You're trying to replicate on demand, at the last minute, the discipline, focus, and maturity that the others have gained and heavily practiced over the same years that you apparently spent fooling around. It has nothing to do with intelligence, really. Self comparisons and value judgements are pretty useless when all you really need to do is put in the time required to achieve your goals. You may have to accept that it's just going to take longer to get where you want to be because you lost some time. Ultimately, I'd rather be the new you, getting wiser about life, instead of the old you patting yourself on the back about how smart you are but getting nowhere.