Welcome to the Smarter Living newsletter. Editor Tim Herrera emails readers with tips and advice for living a better, more fulfilling life. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
One of my favorite story arcs from my favorite TV show, “30 Rock,” is that of Jon Hamm’s character, Dr. Drew Baird.
When we meet Drew, he’s a successful doctor, an enthusiastic home chef and a kindhearted animal lover who seems perfect for Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon.
Alas, we eventually learn that all of Drew’s success and “talents” are nonsense: He has skated through life on his incredible good looks — this is Jon Hamm, after all — and was living in “the bubble.” No one ever told him that as a doctor he should know the Heimlich maneuver, or that he couldn’t use Gatorade in recipes, so he assumed he was doing all of those things perfectly.
Sadly, we are all just as bad at assessing our skills and abilities, and like Drew, we don’t even realize it. But there’s a solution, and we’ll get to that.
Continue reading the main storyResearch has shown that we humans are generally pretty awful at assessing our own competence and abilities, which in turn leads us to overestimate them — a phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
The effect creates a vicious loop that boils down to this: The less skilled you are at something, the less likely you are to recognize how unskilled you truly are, and thus you overestimate your abilities. Worse still, because you can’t see your errors, you’ll never know you need to correct. (If this all sounds familiar, you’ve probably heard of the classic study in which 80 percent of surveyed drivers ranked their driving skills as “above average.” Noodle on that one.)
Conversely, the better we get at something, the likelier we are to see how much more we can improve, which can sometimes lead us to underestimate ourselves. Similarly, those who are exceptionally skilled at something can sometimes think everyone else is at that level, making them unaware of how exceptional their abilities are. Think: Impostor syndrome.
We all do this! It’s simply in our nature, so it’s not a behavior meant to deceive others or to unreasonably prop up our own ego. In the influential study that first examined this phenomenon in 1999, researchers found that once people realize how bad they are at something, they’ll readily cop to it and want to improve.
So what can we do to stop embarrassing ourselves with, say, our awful French if we don’t know how awful it is? Research suggests two routes to enlightenment.
First, ask for feedback. It’s not easy, and it can sometimes be tough to hear, but outside input is crucial to shining a light on your blind spots. Here are some tips for getting and giving better feedback.
Second, keep learning. The more knowledgeable you are about something, the more you’re able to identify the gaps in your own understanding of it.
Now excuse me while I go ask for feedback about writing newsletters. (Here’s a leap of faith: Tell me on Twitter at @timherrera how I’m doing!)
Have a great week!
—Tim
P.S — The Times is launching a new newsletter called The Week in Good News, written by Des Shoe. It’s focused on — wait for it — good news! It will come out every Saturday morning, sending you into the weekend with a smile (or at least a lighter heart). Subscribe here!
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