What Stops Me from Posting Publicly and How to Overcome It
Explore the psychological reasons behind why we undervalue our ideas and how a simple blog post reached the Hacker News front page.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- The belief that our ideas lack novelty is the primary barrier preventing us from publishing our work.
- Psychological research known as the Curse of Knowledge causes us to overestimate how widely known our information is.
- Studies show people mistakenly judge easy-to-recall information as common knowledge known by everyone.
- Sharing authentic perspectives remains valuable and well-received even if the underlying concept is not entirely brand new.
Writers and developers often encounter the same recurring hesitation: what prevents us from writing and sharing our thoughts publicly? In reality, the major obstacle holding us back is likely not a lack of writing skill, but rather the ingrained belief that our content is simply not novel enough.
This self-doubt typically stems from the assumption that we lack good enough material to contribute. When reading widely shared or highly cited articles online, we usually discover genuine novelty within them. Consequently, when evaluating our own ideas, we apply this strict standard of novelty and tend to severely undervalue them.
Furthermore, because most of our daily thoughts reside safely inside our personal informational bubble, we genuinely convince ourselves that these concepts are mere common sense. We assume they hold no real value worth writing about or sharing with a broader audience.
The Curse of Knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other people, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background knowledge to understand. Once we become familiar with a concept, our brain struggles to imagine what it was like not knowing it, heavily skewing our perception of how common that knowledge actually is.
This cognitive quirk is backed by solid research. Seminal experimental work conducted in 1989 by Camerer, Loewenstein, and Weber demonstrated that better-informed individuals struggle to ignore their own knowledge when trying to predict the judgments of less-informed counterparts. Later, a 2017 series of experiments by Birch and colleagues further revealed that people are significantly more likely to judge information as common knowledge simply because it is easy for them to recall.
The next time you are on the verge of discarding an idea because you deem it too basic, consider stepping outside your bubble or testing it with someone else. Most importantly, write it down and publish it for yourself anyway.
Human nature has remained fundamentally consistent for centuries. We encounter the same core problems, even though different individuals maintain distinct or similar opinions on those matters. If you have read enough personal-development literature, you likely noticed that only a limited number of fundamental principles underlie almost all of them. Offering your own unique interpretation or perspective on those established ideas is entirely valid.
"I had a simple idea that I could post on my blog. I almost discarded it. Then I read a touching article at the top of Hacker News, proving that authentic sharing can still be well received even if it is not brand new."
Dev.to Author
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
This exact scenario happened to the author recently. Armed with a simple idea about a small trick used to save evenings, they almost threw it away. However, after reading a simple yet touching article sitting at the top of Hacker News that resonated with many readers, the author realized that sharing authentic content can lead to great reception regardless of brand-new novelty.
After writing the post, publishing it on a personal blog, and sharing it on Hacker News, the author simply moved on. To their surprise, friends sent morning messages revealing that the post had climbed all the way to the front page of Hacker News. The comments featured readers discussing similar habits and linking well-known techniques describing the exact same concept.
This experience served as powerful confirmation that the illusion of novelty acts as a severe self-filter, tricking us into discarding potentially wonderful posts. If you recently thought of an idea but dismissed it as common sense, bring it back to life, spend sixty minutes writing it down, and share it with the world.
Source: Dev.to
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