There’s a certain kind of comfort in attributing our failures to external forces. Bad timing, unfair competition, systemic barriers, or plain old bad luck all make for convenient explanations when things don’t work out. And sometimes these factors genuinely matter. But if we’re being honest with ourselves, a significant portion of our failures come down to something far more mundane and far more fixable: we simply weren’t good enough yet.This isn’t a popular thing to say. We live in an era that celebrates effort and participation, that emphasizes self-esteem and positive thinking. The idea that you failed because you lacked the requisite skills sounds harsh, even cruel. But recognizing a skill issue for what it is might be the most empowering realization you can have, because unlike luck or timing or the whims of gatekeepers, skills are something you can actually improve.
Consider the aspiring novelist who receives rejection after rejection. It’s tempting to blame the publishing industry, to rail against agents who don’t “get it” or readers with pedestrian tastes. But more often than not, those early manuscripts simply aren’t very good. The prose is clunky, the characters flat, the plot meandering. This isn’t a failure of the universe to recognize genius. It’s a writer who hasn’t yet developed the craft of writing. The good news? Craft can be developed. Every successful author has a drawer full of terrible early work that will never see the light of day.The same pattern repeats across domains. The entrepreneur whose startup fails might have had a genuinely innovative idea, but lacked the skills to execute it effectively, whether that’s managing cash flow, hiring the right people, or communicating the vision compellingly. The job candidate who keeps getting passed over might be perfectly qualified on paper but hasn’t mastered the soft skills of interviewing well or networking strategically. The musician who can’t land gigs might need better technical chops, or perhaps they need to develop the promotional savvy to get people in the door.
Calling something a skill issue isn’t about being mean or dismissive. It’s about making a distinction between problems that are solvable and problems that aren’t. If you audition for a role and don’t get it because the director’s nephew was always going to get the part, there’s not much you could have done differently. But if you didn’t get it because your audition was nervous and unconvincing, that’s feedback you can use. That’s a gap you can close.The resistance to this framing often comes from a place of ego protection. Admitting that we lack skills feels like admitting inadequacy, and inadequacy feels permanent and shameful. But reframing skill gaps as temporary states rather than fixed traits changes everything. You’re not a bad writer; you’re someone who hasn’t yet mastered the elements of storytelling. You’re not unemployable; you’re someone who needs practice articulating value in an interview setting. The difference is subtle but profound.
This perspective also helps explain why some people seem to fail upward while others plateau. The people who improve fastest are often those who can look at their failures clear-eyed and ask not “whose fault was this” but “what specific capabilities was I missing.” They treat each setback as diagnostic information. They identify the exact skills they need to develop and then systematically develop them, whether through practice, study, mentorship, or experience.
None of this means external factors don’t matter. Privilege is real, discrimination is real, and sometimes you do everything right and still lose. But even acknowledging these realities, there’s danger in too quickly reaching for external explanations. It lets us off the hook. It allows us to remain static. If your failures are always someone else’s fault, you never have to change or grow or improve.The paradox is that accepting responsibility for skill gaps is ultimately liberating. It puts your progress back in your own hands. It transforms failure from a verdict on your worth into a roadmap for improvement. Every successful person has stories of early failures that, in retrospect, were obviously skill issues. The version of them that failed wasn’t worse as a person; they simply hadn’t developed the capabilities they needed yet. Given time and effort, they did.So the next time something doesn’t work out, resist the immediate impulse to externalize. Sit with the discomfort and ask yourself honestly: was this truly beyond my control, or was I missing specific skills or knowledge that would have changed the outcome? If it’s the latter, you’ve just identified your next area for growth. That’s not a condemnation. That’s a gift.
