Have you heard about the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It has been my motivation towards learning for years.
When I am first start to learn Excel back in ancient time, I felt really helpless like I am never going to figure how does it work. Apart from using SUM() instead of +, I literally know nothing at all.
Later in my learning journey, I learned Index Match and vlookup. I started gaining some confidence and being able to substitute manual calculation with different formulas.
When I learned pivot table and slicer, I felt like I can do everything with Excel. I am so self-absorbed and even started bragging about my Excel skills in job interviews. I put proficient in Excel in my resume. Haha. Who else did the same? Fortunately, no one really challenged me during those job interviews or I could be really embarrassed. Seriously, if anyone ever asked me about array formula, I would have dug a hole and jumped right into it.
There comes the day I learned about VBA. It totally opened my eyes. I felt really dumb for not knowing this earlier. All the time I have been doing my calculation could be a waste of time compared with the automation ability VBA gives. My confidence sunk. I was such a newbie to coding. Things like “dim” “set” could easily bury my motivation to learn Excel. Fortunately, I didn’t give up.
And I found out about this theory. Your confidence is not positively related to your competence. This has actually motivated me a lot.
