The Beautiful Delusions of DIYers and Why Abundant Optimism is Problematic, Yet Necessary
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Written by Brad Rhinehart, Author
Brad Rhinehart is an optometrist who loves his profession but believes that one's occupation is only one of many ways to do meaningful work. In his book, Everyday Genius: Principles of Creativity and Innovation for Life, he highlights the importance of recognizing and developing our innate talents and embracing opportunities for growth.
Is it ever beneficial to experience a bit of self-deception? When we begin a DIY project, optimism can carry us beyond our actual knowledge and skills. Yet that same confidence can inspire us to create, persevere through setbacks, and discover that the process shapes us as much as it shapes our work.
The DIY spirit
After my wife and I had been married for about a year, we bought a little house in the city where I was attending college. Home repairs were occasionally needed, though hiring a repairman wasn’t really an option, as a newlywed going to school, my resources were limited. Within a short time, I had to make repairs on the water softener, the water heater, and the furnace. In doing these tasks myself, I really had no idea what I was doing. At that time, Google and YouTube did not exist. Initially, one might say I was a bit delusional about performing such tasks with no pre-existing knowledge or skill. Later, I remodeled the bathroom in that same house. Though many years have passed, I still remember my wife’s impression as I worked on things in our home. It was a revelation to her. She told me that even though her father was a handy guy and a hard-working farmer, household repairs were generally done by professionals in the home where she grew up, and she was surprised to discover that her husband was becoming a do-it-yourselfer, or DIYer.
But the DIY spirit is not just for solving problems, it can inspire us to do creative work. My favorite project during that time was repurposing and refinishing a ridiculously heavy cabinet that we got from some friends who had upgraded their furniture. Though it was crudely done, the repurposed cabinet worked in our space, and we even thought it was good enough to take with us when we moved across the country for more school in spite of its impressive mass. Incidentally, we did not think it was worth bringing back when we returned to our home state.
Think about something you have made, something that exists because you created it. For some, the phrase do-it-yourself evokes images of home renovations, woodworking, or crafting. While DIYing certainly includes those activities, it is much more, it could be making your own yogurt, bread, clothing, tools, software, or anything else that you didn’t rely on someone else for. Your DIY project could be a baked Alaska, a special quilt, or, in my not-too-distant future, a custom guitar.
The muse
Picture yourself at the end of a pet project as you behold your handiwork. Assigning value to our work and judging outcomes is a topic for another time, so let’s just assume that your results are similar to what you envisioned. Now, suppose that your creative process was a struggle, a difficult task that required real commitment, dedication, and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, but you stuck to it, and now your project is finished! How do you think you would feel about your project? It’s natural that we should feel good when we have a hand in making something. Even the limited work involved with a piece of ready-to-assemble furniture can provide gratification. In fact, researchers have described the natural tendency to overvalue things we help produce over those made entirely by someone else as “the IKEA effect.”[1]
Although the type of creative work we do varies, most of our creative projects start the same way. Someone we know did something, and we thought it would be great to try it, we read something that inspired us, or we saw a video that showed us how something could be done. Whatever it is, the muse sings to us, and we feel like we can move a mountain. We get excited, conclude that a project is doable, and decide to have a go. So far, so good. We need impulses like this, or we would never start. We’ll soon be confronted with the reality that our assumptions are flawed. Whether we really don’t know that we are overreaching or we just don’t want to know, we move forward because all we hear is the muse. The anticipation of both a good outcome and the positive subjective experience that we expect from our creative work combines to form an intoxicating elixir that inspires us to leave our comfort zone.
Why our aspirations seem delusional
To be clear, being delusional doesn’t necessarily mean that something can’t be done or that we can’t do it. Most of us have enough self-awareness to keep us from becoming quixotic, though we still bring some naivety and inexperience to novel tasks. During the course of a given project, however, we can feel as though we’ve set ourselves up to fail when our grand expectations collide with reality. We might wonder what we were thinking.
