The Skill of Figuring Things Out

Somewhere between getting the job and actually doing the job, we start believing that we're supposed to have all the answers.

The more I work, particularly in the technology space, the more I realise how much pressure we put on ourselves to already know the things we are still learning. Technology moves quickly, and sometimes it feels as though the language changes almost as fast as the tools do. There is always a new platform, an AI capability, a cloud service, a technical concept or an acronym that everyone else somehow seems to understand.

You are given a task and expected to know where to start. You join a meeting where developers and technical teams are discussing something you have never encountered before, and you are trying to follow the conversation while mentally making a list of everything you need to research afterwards. You are asked a question you don't immediately know how to answer, and suddenly that small gap in knowledge can make you wonder whether you are actually qualified to be in the room.

It is easy to look at those moments as evidence that you are inexperienced or somehow falling behind. But I am starting to realise that they are simply part of working, learning and growing. Nobody walks into a career knowing how to handle every task, every problem or every situation they will eventually encounter. This is especially true in technology, where the industry itself never really stops changing. Even people with years of experience are continuously learning new tools, platforms, systems and ways of working.

A lot of the time, we are all learning as we go, even when it looks like everyone around us already has it figured out.

And maybe that is where one of the most valuable skills in technology, and in the workplace generally, comes in: the ability to figure things out.

Nobody Gives You a Manual for Everything

One of the biggest adjustments between studying and working is realising that the workplace does not always come with clear instructions. When you are studying, there is usually some structure around what you need to learn. There is a curriculum, an assignment brief, a lecturer, a textbook or at least some indication of what the expected outcome should look like.

Work can be very different.

Sometimes you are given detailed instructions, previous examples and someone who can guide you through the process. Other times, you receive a request that sounds straightforward until you actually begin working on it. Suddenly, there are missing pieces of information, unfamiliar terminology, conflicting requirements and questions that nobody seems to have considered yet.

Working in technology adds another layer to this. You might understand the business problem but not yet understand the technical architecture behind the solution. You might hear people discussing APIs, databases, integrations, cloud infrastructure or security requirements and realise there is an entire part of the conversation that you still need to understand.

That can be intimidating.

The temptation is to believe that everyone else already knows these things and that you are somehow behind because you do not. But the longer I work around technology, the more I realise that very few people know everything happening across an entire technology environment. A software engineer may have deep knowledge in one area while relying on someone else for expertise in another. A Solutions Architect may understand how different components should work together but still need input from the people who understand the business requirements. Someone on the business side may not know how to build the solution but may understand the customer problem that the technology is supposed to solve.

The goal is not necessarily to become an expert in every discipline.

It is to become comfortable learning enough to understand the problem, asking the right questions and recognising when you need somebody else's expertise.

Start With the Problem, Not the Panic

When something unfamiliar lands on your desk, the first instinct can be to immediately start searching for an answer. I have realised, however, that one of the most useful things you can do is first understand what you are actually trying to solve.

Instead of immediately asking, "How do I do this?" it helps to take a moment and understand the bigger picture. What exactly is being requested? Why is it needed? What should the final outcome look like? Who will use it? What information do I already have? What information is missing? Has something similar been done before? Are there business or technical requirements that could affect the answer?

This becomes particularly important when business and technology meet because what sounds like a simple request may have much more happening underneath it. A customer may ask for a feature without necessarily understanding everything required to make that feature work. A business requirement may affect data, security, integrations, infrastructure or an existing process somewhere else in the system.

You do not need to understand every technical detail immediately. What matters is developing the habit of looking beyond the surface of the request.

Once you understand the actual problem, you can begin breaking it into smaller pieces. You may not know how to solve the entire problem, but perhaps you know what the first thing you need to understand is. Once that becomes clearer, you can move to the next question.

That is what figuring things out often looks like in practice. It is rarely one dramatic moment where the answer suddenly appears. More often, it is a series of smaller discoveries that gradually build your understanding.

You read something. That introduces a new concept. You research that concept. It leads you to documentation. The documentation raises another question. You speak to someone with more technical experience. Their explanation changes how you understand the original problem. You go back to the information you started with and suddenly it makes much more sense.

Eventually, the pieces begin connecting.

