What is the boundary of your understanding?

Knowing your limits is one of the best ways to grow. If you know where your understanding ends, you can choose to develop further in that area (if you want to), or accept help when things get beyond your grasp.

I first shared this a few years ago when talking about “Alex” and “Joan”, and Joan’s lack of understanding of her own skills.

I saw this again recently in Shane Parrish’s book “Clear Thinking” when he shared:

“Imitators don’t know the limits of their expertise. Experts know what they know, and also know what they don’t know. They understand that their understanding has boundaries, and they’re able to tell you when they’re approaching the limits of their circle of competence. Imitators can’t. They can’t tell when they’re crossing the boundary into things they don’t understand.“

While my knowledge in many areas is quite low, I try to recognize where the boundaries are. Shane mentioned the “circle of competence”, which I mentioned in that post above, where he pointed out that the more we know, the more we don’t know. Specifically, from Albert Einstein:

“as our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it“

Since your “circumference of darkness” always grows, it’d be foolish to try to ever capture all of it. However, simply recognizing that it exists and knowing where your edges are will leave you far wiser than those that “know it all”.