The Swimmers Body Illusion

Professional swimmers don’t have perfect bodies because they train extensively. They are good swimmers because of their physiques. How their bodies are designed is a factor for selection and not the result of their activities. ~ Rolf Dobelli (The Art of Thinking Clearly)

And here’s the line that really gets you marketing folk.

Without this illusion, half of advertising campaigns would not work.

The swimmer’s body illusion happens when we confuse selection factors with the results. We see the outcome and assume it came from effort, when in reality it often started with an advantage that was already there.

Think about it. Luxury watch ads do not just sell watches. They sell the idea that owning one makes you the kind of person who owns one. The truth is the people in those ads were chosen because they already looked the part. A university promotes its accomplished graduates, and we believe the degree created them. In reality, the university may have admitted them because they were already high achievers.

This hit me because it is not just a marketing trick. It sneaks into personal goals too. When you start building something or learning something new, it is easy to blame yourself for not getting the same results as someone else. You tell yourself you are not working hard enough or doing it right. Sometimes the real reason is that you started from a different place. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I am not saying if you do not have a genetic swimmer’s body you cannot swim. You can. You might even be great at it. But you will probably not be standing on the Olympic podium holding a gold medal, and that is fine.

The point is to never give up but to be aware of what you are working with. If you know the race you are built for, you can choose your arena better. Maybe your body was not built to be a swimmer’s body. Maybe it was built to be a medal-winning bartender, or an award-winning teacher, or the best storyteller in the room.

So ask yourself. Where in your life are you training for the wrong race? And if you switched lanes, what could you win at?