This inner drive to journey into the uncharted landscape of some novel interest or activity is part of human nature. The impulse to stretch and reach is in us. We humans do not aspire to something we’ve already done or know how to do. We aspire to things we’ve not yet achieved or obtained, and there lies the challenge. New ideas move us to higher levels of understanding, greater depth and breadth of knowledge. New tasks involve new skills. In the development of knowledge and skill, we naturally encounter a learning curve.
I’ve certainly displayed my share of overconfidence in different projects by starting something I thought was doable, only to find myself in deep water later. My experience is not unique. I’ve observed this phenomenon with other people and in a variety of circumstances.
In his book, The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli states that “hardly any major projects exist that are completed in less time and at a lower cost than forecasted. Some delays and cost overruns are even legendary, such as the Airbus A400M, the Sydney Opera House, and Boston’s Big Dig. The list can be added to at will.”[2]
Why do such incorrect and often comically inaccurate estimates occur? What is it that causes us to get our plans and our cost, labor, and time estimates so wrong?
While Dobelli’s analysis points to many challenges inherent in complex collaborations, we will focus on his first reason, “the classic overconfidence effect,”[3] which is common in groups and in individuals. Psychologists refer to a specific form of overconfidence as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is “a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area, because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills.”[4] This confidence vs. capability disparity can vary greatly from person to person and task to task. Some creators might come up woefully short of their expectations while others might have no significant challenge. It is likely that most of us reside somewhere between these two extremes where, for a variety of reasons, we operate from a starting point of relative overconfidence. Perhaps we are prone to overconfidence and resultant delusions because certain ideas are presented in ways that miscalibrate our expectations. Reality is fraught with limitations, variables, and unknowns that can range from a strict budget to the presence of a load-bearing wall. Varying levels of individual knowledge and skill also impact each person’s process.
Because we really can’t know everything that a new endeavor will require, the gap between expectations and reality can produce feelings of disappointment, frustration, and worry about being exposed to judgment and criticism. Jesus acknowledged the humanness of failure and also our tendencies to judge others on their work when he said:
"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish." – Luke 14:28-30, KJV
While it’s important to acknowledge and manage our feelings about the potential for judgment and criticism, this is not our only consideration, and it’s certainly not the most important. While Jesus’ larger message points to the commitment that discipleship requires, his teachings here also demonstrate the importance of realistic planning, wise preparation, and the ability to finish what we start.
When we begin any worthy endeavor, we should expect challenges. We also need to consider the options available to us when we hit a roadblock. The first option is to keep going. Next, we have to consider whether our project will be a continuation of our original approach or whether we will alter our process and even our outcome so we can keep working despite factors that might otherwise halt our process. We also have the option to quit. In such cases, we have to decide if we are just bored, tired, or frustrated, or if it really is wise to terminate the project because it is not feasible to continue. Because we can plainly see and appreciate completed work, it is natural to feel that aborting a project is a failure even though that is not necessarily the case. There may be something for us to gain even when we call it quits. If a given project turns out to be unworkable in spite of our best efforts, we can keep what we learned even when we decide to terminate the work. Furthermore, we may be able to salvage some of the material resources and repurpose them for other projects. Many famous paintings by artists, including Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso, were painted on reused canvases from previous works.[5][6] A scientific experiment that is inconsistent with the hypothesis is not a waste of time, researchers and the larger scientific community can still glean information from that experiment. If a cake you baked falls apart, you don’t toss it in the bin, you make a trifle. Finally, there is also a hybrid approach in which we might step away from our creative work for a defined time frame in order to rest or regroup. Setting a limit to our rest period keeps our pause from turning into a hard stop.
Why our aspirations are beautiful
Principles of hope and faith are integral to our desires to do something worthwhile. Without the impulses and thoughts that prompt us to engage in creative work, we wouldn’t aspire, we wouldn’t plan, and we wouldn’t work, we wouldn’t even try and, consequently, we wouldn’t achieve. We wouldn’t even fail, which is not as great as it sounds. Possessing hope, looking forward to something good, and reaching for something that requires effort, and yes, even failing in that quest, are essential to our growth and happiness. That growth and happiness are facilitated both by what the work directly yields and by what our process creates within us.
