Draw One Circle, Double Your Impact

Is success about talent or knowing when talent ends? I tried to answer that question many times, but the edges were very blurry.

Some have great talent and will start with an advantage. But talent alone makes you weak . It allows you to think you have more time than others. And they will catch up fast.

Once talent’s gone, two things will define your career:

• The circle of competence is the set of skills you can prove on demand.
• The circle of incompetence is every skill you haven’t mastered yet.

When your circle of competence aligns with your projects, you will succeed. But if they misalign, you will have a hard time getting ahead. And that’s what was happening with my projects.

I was trying to become a writer, but I didn’t know how to write a good copy. I was trying to become a senior developer, but I didn’t have the set of skills that would allow me to do that. My circle of competence never aligned with my project, and that caused many failures on my path.

But why did I step outside of my circle of confidence? And why you might do it too?

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Stepping out of our circle of competence is a common behavior. We can use the Dunning-Kruger curve to explain why this happens.

Psychologists David Dunning and Justing Kruger found that people who scored in the bottom quarter on tests of logic, grammar, and humor rated themselves far above average . Their incompetence stole the skills and self-awareness they needed to notice the gap.

But the curve bends the other way, too. Top performers often under-rate themselves. They assume everyone else sees the game as clearly as they do. The result is a confidence seesaw — beginners are too confident, experts second-guess, and both groups score beyond the edge.

Work culture also magnifies the bias.

Promotions reward noise and visibility, not quiet and mastery. Social feeds flash overnight wins instead of the ten-year grinds. And a little praise from your boss can make you feel more skilled, even if you’re not.

Unless you build a habit of brutal feedback, the curve keeps tricking you. It whispers that you’re ready for a leap you haven’t trained for yet. And you jump before the ground appears.

You need to be aware of what you control. But what do you control?

You can’t control anything outside of your circle of competence — deal with it. But most times, you don’t even know what sits inside your circle of competence. So, let’s make an exercise to discover it.

Grab a blank page or open a whiteboard. Then, draw two circles, one inside the other.

• Skills you can prove — the code you write or the copy that you sell (for example).
• Effort you control — the hours you block and the habits you track.
• The attitude you choose — the way you handle issues and feedback.

• Market shifts — new frameworks or platforms that arise.
• People’s opinion — who likes whom this week.
• New tempting trends — AI tools, viral design style, etc.

Sometimes, splitting between those two circles can be difficult. It’s not always that simple. So, put every item you can’t label inside a box. If you cannot test or measure it next week, push it to the outer loop. Otherwise, you have control over it. So, you can pull it in the circle of competence.

1. List every recurring task for the past month.
2. Drop each task into the inner or outer circle.
3. Write tasks in a separate box if you can’t figure out where they belong.
4. Give yourself a week to track those uncertain tasks . If you can influence them, they are in your circle of competence.

You can ignore everything outside of your circle of competence and use the free hours for your deliberate practice inside the inner loop.

But how do I grow? If you only focus on your circle of competence, you will never experiment with new trends. And you might be right. So, let’s see how you can expand the edge.

The whole point of the circles of competence and incompetence is to make you grow safely, not keep you stale.

Dreaming is a good thing. We all have our dreams and aspirations. But many times, we project those dreams into our reality too fast when we’re not ready. And reality crushes both you and your dreams.

We want to avoid that. So, we must take a safer approach. First, we understand what is in our circle of competence and master that. Then, we can expand our edges and incorporate some of the skills we couldn’t control before. Here’s how you can do it with the skill-building playbook.

Picture yourself in the middle of a board with many skills around you. Some of them will be closer, while others will be far away. Some will fall into your circle of competence, while others will stay out of it.

As you master each skill, y our circle of competence will expand in that direction, including other abilities you could master. So, the only way to reach rare skills is to focus in one direction.

However, beware of practice without feedback. You might solidify mistakes if you don’t test what you’ve learned.

1. The 5-Hour Rule: Master skills in your circle of competence for 5 hours a week, one each day.
2. The Adjacent-Skill Rule : Pick new skills to master on the edge of your circle of competence.
3. The Outreachables Rule : Don’t lose time on skills that are across the board in your current circle of incompetence.
4. The Planning Rule : Instead, plan your path to get there. Research where you should expand your mastery to reach those skills.

Planning your path is a skill in itself. And as you master it, you can make mistakes and overestimate your mastery. So, how do you deal with that?

We are eager for new promotions. We want fast success. We think we can handle it. But sometimes, you might be too good at marketing yourself. Sometimes, you will get promotions and fall into your circle of incompetence.

I had a colleague who was so confident I thought we knew everything. And he got that promotion — he became one of my managers. But he wasn’t ready. Every day, he would call me and another guy, asking us to explain things he had known the day before.

A few months later, we missed two releases. Our client wanted a management change, so he got fired.

According to the Peter Principle , people in an organization will get promotions until they are no longer qualified (a.k.a, they reach their circle of incompetence). So, when you get a promotion, you should aim at two things:

• having the required skills already
• or for those new skills to be on the edge of your circle of competence.

You want the growth to happen, but it shouldn’t crush you. So, if you’re not sure, you better not take that opportunity. It will come back to you next year if you deserve it. And if it won’t, it means you weren’t as ready as your boss thought.

Here’s a list of warning signs you're not ready for the next step.

• Constant context-switching — ten tabs, zero flow.
• Rising error count.
• You skim docs you once devoured.
• Your calendar fills with work you can’t explain in one sentence.

If two or more flash red, you’re near the edge.

My first blog hit zero clicks. My first experience as a team leader didn't get me a promotion. But I didn’t give up.

Both flops came from swinging outside my circle of competence. And once I drew the line, everything shifted. Paid subscribers climbed. My bosses see my value more. And I am surrounded by positive vibes.

So, guard your inner circle and ignore the noise. Expand your edges with deliberate practice and constant feedback, one step at a time. Do that, and each leap will land on solid ground — no more silent launches or stalled promotions.

Did this piece help you draw your circle? Send it to a friend who keeps saying yes to the wrong projects — and reply to tell me which task you cut this week.

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