Research Is a Skill of Its Own

Technology teaches you very quickly that knowing how to research can be almost as important as already knowing the answer.

The industry changes too quickly to rely entirely on memorising information. Platforms are updated. Documentation changes. New tools appear. Services evolve. Best practices change as technology develops. Something that was recommended a few years ago may no longer be the preferred approach today.

This means that part of being capable in a technology-driven environment is knowing how to find reliable information when you need it.

We have access to an enormous amount of information. Search engines, technical documentation, online courses, professional communities, internal knowledge bases and countless other resources can help us understand subjects that may initially seem completely unfamiliar.

The difficult part is no longer simply finding information. It is determining which information deserves to be trusted.

You can search almost any question and find someone confidently providing an answer. That does not necessarily mean the answer is correct, current or appropriate for your situation. Good research requires you to consider where the information came from, whether the source is credible, how recent it is and whether it actually applies to the problem you are trying to solve.

Sometimes the first thing you read will not give you the answer at all. It may simply give you enough context to understand what you should be searching for next.

That is still progress.

The more context you build, the better your questions become. You begin recognising terminology. You start understanding how different concepts connect. Eventually, you are no longer researching blindly because you understand enough to know what matters.

AI Has Changed How We Figure Things Out

Artificial intelligence has made this process even more interesting.

We now have tools capable of explaining technical concepts in simpler language, helping us analyse information, summarising documentation, brainstorming possible approaches and giving us a starting point when we are completely unfamiliar with a subject.

That can be incredibly valuable.

Sometimes the hardest part of an unfamiliar task is simply not knowing where to begin. AI can shorten the distance between "I have absolutely no idea what this means" and "Okay, I understand enough to start asking the right questions."

But there is another side to that convenience.

The easier it becomes to receive an answer, the easier it becomes to stop questioning the answer.

AI can sound incredibly confident while still being wrong. It can misunderstand context, make assumptions or overlook something that would be obvious to someone who understands the business or technical environment. If we simply accept whatever it gives us, we may be moving faster without necessarily moving in the right direction.

That is why I do not think AI removes the need to figure things out. If anything, it makes that skill even more important.

There is a difference between asking AI to help you understand something and allowing AI to understand it on your behalf.

If I use an AI tool to explain something unfamiliar, I should ideally leave that interaction knowing more than I did before. I should understand the terminology better. I should have better questions. I should know what I need to verify and where the uncertainty still exists.

The goal should not be to become good at getting answers from AI. It should be to become better at thinking, researching and solving problems with AI as one of the tools available to us.

Technology can accelerate the learning process, but responsibility for judgement still belongs to us.

You Don't Have to Be the Most Technical Person in the Room

Working in technology can sometimes make you feel as though everyone around you speaks a language you are still learning.

This can be particularly noticeable when your role sits somewhere between the business and technical sides of an organisation. You may find yourself in conversations with software engineers, architects or other technical professionals who understand certain technologies at a depth that you simply do not.

I have had to remind myself that being surrounded by people who know more than me about a particular subject does not mean I have nothing valuable to contribute.

Different roles exist for a reason.

The engineer may understand how something should be built. The architect may understand how the different technical components need to work together. Someone else may understand the customer, the process, the requirement, the operational impact or the wider business problem that the technology is supposed to address.

Good technology is rarely created because one person knows absolutely everything. It is created when people with different expertise can understand enough of each other's worlds to work towards the same outcome.

That has also changed how I think about learning technical concepts. I do not necessarily need to become a software engineer to understand what an API does. I do not need to be a cloud expert to understand why architecture, security, reliability and scalability matter. I do not need to know how to write every line of code to understand that what looks like a small business requirement could have significant technical implications.

What I need is enough understanding to ask better questions, communicate clearly and recognise when I need to bring in somebody with deeper expertise.

There is a difference between knowing everything about technology and being technologically curious.

For many of us, the second may be far more useful.

Asking for Help Is Also Part of Figuring Things Out

There is sometimes an idea that being resourceful means being able to solve everything independently. I think that interpretation can actually make us less effective.

People are resources too.

