The Prideful Trap Of Progress
Progress.
Aiming toward something.
Seeing results.
In any vocation or craft for many just the pursuit of becoming better is enough, for a few this becomes poisonous to the ego. Why you ask?
Two concepts.
Dunning Kruger.
4 Stages of Competence.
Dunning Kruger Effect
The ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ mentality.
Simple to understand, the more we delve in to something the more there is to learn. This is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter, better and more capable than reality.
What it is saying in laymen’s terms…low ability individuals do not currently possess the skills to reveal their own incompetence.
Four Stages of Competence
If you imagine the bottom being ignorance and the top being the pursuit of mastery OR being highly adept. The art of recognising that there is more to learn.
First you are unaware of anything, then you become aware, then you struggle with learning and applying until it is second nature.
Why are these two concepts so important?
Simple. Ego.
Poorly assessing where you are in comparison to your peers, outside world can leave disastrous effects when intellectual debate or discourse inevitably arises. Instead of speaking from points that are grounded in formative data or a rich experience? These individuals tend to speak from their limited anecdotal information present to them.
Now it is not to say they are wrong in their expression but to highlight that the intuition and analysis combined with their confidence will impact how open they are to points outside of which disagree with them.
What can I do to avoid these pitfalls?
In any debate, discussion or expressing your points to a wider audience it would be wise to first ask yourself some key questions (just 3).
1. Am I speaking from a place of research and data or purely anecdotal evidence?
2. Could there we another side that I do not know of/unaware of?
3. Where does my confidence in this subject/expertise come from?
Through the exploration and the self discovery these questions provide it will position you in an advantageous situation to become more sensitive to when you are allowing your ego to do the talking for you.
All of this to check ‘check’ yourself regularly.
Be Super
