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The Dunning Kruger effect tells us that novices in any given field will be overconfident in rating their skills because they don’t know what they don’t know.
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The Dunning Kruger effect also tell us that masters will understatement their skills because they know how much they don’t know.
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Not knowing what you don’t know is a benefit when starting something new because you don’t know how difficult it might be; if you did, you may never start.
When my wife Megan and I were pregnant with our first child, everyone with kids began giving us advice for how to manage our lives with a newborn. Here we are staring at the most monumental event in our lives as a couple and everyone we talked to said it was going to be harder than we can even imagine. “You won’t have any time for yourself” “you won’t get any sleep” “you think your job is hard now…” and so on.
We ignored these well-intentioned horror stories because we had a game plan. We were levelheaded, well education, had jobs, a cute little house in south Minneapolis, had shared and supported one another through exciting and difficult times. We watched our nieces and nephews and spent time with friends who had kids. I grew up around kids because my mom worked in early childhood education my entire life. So why was everyone giving us advice? They were the ones who needed advice. Their lives were mess!
At night when we looked through lists of baby names and quietly critiqued everyone who told us it would be difficult, noting their shortcomings, and although they weren’t bad parents, we would do better. Much better. We would travel with our little newborn, excel in our careers, and prove everyone wrong. Because we knew our lives weren’t going to change much.
And before we knew it, we were parents and it was more difficult than we could ever imagine, far worse than anyone warned us (why didn’t anyone tell us it would be this hard?!). No one in our house got a full night’s sleep for eight months, while rocking our fussy baby I looked up WWII sleep torture techniques and found that they were almost identical to having a newborn. Every day we thought we made mistakes that would require our child to seek professional help when they were older. We got behind at work and the only ones who gave us a break were people who had kids and knew what we were going through. We traveled to Seattle over the holidays with our then 5-month-old and was “that couple with a crying baby on the airplane”. Being a parent wasn’t anything like babysitting. Being a parent wasn’t like anything we knew. It was so hard, and what made it so hard was we didn’t know what we didn’t know, and when people tried to explain it to us, it didn’t register because it was too far over our heads. We didn’t have the foundational knowledge to put their well-meaning advice in context, so we took it as a critique of our preparedness to being parents.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect explains why we aren’t great at judging our own skills. Over 100 studies have found that those with the least ability are often the most likely to overrate their skills, rating themselves as high as true experts rate themselves. The reason being, a novice doesn't know what they don't know. As someone learns more about a topic, they learn how much they don't know.
So, being a parent was just as difficult as everyone warned, maybe more so, but the difficulties (and advice) can only truly be understood once you live through them and had the experience to draw on. And we did. We still are. And with time and practice, we have adapted and couldn’t think of our lives without kids, and even learned ways to apply our well-meaning friends and family’s advice. With kids, I was forced to manage my time because I only have so many hours I can work each day. In doing so, I am two or three times more productive than I was without kids. I have cut out the things that drain energy from my life (mindlessly scrolling social media, for example), and enjoy the breaks I have to write, spend time with my Megan, or go for a run. Having kids has made me appreciate my life because there is so little time for myself.
One more example. When I started a publishing company, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and I can only admit it now that I’ve been doing it for nearly five years. What I didn’t know (and didn’t know that I didn’t know) was what it was going to be like breaking into the small press publishing scene, that there was a scene, how complicated it was, and the (mis)expectations authors had when publishing a book (including my own misexpectations!). I didn’t know much about ISBNs, copyrights, contracts, printing books, distribution, royalties, how to start a company in my state, why some publishers are nonprofits, how to file my taxes, what to do when someone threatens to sue me, how to manage payments through a webstore, how to get a business bank account, how to set up a website, how to write a synopsis, how to reach out to reviewers, how to ask for a blurb, who the gatekeepers ever are to get books on those funky internet lists, how to get a cover designed and how to hire someone to lay the book out, and wtf is Goodreads? BUT I did know how to edit a manuscript and I had been through the publishing process once before. I had worked with editors and managed writers. Admittedly, that was a lot to bank on, but the love for writing and helping others with their writing was enough for me to face all the unexpected challenges.
I’ve collected what I learn into a class, and when I teach the class I draw on experience and try not to scare anyone off (if that’s even possible). If I were to tell people starting a publishing company is really really hard and relay some difficult situations I’ve encountered along the way, most would say “there’s no way it can be that hard, you’re probably doing it wrong, you’re out of touch and part of the old wave—I know what people want and I’m the new wave, watch me do it my way” (teenagers, anyone?) This is the typical response no matter if it’s starting a publishing venture, becoming a parent, forming a new company, or doing anything new (see also: new college graduates… see also: college drops outs). It’s exactly what I did, and here’s the kicker, it's exactly what you should do. If we as a species didn’t have confidence in our abilities when we were first starting out and fully knew how difficult embarking on something new would be, no one would start anything!
Even when you don’t know what to expect, or what new challenges you’ll face, every curveball will be an opportunity to learn something new, to learn what you don’t know (and didn’t know you didn’t know), and help you prepare for the future. An expert will tell you that you’ll never stop learning, because every door you open, there is always a hallway of doors behind it. But that shouldn’t frighten you, and if you’re just starting out, it won’t ;-)
Originally published on sustainableevolution.com on 22 June 2022.