Are You Optimising for Growth or the Appearance of It?

You can spend years looking like you're growing without actually growing.

At first, the gap is invisible. Same vocabulary. Same confidence. Same apparent interest in new ideas. But underneath, a completely different optimisation function is running. And over time, the gap shows.

One person is asking: Am I actually figuring this out?

The other is asking: Do I look like someone who already has this figured out?

These aren't the same question, and they consume your life resources in opposite directions.

If you're optimising for looking on top of things, you quietly avoid problems you can't already solve. You just... don't attempt them. The risk isn't failure, it's being seen as not knowing. And so you stay within the perimeter of what you can already do well, and call it focus.

I used to feel a specific kind of dread when my partner shared an interesting new idea. As much as I wanted to engage with it, something in me would register that I didn't already have this figured out, and instead of leaning in, I'd hold it at arm's length.

The idea never got explored. Which meant it never got built.

Most people (myself included) are unknowingly optimising for the appearance of competence rather than the acquisition of it. We think we're trying to grow, but we're actually managing how we look to others. Avoiding problems we can't yet solve feels protective, but it just keeps us stuck, trading real progress for optics.

The shift came from changing what I was trying to do. Not to look capable in the attempt, but to actually become capable through it. The goal is to figure things out, not to already have it figured out.

“All problems are soluble.” – David Deutsch

Not all problems are easy to solve. But the constraint is never the existence of a solution, only whether we have the right explanation yet.

The question moves from what will people think if I can't do this? to what would it take to figure this out?

When I made that switch, new ideas stopped feeling like tests I might fail. I could sit with them, half-understand them, ask bad questions, and not treat any of that as a verdict on my intelligence. It's how you actually become more knowledgeable in the first place.

The optimisation function you're running isn't always obvious. But the avoidance behaviour is the tell. Notice what you quietly don't attempt. Notice what you wait until you're already confident before engaging with.

Every one of those is life resources spent on optics instead of progress.

You don't need to have it figured out. You just need to begin.