Psychology

I have a deep appreciation for mastery. It takes an extraordinary amount of time and effort to become truly masterful at something. It doesn’t matter so much what that thing is, whether it’s a sport, a musical instrument, a language–spoken, written, or programming computers. The path to mastery is the same: it demands time, practice, sweat, tears, trials, tribulations, and a whole lot of hard work.

Forming habits is surprisingly easy. Breaking them is often less difficult than we initially believe, with notable exceptions like nicotine addiction, which is notoriously challenging to overcome. I read Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, which despite its verbosity, presents a solid core concept: begin with small, manageable actions and gradually build until behaviors become automatic. The inverse applies to breaking habits—quitting abruptly frequently fails, while incremental reduction often proves more effective.

Rejection delivers a particular kind of sting that transcends context and circumstance. Whether or not it becomes easier to handle with age and experience remains an open question—the anticipation of rejection rarely prepares us for its emotional impact when it actually occurs. I’ve developed a certain expertise in rejection through abundant experience. I’ve been rejected by educational institutions, potential employers, friends, family members, and romantic partners. I’ve faced rejection from people I’ve deeply admired and respected, people I’ve loved and trusted, and even complete strangers.

Okay, the title is clickbait, and I am ashamed of that. So, I’ll give you the bottom line up front: the Dunning-Kruger effect is (in my experience) spot-on, and even though it’s a bit of a pop psychology trope these days, I’ve encountered this effect countless times. There’s a fascinating interplay between Dunning-Kruger and imposter syndrome where these two psychological phenomena can work together in surprisingly complex ways.

The most challenging relationships I’ve experienced, both personal and professional, have involved highly neurotic individuals. By neuroticism, I mean a tendency toward emotional instability—characterized by inconsistency, excessive anxiety, disproportionate reactions to minor issues, and sometimes aggressive responses to everyday stressors. Understanding Neuroticism # Neuroticism exists on a spectrum. A moderate level of concern about potential problems can be productive—it helps us prepare and plan. But when these feelings become overwhelming or trigger reactions that damage relationships, they cross into problematic territory.

In Daniel Kahneman’s influential book Thinking, Fast and Slow, he presents a compelling model of how our minds work: we have two distinct systems for thinking. System 1 operates automatically, quickly, with little effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to effortful mental activities, including complex computations and deliberate choice-making.

Lies are easy. It’s easy to pretend your problems are someone else’s fault. It’s easy to pretend when things don’t go your way, that it’s the other party’s fault. We tell ourselves many lies to get through the day. Being honest is very challenging, and it’s especially hard to be honest with ourselves.

It’s easy to preach, but it’s hard to be congruent with whatever philosophies you espouse. Certainly there are people who do as they say they do, but I suspect the majority of those who (like myself) write blog posts on self-help themes don’t practice much of what they preach. Consider fitness gurus. People who tend to be physically fit are often that way not just because they work hard, but because they’ve won the genetic lottery in some way. Research suggests that fitness outcomes are influenced by genetics anywhere from 40-70%, with one twin study finding that genetic factors account for 47-80% of fitness trait variation. My unscientific observations align with this research.

Life is a series of random walks. Even if you walk the same path every day (in the literal sense), your individual steps on every walk you take are essentially random, and for the most part you aren’t even conscious of them because this is handled by muscle memory. When I say the steps are random, what I mean is that if you could precisely measure every step you take—where your foot lands, how much force you apply with your individual muscles—the data would reveal a pattern from a statistical perspective, but each individual step would follow a normal random distribution. In fact, research on human gait variability confirms this, with studies showing that step-to-step fluctuations follow statistical patterns characteristic of complex systems.

I remember when my first serious girlfriend broke up with me decades ago. Her chief complaint revolved around some recent incident, the details of which have faded from memory, but our conversation remains vivid. I pleaded with her, explaining how she was clouded by recency bias—focusing on the recent negative experience while overlooking all our positive history together.