When You Know you Don’t Know
When working with a wizard in all things technical, and who has the cognitive ability to figure things out by trial and error, I realize, when making this blog, for example, I simply don’t know what I don’t know. And I know I don’t know sh*t about this process. I DO know how to post a blog – see – I’m doing it – my wizard friend and TechMeister taught me this, and I was able to GROK it. Hey remember the word GROK? That dates me, eh?
So the appearance of this blog, does not look the way I want it to. But I do understand creating content is MORE IMPORTANT than how it looks. So here I am creating some content.
As an animal communicator, I DO want this blog to look professional so those that click on it have confidence it’s not some clown who just thinks they can ‘hear what your pet has to say’. Although I have a wicked sense of humor, I don’t apply it when I’m seriously tuning into a client’s animal.
In my endless quest to learn myself how to choose and uses a simple WP template – things go awry and I spend hours doing/redoing/undoing what I just thought I did – and sometimes it’s like re-inventing the wheel. I’m not studying to be a blog designer, and that’s not my livelihood. But I do want a nice looking blog, and ‘everyone professional says’ – USE WORDPRESS. I know how to use Blogger – why not Blogger? Is it not trendy? Is Google’s Blogger going out? I also know that Google owns your blogs on Blogger and YOU own your blogs on WordPress. Now that’s something.
So I’m duking it out and in my research I ask questions. And on Reddit, I’m finding a bunch of people just like me, with no skills in this regard. Hey, a figure skater who’s been skating since aged 4 can make it look easy – but go ahead and try to stay upright and even do a spin, graceful of not – and you know which part of your body you will land on. HINT: It’s not on the outside edge of your blades. A person on Reddit in the know introduced the Dunning-Kreuger effect. So I’m listing that here, because I have most of these traits – although the trait I DON’T have, is pretending to know something I don’t. With no further adieu, here’s the skinny on the Dunning-Kreuger effect:
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- Unconscious incompetence: When someone doesn’t know what they don’t know
- Conscious incompetence: When someone is aware of their limitations but hasn’t learned how to improve
- Conscious competence: When someone is actively learning and gaining knowledge
- Unconscious incompetence: When someone doesn’t know what they don’t know
- Unconscious competence: When someone has mastered a subject so well that they may forget how much they know
Examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect
- Feeling confident in an area even though you have little experience
- Being quick to offer advice without fully understanding a problem
- Being unaware of your own limitations
1- I am personally aware of my limitations.
2- I don’t feel confident with technicalities like blog design even though I have experience making all kinds of mistakes, wiping out my progress and starting over, and trying not to pull out my hair (and no, it’s not gray like the illustration)
3- I KNOW when to ask for help, beg for help, pester my tech wizard for help and then make popcorn and watch a movie when I’m at the end of my tether.
4- I actually don’t think I have any of the above listed traits of the Dunning-Kreuger effect, but I AM trying to be CONSCIOUSLY COMPETENT, which is the 3rd stage mentioned in the listing of this effect.
