Conrad Hees’ Blog

Like it or not, your level of fitness is affecting your career.

Whether in a good way or a bad way, the people who are in charge of your future at your current place of employment are being influenced both subconsciously and consciously by your outward physical appearance.  Their opinions of you are being directly impacted by your number one self-marketing tool: your body.

Although I hate to write articles like this because I fear they may come off as being incredibly shallow, the fact remains that one of the main focuses of this blog is self-marketing.  I would not being doing my job of informing you how to better succeed in marketing yourself to the world if I didn’t tell you the hard facts about how your physical appearance is crucial to your success in our modern environment.

Trust me: your boss is taking the size of your gut into consideration when he decides whether to promote you or the guy in the next cubicle.  Read on to find out just how critical becoming fit is to your professional well-being. 

A Powerful Self-Marketing Tool

I call the body our number one self-marketing tool for several reasons.  Just a few of these reasons are:

- It is the first thing that others judge you on

- It has the power to overshadow other aspects of your personality

- It leads people to create assumptions about other parts of your character

- People are sensory creatures; therefore, we give much weight to the physical attributes of those we come in contact with

Of course, your body is not the most important aspect of who you are, but as the former points indicate, it plays a major role in the opinion that others form about you.  By now, you should be able to see how your physical appearance affects you.

How Physical Appearance Affects Your Career

If peoples’ opinions of us are greatly influenced by our physical appearance, does it not make perfect sense that our boss’ opinions of us will be influenced by our appearance?

I know that many of us would like to live in a fairytale world where everybody is on equal footing, and no one is judged unjustly in their work environment on something so unrelated as their fitness level, but the truth is that it happens.  We are all human, and judgment is a part of our nature.

Rather than fighting this fact, we must recognize it, and do what we must to use it to our advantage.

Here, I list the top 5 reasons why getting in shape is crucial to your career:

1)  Fighting for that promotion-  When considering employees for an upcoming promotion, employers take many factors into account.  The most important factors are things such as work ethic, competency, and job performance.  But what if a boss has several employees to consider for one position?

He will immediately begin to factor in more characteristics, and physical appearance is right at the top of the list.  This is especially true if several candidates are similar in all of the most important areas.  You will fare much better against others if you are in great physical shape because……….

2)  People make assumptions based on appearance-  When it comes to making judgments about peoples’ character, everything counts, and everything affects everything.  This means that people look for consistencies when making character judgments. 

For example, if you are a hard worker, but you are obese, you are sending people mixed signals.  On the one hand, they see your hard work.  On the other hand, it is natural for people to assume that obese people are lazy.  By being obese, you are automatically undermining your hard work in other peoples’ eyes.  They will associate you, at least partially, with laziness.

On the other hand, people who are in great physical shape can get away more easily with slight laziness.  Because they are not broadcasting laziness outwardly through their appearance, people are more inclined to not pass negative judgment on them.

This affects your ability to gain that promotion you’ve had your eye on because anyone who is in better shape than you physically will possess an important upper hand when it comes down to the wire in the consideration process.

3)  Your confidence and self-respect is affected by your appearance-  When you are in great shape, you feel amazing about yourself.  You carry yourself differently, you have more confidence and charisma, and you respect yourself more.  This is important in your work environment because exuding these qualities to your co-workers for an extended period of time will increase their respect and admiration for you as well.  This will give you a great reputation at work , which is crucial for your performance, productivity, and chances of getting that next big promotion.

4)  Your energy level-  It is no secret that your energy level is greatly affected by your physical fitness.  Being in great shape will give you the energy and power to take on your tasks with vigor and give you the results that you desire.  I don’t even need to explain how much that can improve your career.

5)  People like attractive people-  This is another point that may come off as shallow, but is so true that it cannot be left unmentioned.  It is a proven fact that people are naturally attracted to those in great physical shape.  Bosses, although we may not want them to be, are also affected by this principle.  If a physically fit and a physically unfit person are competing for more responsibility, importance, power, or position, the boss who is making the decision will be affected, either consciously or unconsciously, by the desire to be accepted by the attractive person.

This, of course, cannot be good for his overweight competitor.

What This All Means For You

Once again, I want to reiterate that looks and appearance are far from the most important factors that will affect your career.  The objective of this article is to cause you to begin to take into account the affect that your fitness level has on your career.  It is a concept that I am sure many people do not consider, and at the end of the day, it will affect your pockets and your power in the workplace, two things that you can’t afford to sacrifice in exchange for that second bowl of ice cream after dinner.

Begin to look at every part of who you are, and the effect that each aspect of yourself has on your ability to market yourself effectively, and ultimately determines your level of achievement in life. 

Self-marketing is a full-time job, and not one that should be taken lightly.  Once you understand that, you will gain a great advantage in the “game of life”.

So, do you agree with my observations on fitness and career?  Leave a comment and start a discussion on how relevant you believe appearance to be in the workplace.