All creative work, including various do-it-yourself projects, has the potential and power to transform us. Such work can change us from unlearned to informed, from unskilled to proficient, from dull to interesting, and from uncertain to confident. It expands our minds, enlarges our souls, and fills our whole being with substance. American novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote that “Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.”[7] These are some of the ways that our aspirations are beautiful.
The struggle is real, but not unworkable
We love stories that involve some initial struggle and eventual triumph, fictional favorites include The Little Engine That Could and Rocky. Real-life examples include young David, Seabiscuit, and Nelson Mandela. We naturally connect with these examples and, even though we might see ourselves as underdogs in certain situations, we generally like to avoid hardship and prefer to experience trials as observers rather than participants. While encountering challenges is a natural and universal aspect of life, many of us think it unfortunate when we are cast as the struggling protagonist from time to time. Perhaps our natural impulses to avoid discomfort cause some of us to avoid the self-inflicted challenges that are part of doing things that are not absolutely necessary, even when it is possible for us to overcome them. Perhaps in addition to the abundant optimism and excitement we feel at the beginning of a new project, we can add just a pinch of flexibility and a dash of realistic perspective to help us remember that challenges can be frustrating. When we acknowledge that any new project will likely require more than we initially anticipated, it can take the sting out of setbacks, like getting punched in the gut, it doesn’t feel as bad if you see it coming and can brace for it.
We should also remember that, though frustrating, challenges in our creative work can be good for us. This is an important point to remember at all stages of creative work, challenges are a natural part of our process that provides opportunities to zoom in to better examine and understand the nature of our problems and also to zoom out and gain helpful perspective on our work. Furthermore, opportunities to pause, to critique, to ponder, to ask questions, to ideate, and to do research and experimentation expand and deepen our intellect, and the exercise of traits like curiosity, patience, diligence, persistence, courage, hope, and faith can expand our souls in ways we could not otherwise experience.
Make it personal
Now, let’s return to that project you envisioned at the beginning, the one that was challenging but which, in the end, brought you such satisfaction. Imagine that, instead of being challenged and compelled to work through difficulties to get it done, you found it less work-, time-, and cost-intensive than you expected. How would you feel about it in that case? How would you feel about yourself? I’ve never had a project go that way and, if one did, I would take the win. Maybe I’d feel some modest sense of accomplishment or esteem. But I think I would know inside that I needed to set my sights higher for my next project. I would need to be a bit delusional, for those delusions are the origin of any worthwhile endeavor. They set the stage for many real things to follow, real courage, real persistence, critical thinking and problem-solving, accomplishment, and a more complete version of the real you, and that, my friends, is beautiful.
Read more from Brad Rhinehart
Brad Rhinehart, Author
Brad Rhinehart is the author of Everyday Genius: Principles of Creativity and Innovation for Life. He is a graduate of Idaho State University and the Pennsylvania College of Optometry (now part of Drexel University) and has also studied at Liberty University. His education has spanned several disciplines, including instrumental music, history, microbiology, visual science, optometry, and English literature. He is a forever reader, part-time podcaster, and lifelong learner who loves discovering and sharing powerful ideas with others.
References:
[1] Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, “The IKEA Effect: When Labor Leads to Love,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 22, no. 3 (2012): 453-60.
[2] Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, trans. Nicky Griffin (New York: Harper, 2014), 45.
[3] Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, 45.
[4] “Dunning-Kruger Effect,” Psychology Today, reviewed April 24, 2026.
[5] Ernst van de Wetering, “Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits: Problems of Authenticity and Function,” in A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings IV: The Self-Portraits, ed. Ernst van de Wetering (Dordrecht: Springer, 2005), 96-97.
[6] Annelies Rios Casier et al., “Towards a Classification System for Modernist Painters’ Reworking Practices Illustrated by James Ensor’s Revised Paintings,” npj Heritage Science 13 (2025): 411.
[7] Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, ed. Daniel Simon (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), 24.