A colleague may have spent years working with something you have just encountered for the first time. Someone from another part of the business may understand a process that is completely unfamiliar to you. A developer may be able to explain the technical consequence of a requirement that you would never have identified on your own.

There is no benefit in spending an entire day struggling with something that somebody could help you understand in ten minutes.

At the same time, there is value in trying to understand the problem before immediately handing it to somebody else. I am learning that the best questions usually come after you have done enough research to know exactly where your knowledge ends.

There is a big difference between saying, "I don't know how to do this. Can you do it?" and saying, "This is what I understand so far, this is what I have checked, this is what I think might be happening, but this is the part I am unsure about."

The second approach creates a much better conversation. It shows that you have engaged with the problem, and it gives the other person enough context to guide you rather than simply solving it for you.

Over time, those conversations build your own knowledge.

Something you needed somebody to explain six months ago may eventually become something you can explain to somebody else.

That is how experience grows.

And Then There Is Imposter Syndrome

This is probably the part of the conversation that feels most personal to me.

Sometimes the biggest obstacle to figuring something out is not the difficulty of the task itself. It is the story we start telling ourselves when we realise we do not know something.

I have experienced imposter syndrome, particularly when stepping into unfamiliar work or being around people who seem to know far more than I do. In technology, that feeling can become particularly convincing because there is always somebody who knows something you don't.

There will always be someone who has worked with a particular technology longer than you have. Someone who understands a system more deeply. Someone who can answer a technical question faster. Someone who seems completely comfortable using terminology you only recently learned.

When you are surrounded by that, it can become very easy to question yourself.

You hesitate before asking a question because you are worried that everyone else already knows the answer. You receive a new responsibility and, instead of thinking about how you are going to learn it, your first thought is whether you should have been trusted with it in the first place.

Suddenly, "I haven't done this before" becomes "I should already know how to do this."

Then "I should already know how to do this" becomes "Maybe I'm not as capable as people think I am."

That is where imposter syndrome becomes dangerous. It takes an ordinary gap in knowledge, something every person has, and turns it into a judgement about your entire ability.

You can have qualifications, experience and evidence of things you have already accomplished and still find yourself questioning whether you belong in a particular room. One unfamiliar conversation or one question you cannot answer can somehow feel more important than everything you already know.

I am learning that we have to challenge that way of thinking.

Not knowing something does not automatically mean you are unqualified.

Sometimes it simply means you have reached the edge of what you currently know.

And that is usually where learning begins.

We Compare Our Learning Stage With Someone Else's Experience

One of the things that feeds imposter syndrome is comparison.

You sit in a meeting and somebody answers a complicated question immediately. They sound confident and completely comfortable with the subject. Meanwhile, you are still trying to understand the terminology.

It is easy to look at that difference and conclude that they are simply more capable.

What we often forget is that we are comparing two completely different points in two different journeys.

You are seeing that person's knowledge today. You are not seeing the first time they encountered that technology. You are not seeing the documentation they had to read, the mistakes they made, the questions they asked, the people who taught them or the hours they spent trying to understand it.

We see someone's confidence after years of repetition and compare it to our uncertainty while we are still learning.

That comparison will almost always be unfair.

There is always going to be someone who knows more than you about something. There will also be subjects where you understand the context better than they do. That is part of working in multidisciplinary teams.

Being surrounded by people who know things you do not should not automatically make you feel smaller. It can also mean that you are surrounded by people you can learn from.

Rising Above Imposter Syndrome Does Not Mean Eliminating It

I do not think overcoming imposter syndrome means reaching a point where you never doubt yourself again.

There will probably always be moments when we question ourselves, particularly when we are growing. New responsibilities are uncomfortable because we have not mastered them yet. New environments make us more aware of what we do not know. Working with highly experienced people can make our own knowledge gaps feel much more visible.

The important part is learning not to let that feeling decide what we do next.

You can feel uncertain and still ask the question.

You can feel nervous and still take on the opportunity.

You can acknowledge that somebody knows more than you without deciding that their expertise means you have nothing valuable to contribute.

You can make a mistake without turning that mistake into evidence that you should never have tried.

For me, rising above imposter syndrome is less about forcing myself to think, "I know exactly what I'm doing," and more about learning to think, "I may not know this yet, but I trust myself to learn."

