Have you ever taken the time to make a list of all your skills – and listed them in their order of effectiveness? When was the last time you even thought about your abilities? Perhaps more importantly, how many of your skills are you using daily to further your goals, dreams, and aspirations?
It’s incredible how often we take our skills for granted. They’re apt to merge into the background even though they’re essential to our progress and success.
Every artist was first an amateur.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is where a degree of self-awareness can play an instrumental role in identifying the key areas where we demonstrate our strengths and the areas where we lack the aptitude or skills to achieve consistent success. This kind of self-examination may prompt us to enroll in learning or training programs that will help us acquire new skills and go beyond our abilities. But the reality is that most of us prefer to concentrate on the most familiar skills, and we tend to play to our strengths rather than worry too much about our weaknesses.
Despite a recent drive to encourage people to work on their skill deficiencies, it’s still important to recognize the value of our strengths. And it’s also essential to recognize the value of enhancing our skills – by practicing them every day and testing our skills.
Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end up really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.
― Mahatma Gandhi
The question that prompts us to develop our skills is to ask ourselves how we can improve them and make them more effective. It’s often been stated that genius is evidence of an individual who’s practiced and developed their skills for at least ten thousand hours. And that’s a beautiful message to impart to anyone serious about enhancing their natural talents or developing their learned skills.
The reassuring fact is that everyone has natural abilities. Yes, they do, and it may show up in all kinds of unexpected areas. Still, it’s a natural facet of the human condition and one of the great motivators that deliver standards of excellence and countless examples of exceptional success. But it inevitably requires work, which implies training, dedication, and repeated opportunities to put the skills into practice. Raw talent is like a seed that needs to be nurtured, cared for, tended, protected, cultivated, and harvested.
Every beginner possesses a great potential to be an expert in their chosen field.
― Lailah Gifty Akita
The often-overlooked challenge with all of our strengths is that it is too easy to take them for granted. Even though the most excellent musicians insist on rigorous, daily practice, we seem to forget that all skills benefit from continued testing, development, enhancement, and training. Just because we might be good at something doesn’t mean that it can’t be even better. Like any athlete who needs to train regularly and thoroughly to maintain fitness, we need to train our skills and seek new ways to improve them. Our strengths and skills are our strong suits, and they convey distinct advantages in their particular field of endeavor. Imagine how much more incredible they could be if they were honed, trained, and sharpened through daily practice and constant testing.
We use the word ‘testing’ here because it’s essential to track your results and evaluate how your skills and strengths measure up to the challenges of the real world. Are you able to deliver on your goals? Do your skills sometimes fall short of producing the outcomes you intended? Do you need to change the way you use your skills? Are there weaknesses in your skillset that undermine your performance or compromise your consistency?
Regular practice and brutally honest feedback will reveal your level of proficiency and show you exactly where you need to make any adjustments. Your skills deserve your most full attention, and they’re part of what makes you unique. Celebrate this unique expression of your personality by giving your skills the best opportunities to serve your goals and dreams.
If careful attention is paid to the reality, we will see. Clearly, the real shortage is of the right skills rather than jobs. If the right skills are developed, promising start-ups and other enterprises will emerge and provide the jobs needed. It’s always the horse before the cart, not the other way around. At a personal level, it will require the realization of the need to acquire required skills, the discipline to pursue them, and the commitment to push through. These will require a great deal of personal courage and effort. But then, the benefit will be immeasurable.
― Emi Iyalla
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