make your talents work for you

Everyone has talents and skills that they can use.  Sometimes those skills have been identified and at other times they have not been identified.   Imagine having a great skill that has never been tapped or understood, wouldn’t that be a waste?

Talent can be our jumping off point to success if we know how to use our talents.  Talent by itself won’t make anyone successful but it can be a catalyst towards success.

“Have success and there will be fools to say that you have talent”, wrote the French Poet Edouard Pailleron.   Some people have success by just working harder than anyone else around them.   There are people who know they don’t have the great skills of a Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong or some other successful athlete, but they have something else, passion, commitment, desire and persistence.   It’s not that great athletes don’t have both skill and passion it is that skill alone won’t necessarily allow one to rise to the top.

John Maxwell illustrated some interesting bits of knowledge about talent:

·         More than 50% of all CEO’s  of Fortune 500 companies had a C or C- in college

·         Sixty-five percent of all US Senators came from the bottom half or their school classes.

Some would say that those statistics are visible with the business failures that we have seen.   And with 65% of all Senators coming from the bottom half of their schools explains a lot as well.

Are you using your talents, or are you wishing you could do something you aren’t good at instead?

It is far better to develop strength than it is to develop something you are not very good at (especially if you’ve been trying for a long period of time and you’re still not good at it).   Identify the strength and make it stronger.   Identify the weakness and manage around it.

Make your talents work for you.  Be passionate, take a stand, use your talent, use your gifts and consistently develop your strengths – practice building your strength.

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”

Henry David Thoreau

 

Are you lost?

Are you navigating through life not sure why you do what you do?

Are you just surviving the day to day issues?

Does it feel like there is more to life than what you are experiencing?

Do you have a sense of purpose?

Do you have goals that you are working towards that are an extension of whom you truly are?

Do your goals make sense?

Do you believe there is more?   Have you given up hope?   Are you just marching to an unknown drummer?

What does life feel like most of the time?   Is it good?   Do you see joy, beauty, truth and happiness most of the time?   Are you using your strengths most of the time?

 

Indeed there is more.   There are answers.   There is purpose.  

Use your gifts and talents – be all that you were truly meant to be.

Why not start today!   Why not start now!

beginning of Freedom

“We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.” Anais Nin

A photograph like a sculpture is a snapshot in time.  Some people are just like that fixed in time unwilling to change or to adapt to become who they really are. Others copy an image in an effort to be more like that image refusing their own image. The beginning of freedom is recognizing that the picture is dynamic and that it must change.

Change begins with a thought, the thought that change must begin.  The direction of change is in alignment with values, beliefs, strengths, abilities, desires, passions, and dreams which need to be cultivated and developed.

What change are you holding back on that will bring about freedom?

Talent id

How do you know what your talents are? For much of our lives we haven’t been taught to discover what our talents are. We’ve been pushed through an educational system that does less to identify talents than it does making sure everyone is in a broad sense non-distinct. If you excelled at one subject a lot more than any other your focus wouldn’t be on that one subject it would be on all subjects with about equal intensity due to the framework of the educational system.

What are you curious about? What do you have an appetite for? I’m not talking about watching TV or mindless activities but of things that stir the imagination, that bring about a strong desire to learn, to practice, and to experience.

If you choose a magazine what is the material that makes it worth reading about? What about that topic is intriguing?

Be careful about linking talent with career aspirations. What if your talent isn’t the kind that is desired in job marketplace? Try to separate those issues initially. Seek what drives your interest and passions.

Bringing a talent to life will often lead to joy and happiness. Time will disappear and your focus will increase. The intensity of joy will magnify as you find yourself in the labyrinth of experiencing your talents.

To discover your talents you’ll need to plow the field of experience. The more that you experience the greater your chance is of discovering what truly ignites passion in your heart. It may be doing something as simple as walking through a library scanning the books and looking at the topics that interest you. Are you compelled to know more? Does the topic drive you to want to devour all that there is to know about the subject matter? What images seep into your mind?

Here are some ideas to discover your talents.

1. Plow the field. Churn some new ground.

2. Plant the field. Experience a variety of things, what grows.

3. Nurture the field. Take care of the things that interest you.

4. Weed the field. Remove what doesn’t work so the effort can be placed on what is of interest.

5. Harvest the field. What grows well, what thrives and survives is probably a talent.

Reflection. Review things in the past that were of interest to you. What things have continued with you? What things have you dropped in pursuit of something else? Look at what you have carried with you. Is it a passion of yours?

What are your talents?

Find your strengths

Marianne Williamson writes, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? “

What does it mean to really, truly believe in our abilities? Do we know that we can change the world if we change ourselves? Releasing the hidden potential we have within us can be transformational not only for us but those around us. Often though we don’t know what we want to release. We aren’t sure where our strengths really lie. Even with introspective looks at ourselves we don’t always find our strengths.

We need to step back from the daily grind and listen to our hearts at times. Take a step back, relax, and just listen to your heart. Listen with open ears to the voice that emanates from within. What do you hear? Is what you hear familiar or is it something new and different, liberating, energized, and filled with potential.

Strengths, therein lies our potential when we can mobilize and utilize the strengths that we have. Peter Drucker the guru of business thought wrote, “… one cannot build on weakness. To achieve results, one has to use all the available strengths. These strengths are the true opportunities.” (The effective executive, p. 60).

When we maximize the use of our strengths we find fulfillment in what we do. The use of our strengths also releases positive feelings within us and that fuels us to continue in that endeavor.

Check out www.viastrengths.org to get an idea of what your strengths are.