prepares you for growing older.
No one prepares you for every decision leadership places before you.
Those moments are all new.
But while I wasn’t prepared for those moments, I have been preparing for them all my life.
Every success.
Every disappointment.
Every mistake.
Every person who challenged me.
Every mentor who encouraged me.
Every relationship I’ve built.
Every difficult conversation.
Every lesson I didn’t realize I was learning.
They have all become part of who I am.
So when I walk into a situation I’ve never faced before, I don’t lean into certainty.
I lean into faith.
Faith in the person I’ve become.
Faith in the wisdom life has quietly given me.
Faith in the people I’ve surrounded myself with.
Faith that I will ask good questions, listen carefully, learn what I need to learn, and make the best decision I can with the information I have in that moment.
That’s all any of us can do.
Maybe that’s the gift of inadequacy.
It reminds us that we were never meant to have every answer before taking the first step.
It reminds us that our confidence doesn’t come from having faced this exact situation before.
It comes from trusting that everything we’ve lived, everyone who has shaped us, and every lesson we’ve learned has prepared us for whatever stands in front of us next.
We may not be prepared for this moment.
But perhaps we have been preparing for it all along.
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