Can I chime in on this?
Riyah, I take a lot of pride in how good I am at this game (and yet I'm aware there are others who are "better") because of how hard I've worked behind the scenes. Or even right there in front of others. When I wanted to clear Turn 5 (Second Coil was current by then), and absolutely no one in my FC was interested in it, I went out to find others who also wanted to do it. And I dragged them in there so many times for so many tries and failures that when we did clear it, they were thanking me for teaching them. I wasn't even aware that through repeated attempts with a group that became dear friends to me, I was actually teaching them what I wanted to learn and clear so badly.
Healing? I told my FC mates to put me through "hell runs" while I was leveling. Make it as difficult as possible for me without intentionally trying to wipe. As a result, I really just have no sense of panic as a healer anymore (and this actually ISN'T always a good thing). In the heat of even the worst moments, I can maintain a calm and still keep healing so long as I'm able.
As for PvP, setting my reckless and sometimes overly-excitable nature aside, I do a lot of what I do to challenge my own limits. Why was I the moron running AT the cannons in Rival Wings on day 1? So that I could learn their firing speed and start dodging cannon fire. Why did I stand my ground and fight the jobs/players people said I couldn't beat? So that I could learn to beat them. Sometimes it was just being stubborn in the face of adversity, but it made me tenacious and capable of standing toe to toe with them.
I said that to illustrate that it's not that some of us see things as being easy overall, but that when we were faced with something difficult, we didn't shy away from it or limit ourselves by simply saying it was difficult and that was it. We pushed. We learned. We tried and failed. And failed. And failed. Then we finally got it. And once you've got it, you're good. And that's really just it. Look at the "Ultimate" raiders. What do they do? They try repeatedly, and fail repeatedly. Learning, refining, pushing, til they get it. THAT is the truth of high level anything. Sure, some people are just good and don't have to try as hard, but everybody works. Everybody has to. Success is that defining line between whether you learned and kept trying, or whether you gave up and accepted you couldn't do it.