That is a much more realistic kind of confidence.

It leaves room for uncertainty without allowing uncertainty to become paralysis.

"I Don't Know" Is Not the Same as "I Can't Learn"

This distinction has become increasingly important to me.

When you say, "I don't know how to do this," you are describing your current knowledge.

When you say, "I can't do this," you are making a prediction about your ability.

Those are not the same thing.

There are probably countless things you understand today that once felt completely foreign. Think about a system you now use comfortably, a process you understand, terminology that once sounded complicated or a responsibility that initially made you nervous.

At some point, you did not know those things either.

Then you learned.

Maybe somebody taught you. Maybe you researched it. Maybe you used AI to help you understand the basics. Maybe you read documentation until it finally started making sense. Maybe you asked what now feels like an obvious question. Maybe you made a mistake and learned more from correcting it than you would have learned from getting it right immediately.

Eventually, the unfamiliar became familiar.

We often forget those moments because once something becomes part of our everyday knowledge, it becomes difficult to remember what it felt like not to understand it.

That is why I think one of the most useful words we can add to "I don't know" is yet.

I don't understand this yet.

I haven't worked with this technology yet.

I don't know how to do this yet.

It does not magically solve the problem, but it changes how you approach it. Instead of treating the gap as permanent, you recognise that there is something on the other side of it that can be learned.

Sometimes Growth Feels Like Being Underqualified

Professional growth sounds exciting when we talk about it from a distance. We speak about taking on more responsibility, expanding our skills, stepping outside our comfort zones and challenging ourselves.

What we do not always talk about is how uncomfortable that can feel while it is actually happening.

Growth often means being given something you have never done before. It means moving from being comfortable with your responsibilities to suddenly having questions again. It means entering conversations where other people know more than you. Sometimes it means making decisions without years of experience to rely on, and sometimes it means getting things wrong.

That can feel a lot like being underqualified.

Technology can amplify that feeling because the learning never really stops. Just as you become comfortable with one tool, another appears. Just as you begin understanding one area, you become exposed to another layer of complexity. AI is changing how people work. Cloud technologies continue evolving. Software development practices change. Businesses adopt new systems and new ways of operating.

There will always be something else to learn.

If we interpret that constant learning as proof that we are not capable enough, we will spend our entire careers feeling behind.

Perhaps a better way to see it is that continuous learning is simply part of working in an industry that continuously evolves.

Asking the "Obvious" Question Can Be Valuable

One habit I am trying to become more comfortable with is asking questions even when part of me worries that the answer might be obvious.

There is always that hesitation: What if everyone else already knows this?

Sometimes they do.

And that is okay.

You ask the question, someone answers it and now you know too.

But sometimes the supposedly obvious question reveals something much bigger. You discover that other people were wondering the same thing. You realise different people in the room had completely different interpretations of a requirement. You uncover an assumption that nobody had questioned because everyone thought somebody else understood it.

Questions such as "Why are we doing it this way?", "What happens after this?", "What are we actually trying to solve?" or even "Can you explain what that means in this context?" can create much more clarity than pretending to understand.

Technology already comes with enough complexity. We do not need to add another layer by being afraid to admit when something is unclear.

I would rather ask and understand than stay silent and continue working from the wrong assumption.

Figuring Things Out Includes Getting Things Wrong

There is another part of this skill that can be uncomfortable: sometimes you will research something, ask questions, build your understanding and still get it wrong.

That does not automatically mean the process failed.

Sometimes new information becomes available. Sometimes you misunderstood a requirement. Sometimes your original assumption seemed completely reasonable until someone with different expertise pointed out something you had not considered.

Being resourceful does not mean always reaching the correct answer on the first attempt.

It also means being willing to revisit your thinking.

There is strength in being able to say, "I misunderstood that," or "I need to go back and check this." There is value in changing your conclusion when new information changes your understanding of the problem.

This is especially important in technology, where incorrect assumptions can travel surprisingly far if nobody questions them.

The goal should not be to defend the first answer simply because we are embarrassed to admit it was wrong. The goal is to understand the problem better and reach the best outcome we reasonably can.

Mistakes can become part of that understanding if we are willing to learn from them.

