tl;dr<p>It&#x27;s clear that it&#x27;s a psychological thing. If I were you, I would go watch &#x27;Good Will Hunting&#x27; movie (and watch it again if I think I had already watched it) and substitute Hunting&#x27;s negative &#x27;personal experience&#x27; with &#x27;mathematics related experience&#x27; and assume that I&#x27;m &#x27;Will Hunting&#x27; (while watching the movie :-).<p>Comment<p>---<p>My personal experience is little different. I didn&#x27;t have any negative experience&#x2F;memory when I was learning mathematics (and science) at school; instead, I always felt comfortable with any STEM related course&#x2F;subject. But I had a very miserable  experience when I had to learn English as a second language[1] at school.<p>At that time, I started strongly believing in the idea that no matter what I do, I will never be able to learn English as ESL as it always felt like an alien subject (literally :-)) and there was nothing I can use to get a handle on it. No wonder, I felt nervous and hopeless in my English classes.<p>Somehow I was able to reach college (in my country it corresponds to the grade 11-12 of high school education in most western countries) with shear brute force[2]. In the 11th grade, for the very first time, I had an English language teacher who gave me some <i>hope</i> that one can learn and overcome all language related problems. Though he only taught English literature (which can be more intimidating when one is at beginners&#x27; level with lots of self-doubts and anxiety), his teaching style was really inspiring[3] and it changed my whole perspective about learning a new language. Later on, I realized that it wasn&#x27;t my (or other students who couldn&#x27;t afford tuition fees of private ESL teachers) faults that couldn&#x27;t learn the language, it was the teachers&#x27; fault as they were not really qualified to be English language teachers, at the very first place.<p>Now I feel quite comfortable with English language[4] and afore-mentioned story is only a memory now, one from the distant past.<p>---<p>1- to be precise, it was my third language I had to learn at school in a non-English-speaking country; I lived in a deprived part of the country and had a financially humble background.<p>2- memorized anything English related to get into the next class and didn&#x27;t let any English language related handicaps stop my progress.<p>3- at-least that&#x27;s how I felt at that time. I distinctly remember, some of the students, I personally knew, were only finding insignificant flaws in his English language related skills.<p>4- I&#x27;m very far away from being an expert in English language but I&#x27;m very happy with my progress I&#x27;ve made till now.