Thanks for raising this topic Scott especially the fact that the feeling of conscience incompetence never seems to go away! I personally have got a lot of value looking at the Dunning-Kruger effect, especially the metacognition involved in evaluating your own competency. It seems it's possible to both wildy overestimate your competence in the early stages of skill acquisition and also wildly underestimate your competence later. That is, all things being equal, the external marker that is the belt accurately represents the skill set of the belt holder, regardless of how you might feel about it from day to day! Comparing yourself to your training partners doesn't help - as a wise man once said to me - we're all on the same elevator, only those further up started earlier. I could go on - why some people seem to get better faster, while others grind away in the minor leagues for years. But I will leave you with a quote from Judo founder Jigaro Kano that you've probably heard but is worth recalling: “It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday.”
Thanks Stephen, I'll definitely be checking out the Dunning-Kruger effect. BJJ is a multifaceted skill that tends to attract a lot of intelligent people and, like most intelligent people, we get upset when we don't learn something fast enough.
I have found the idea of a "Growth Mindset" as opposed to a "Fixed Mindset" a helpful antidote to my own hubris. I recommend the book "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. It's helped me to overcome my own fixed mindset in a number of domains, not just BJJ.
Thanks for raising this topic Scott especially the fact that the feeling of conscience incompetence never seems to go away! I personally have got a lot of value looking at the Dunning-Kruger effect, especially the metacognition involved in evaluating your own competency. It seems it's possible to both wildy overestimate your competence in the early stages of skill acquisition and also wildly underestimate your competence later. That is, all things being equal, the external marker that is the belt accurately represents the skill set of the belt holder, regardless of how you might feel about it from day to day! Comparing yourself to your training partners doesn't help - as a wise man once said to me - we're all on the same elevator, only those further up started earlier. I could go on - why some people seem to get better faster, while others grind away in the minor leagues for years. But I will leave you with a quote from Judo founder Jigaro Kano that you've probably heard but is worth recalling: “It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday.”
Thanks Stephen, I'll definitely be checking out the Dunning-Kruger effect. BJJ is a multifaceted skill that tends to attract a lot of intelligent people and, like most intelligent people, we get upset when we don't learn something fast enough.
I have found the idea of a "Growth Mindset" as opposed to a "Fixed Mindset" a helpful antidote to my own hubris. I recommend the book "Mindset" by Carol Dweck. It's helped me to overcome my own fixed mindset in a number of domains, not just BJJ.