Unknown Unknowns

This past week there was a five part series on a phenomenon called Anosognosia in the New York Times by Errol Morris. Anosognosia is the term used for people who have a brain injury that causes paralysis AND also leaves them unaware of the paralysis. This is interesting because when you ask someone with this condition to move their paralyzed limb they will simply give you a reason why they do not need to, rather than say "oh you know I can't do that, it's paralyzed." The question for psychiatrists is whether this is part of the injury or some other deeply ingrained defense mechanism. So far the jury is still out.

This got me thinking about ways in which we are unaware of things as well. Don Rumsfeld, several years ago used the phrase "Unknown Unknowns." Some people scoffed at the usage but it has important ramifications, especially in our everyday life. We operate under three conditions:
Known - Knowns; which is the stuff we are aware of and know fully.
Known - Unknowns; which is stuff we are aware of but have no knowledge about (like how to fly a plane or perform brain surgery)
Unknown - Unknowns; these are things in which we aren't even aware of their existence AND we don't know that we are unware of them. A good example of this I think comes from the banking industry. Prior to 2008 few people had heard of a credit default swap and didn't know they'd never heard of it. That is an unknown unknown. Once we heard of it, it became a known unknown. Another exmaple; remember as a child when you first began school. You knew there was such a thing as the alphabet and math but you were very likely unaware of calculus, nor were you aware that you were unaware of it. At some point during middle school or high school the word and concept became known to you, etc.

So what does this all mean? Most of our day is spent operating within the parameters of known knowns, and known unknowns. Sometimes we turn those unknowns (perhaps learning to fly a plane) into a known. But we are often completely oblivious to the fact that we could randomly learn about something that we currently have no idea of it's existence. Sounds confusing? It doesn't need to be. When we find out about something years later (like those default swaps) we say, "why didn't I know that?" or "I can't believe I trusted that guy with my money!" But rather than experiencing guilt or anger at the unknown unknown, it's important to recognize that at the time you made a decision, you made it with all the knowledge that was available to you at that time.

My challenge to you now is, seek out an unknown unknown. How can you do that? In many ways in fact and the internet is a wonderful place to start. Choose a phrase or a period in history or subject like Physics and do a search. You are bound to come across something that makes you think "I never knew that, and I never knew I didn't know it." You can make this journey of discovery fun. Be open, be in learner mode and you'll begin to recognize when something goes from being an unknown unknown to a known unknown and ultimately a known known.

link to the NYT article: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/?scp=1&sq=anosognosia&st=cse

Expectations...

I was interviewd this week by tennis and mental toughness coach Ed Tseng. We talked about expectations. Expectations are an interesting thing because we live by them very often and more often they are the source of our stress. We either live up to them or we do not, other's live up to ours or they do not. We tend to forgive our friends and family for not living up to our expectations but we are often much harder on ourselves. This goes back to self compassion and self kindness. Are you creating realistic expectations for yourself? Are you being honest about the results of living up to them?

It's important to set goals for yourself and create expectations around those goals. These could be small goals such as daily living endeavors, clean the house, do the laundry, meet with your boss or employees, etc. They could be more future oriented goals such as complete a project and ask for a raise, lose weight, or things of that nature. But what are you saying to yourself in the event that one of these expectations is not met? Are you spending energy on self judgment, name calling, or ruminating on what you did? If you are, then you are being extremely unkind to yourself. When you expend all that energy on the negative, "I'm stupid, why did I do it that way, I can't believe I said that..." you are no longer in a goal reaching state of mind and you've now created a new set of expectations for yourself "I expect to fail!"

Instead, be in "learner mode." Be open and honest about the situation and be ready to create a plan around re-establishing your goal and new expectations about how to reach it. Spending time punishing yourself is using energy and brain power that could be used toward creating a new and better result. So first determine if you are setting realistic expectations for yourself. Then ask yourself if it's useful to beat yourself up or is it more useful to use that energy to move forward.

Please share your experiences about changing expectations for yourself. I'd love to hear about them.