I was taking a nice walk and listening to yet another fitness podcast. The topic of the day for the podcast was answering listener email questions. One of the questions that came up struck me. I won’t go into the specifics of the question, because there is no reason to shame anyone here. Although the question made me think. In the email the man seeking help states he has worked out for over a decade, he proclaimed how serious he was, he stated he was an advanced lifter, then he proceeded to ask the most basic rudimentary questions imaginable. I had to wonder, if you’re so advanced, why did you have to ask this question?
I don’t know the man who asked this question, nor do I care to pass judgement on him. I know nothing of him, however his question had me thinking more about the perceived status we give to ourselves. I have no doubt that this man views himself as an advanced lifter, and maybe he is. We want to look like we are advanced, we want to look like we have lots of answers. Being an expert is good, but we are rarely experts, and when we are experts we are not experts at many things. We can limit ourselves because of a perceived status. We can fall into the trap that just because we view ourselves as “advanced” that we may not need help with a very basic thing or learn about something basic.
I have had my own failings with trying to have a perceived status. I wanted to be an expert web developer, I wanted people to think I was an expert. I often perceived myself as more than I was. This limited my career development. I was reluctant to spend time on the basics. I had done some more advanced things, so I did not want to “step backward” into basics. This hurt me long term. There were more gaps in my learning and skills than I would like to admit. I wanted so desperately to have some sort of status that I limited myself.
I would have had a much better run of things if I had accepted the level I was at. If I didn’t let some attitude about status into my head. I know I would have filled my learning gaps much faster and been a much better web developer. The status I perceived myself to have got in the way of reality and doing what I most needed to do.
A danger lays in perceiving more or less than reality. Imposter syndrome is the other side of the coin here. Folks with these issues perceive themselves at a lower level than they are. This limits them. An honest evaluation of skills and abilities is always the best. Status carries with it more.
Status is often about ego. No one cares how big or strong the listener asking the question in the podcast was. Status is often for ourselves. When we improperly perceive a status for ourselves, we will limit ourselves.