Remember How Much You Have Already Figured Out

Imposter syndrome has a very selective memory.

It remembers the question you could not answer but forgets the ten you could. It remembers the meeting where you felt lost but forgets the conversation where you contributed something useful. It remembers the task you struggled with but forgets how many things you now do without thinking.

Sometimes it helps to deliberately look backwards.

Think about yourself a year ago. Think about the terminology, technologies, tools, processes or responsibilities you understand today that you did not understand then. Think about the things that once made you nervous but have now become part of your normal working day.

That progress matters.

It is evidence that you are capable of learning things you do not initially understand.

The next challenge may be harder. You may need more time. You may need help from people who know more than you do. You may even get something wrong before you get it right.

But you have figured things out before.

That matters when the voice in your head is trying to convince you that you cannot figure out the next thing.

Resourcefulness Builds a Different Kind of Confidence

I used to associate confidence with knowing what you are doing.

The more I work, the more I think there is another kind of confidence that may be far more useful: being comfortable enough with yourself to admit when you do not know something while still trusting your ability to find a way forward.

That confidence does not require you to be the most technical person in the room. It does not require you to have an immediate answer every time somebody asks a question. It does not require you to understand every new technology the moment you encounter it.

It comes from knowing that you have a process.

You can investigate. You can research. You can read the documentation. You can use AI to help you understand. You can ask questions. You can find somebody with more expertise. You can identify when something does not make sense. You can change direction when you realise you were wrong.

Most importantly, you can keep moving even when you do not have complete certainty.

Every time you successfully navigate an unfamiliar situation, you build a little more of that confidence. The next challenge may still intimidate you, but somewhere in the back of your mind is evidence that you have been confused before and eventually understood.

That is a much stronger foundation than pretending you will never be confused again.

The Skill That Keeps Growing With You

Technology is going to continue changing.

AI will evolve. New platforms will emerge. Cloud services will expand. Tools we rely on today may eventually be replaced. Businesses will change the way they operate, and the skills organisations need will continue shifting alongside them.

None of us can learn today everything we will need for the rest of our careers.

Trying to know everything is an impossible goal.

What we can develop is the ability to keep learning.

Knowing how to research travels with you.

Knowing how to ask good questions travels with you.

Knowing how to break a complicated problem into smaller pieces travels with you.

Knowing how to evaluate information, use technology intelligently, learn from other people and recognise when you need help travels with you.

Being curious enough to understand something outside your immediate role travels with you.

And perhaps most importantly, learning not to let the discomfort of not knowing stop you from learning travels with you too.

You Don't Need to Have All the Answers

I still experience imposter syndrome. I still encounter technical conversations, unfamiliar tasks and new concepts where my first reaction is some variation of, "I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do this."

I am starting to accept that this may never disappear completely, and perhaps it does not need to.

If I continue learning, taking on different responsibilities and exposing myself to unfamiliar problems, there will probably always be situations where I do not immediately know what to do.

What I want to change is what happens after that first moment of uncertainty.

Instead of treating it as proof that I am incapable, I can recognise it for what it is: there is something here that I do not understand yet.

Then I can start figuring it out.

I can research. I can read. I can ask questions. I can use AI and other tools to help me understand. I can speak to people who know more than I do. I can try to connect the technical information back to the business problem. I can make an attempt, realise that I misunderstood something, correct it and try again.

Sometimes I will figure it out quickly. Other times it will take much longer than I expected. Sometimes I will need help. Sometimes I will get it wrong before I get it right.

None of those things automatically mean I do not belong.

They mean I am learning.

Perhaps we need to stop measuring our competence by how rarely we say "I don't know" and start paying more attention to what we do after we say it.

Because being good at your job, particularly in a field that changes as quickly as technology, does not mean walking into every room already knowing everything. It means having enough curiosity to keep learning, enough humility to ask questions, enough judgement to question the answers you find and enough resilience to keep trying when something does not make sense the first time.

And when imposter syndrome inevitably whispers that everyone else has already figured it out, perhaps the answer does not need to be "I know everything too."

Maybe it can simply be:

I don't know everything. I don't need to. I can learn, I can ask, and I can figure things out.