Becoming more aware of your competence in a given matter is more important than you think.
Let me explain:
Picture a new crypto investor who just made BIG money in his first week.
He is still not aware of the ups and downs and understanding of market conditions that an expert investor might understand.
In that intention, the new investor might be more confident in his abilities than an experienced investor.
As a result, he will overestimate his own competence, leading to inevitable bad decision-making (and an empty bank account).
This phenomenon happens in every skill out there, say, learning a language, coding, playing an instrument, teaching, writing, etc.
Having a better sense of our competence and knowledge is a skill. And a skill can be developed.
Let’s dive in:
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Justin Kruger and David Dunning first described this cognitive bias in 1999.
Those with limited knowledge of a subject often struggle to recognize their own mistakes or gaps in understanding. These blind spots can lead to a false sense of confidence.
The less they know about world history, the more certain they are of their knowledge of history…
The less they know about logic, the more confident they are in their logic skills…
The less they understand about playing the guitar, the more confident they are in their guitar skills…
If you plotted competence and confidence, you might come up with something like this:
Why does this matter?
Well, two reasons.
First, this means that confidence can’t be trusted .
The expert is often more humble in his own competence because he is well aware that there is still much that we don’t know.
In contrast, the beginner’s confidence is simply because the beginner lacks awareness of the things that he still doesn’t know.
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”
Second, it means that when learning anything new, it’s important to incorporate into our decision-making that our initial confidence is an overestimate of our own abilities. Or, put simply, to avoid doing something stupid.
Bringing it home
The less we know about something, the more confident we are, because we aren’t aware that there’s still plenty that we don’t know.
It would be natural to assume that competence and confidence go together, but as it turns out, humans are terrible at evaluating their own abilities.
Choose one insight from today and take action on it.
It’s always an honor to be in your inbox.
Stay curious,
— Idris Moura
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In case you missed it, here’s your chance to catch up on last week’s essay about → Are you an ‘insecure overachiever’? (1 strategy for beating perfectionism)
