The worse your ability, the more confident you are? Understanding these things when writing a plan will help you avoid taking detours

When you meet someone who "does not listen, cannot make sense, and is blindly confident", you feel powerless and depressed; you have obviously done a lot of planning, but now you feel lost in a fog... I wonder if you have encountered these difficulties and confusions on the road of planning. Let's read this article together. I hope the author's analysis of the growth curve of the planning path and suggestions for improving the cognitive path of planning can inspire you.

If you are working in the workplace, I believe you must have met this kind of people: they know that their level is very poor, but they don’t know where their confidence comes from. They always think that they occupy the high ground of wisdom, and they always like to point fingers and comment on others.

Especially when you encounter this kind of person when writing a plan, with that mysterious self-confidence, he won't make sense, he won't listen, he just does whatever he wants, it makes you want to just go up and slap him a few times!

Darwin said that ignorance is more likely to generate confidence than knowledge, and it is true.

In fact, this is a common cognitive bias phenomenon. People who lack ability are often unable to correctly recognize their own shortcomings. In other words, if you meet someone who is very poor at writing business plans but is very confident, don't get angry, this is a normal phenomenon!

Haha, don’t be dissatisfied. If you knew the “Dunning-Kruger Effect”, you would be relieved instantly.

1. The truth about the illusion of ability

Whether in life or at work, many people overestimate their true level. This cognitive bias of exaggerating self-assessment will lead to blind self-confidence. So, what is the truth behind the illusion of ability?

Cornell University psychologist David Dunning and his graduate student Justin Kruger studied this phenomenon and believe that people's growth paths or curves of understanding things are ups and downs.

In short, the growth curve has four levels: not knowing and not knowing, knowing and not knowing, knowing and knowing, and not knowing and knowing. It sounds like a tongue twister, but once you understand these four levels, you will open up your cognition.

1. I don’t know. I don’t know.

The so-called ignorance is fearlessness, because you don't know anything, so you think you know everything. The planning proposal you wrote is rubbish, but you still feel good about yourself, because you are at the peak of ignorance.

People at this stage are, of course, full of confidence, and feel that their planning skills have reached the peak. They even often laugh at others, give comments on other people's plans, and look down on other people's cases, without realizing that they are just a frog in a well.

2. Do you know?

Most people will not stay at the peak of ignorance forever. As their experience increases or after they encounter many setbacks, they will find that "there are people better than you and there are things better than you". They will finally realize that they don't know, and their previous mysterious self-confidence will gradually collapse.

As you come into contact with more and more clients, write more and more proposals, or have more contact with other people in the marketing circle, you will find that you are the clown and your previous proposals were actually very poor.

Planners at this stage will constantly experience feelings of inferiority.

3. Know Know

If you are a person who accepts your fate and always thinks you are a nobody, then when you realize you don’t know anything, you will fall into the abyss of escape, either stagnating or changing careers. If you are a motivated person, your desire for knowledge will grow as your confidence collapses, and you will bounce back after experiencing the valley of despair.

By studying other people's plans, learning marketing knowledge, etc., you can continuously improve your planning ability, understand your own shortcomings, and be clear about what planning knowledge you have mastered. Keep learning and practicing, and rebuild your confidence in planning.

This process is actually a process of continuous growth, which is also the slope of enlightenment.

4. I don't know. I know.

There is a saying that "it is important for a person to know himself". If you know the level of your own abilities, you will keep working hard, constantly going through the process of building up self-confidence and then losing it, solving various obstacles on your path to growth, repeatedly rebuilding your cognition to expand your cognitive scope and improve your planning ability.

The Dunning-Kruger effect actually reflects a curve of self-growth, which is not limited to planning or a certain profession.

Therefore, we should not be confused by the current sense of superiority. We should learn to accurately understand ourselves and accurately assess our abilities, especially planners. To some extent, we are selling cognition. If our own cognitive scope is very small, then what is the point of planning?

2. How to improve planning awareness

After understanding the truth about the illusion of ability, it is not difficult to understand that the most terrifying thing about people is not ignorance, but the belief that they know everything. No matter how powerful a person is, he or she has his or her own cognitive boundaries, and what we need to do is to keep learning and expand our cognitive boundaries.

Specifically speaking of planning, I think that in order to continuously improve planning awareness, the following three points should be achieved:

1. Passion for power generation

Life is always full of ups and downs. If you understand the Dunning-Kruger effect, you will know that a person's path to growth is not smooth and will always experience ups and downs. If you don't have enough passion for planning this matter, you may become discouraged after several attempts to start over or to be burned to death.

The passion for generating electricity means turning that passion into motivation to persevere, so as not to be defeated by small obstacles on the road of planning.

If you encounter obstacles, you can change your perspective or thinking to find a way out. Einstein said that you cannot do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. The passion for generating electricity is to persevere in order to seek different results.

2. Join a circle

There is no need to say more about this. Joining the corresponding circle can quickly obtain valuable information at the lowest cost, which can be said to be twice the result with half the effort. Joining the industry circle is to narrow the information gap and find your own path to rapid advancement with the help of the circle aggregation effect.

Planners can join some high-quality resource circles and communication circles to obtain effective information on a daily basis, and should not let their attention and concentration be occupied by blind information.

3. Be present in the present moment

Every past and future is made up of the present. In other words, the present is the only thing we can grasp. We must set future goals and review past lessons, but more importantly, we must grasp the current opportunities, make good use of the current state, and do the current things well on this basis.

Many people always regard the proposal they have to write as a task, or simply think that they are wasting their time. In fact, no matter what you think, if this proposal must be written, it is better to regard it as a test of your planning level, or another case in your career. If you hold this mentality, I believe the results will be very different.

Otherwise, it would be a waste of time and emotional energy, so why bother?

Being present in the present moment means not wasting any of your time and emotions, and maximizing your growth. Your education, career background, and even mistakes you have made are all part of your value.

When faced with questions about the high price of the 30-second advertisement, the famous Indian director Tarsim Singh directly responded: What you paid for is not only the time I spent as a director, but also every sip of wine I have ever drunk, every cup of coffee I have ever tasted, every meal I have ever eaten, every book I have ever read, every chair I have sat on, every love affair I have had, and every place I have ever been.

What you are buying are 30 seconds that are transformed from the essence of my entire life. How can it not be expensive?

Now that you understand the growth curve and the path to improving planning cognition, if you want to pursue a long-term planning career, all you have to do is to continuously build your own knowledge system, expand your thinking cognition, and maintain long-term input and output. Come on, young man!

Author: Little Monk Kunkun

WeChat public account: Marketing Zen Academy (ID: mandcx)