Once upon a time, there was a student named Carol, who was taking a class called Systems Programming. Although Carol thought of herself as smart, she didn't have much background in computer science, and she struggled long, emotionally exhausting hours working on the assignments. Her class was filled mostly with men, many of whom liked to throw around technical jargon she didn't know. One of the other students, a young man named "Joe" with a strong background in CS, seemed to find the class downright easy. At the end of the semester, she mentioned to her professor that she wasn't sure she was cut out for computer science. After all, it seemed like she didn't know nearly as much as students like "Joe." Her professor said: "You got a better final grade than he did."
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I'm telling you this story because Carol is my mother, and she made sure to drill it into my head (love you Mom!) because she wanted me not to fall prey to the same lack of confidence and anxiety which she felt.
There are these myths that people who are good at quantitative subjects are geniuses, that they achieve "effortless perfection." But the reality is, everyone who does math has to work hard at it. Yeah, even the ones who act like it's a breeze.
Math is an open playground. If you see someone swinging along the monkey bars, don't be afraid she possesses some magical "monkey bar genius" that you lack. She learned how to do it through practice, and so can you.
(And furthermore, while you weren't looking, she fell off. And picked herself back up and tried again.)
