Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.
We are born with innate gifts; the key to life is discovering them. Once uncovered, using them to actively help others through creative expression, service, or sharing wisdom is paramount to our purpose in life. The tragedy of life is not death but having these gifts and letting them die within us while we live.
Pablo Picasso is credited with saying, “The Meaning of Life is to find your gift; the purpose of life is to give it away.” He lived his truth.
Finding our gift means identifying our natural strengths, passions, or skills that set us apart. These allow us to contribute meaningfully to the world. Sharing your talents to benefit others is the ultimate gift.
How do you identify your talents when you don’t feel like you have anything extraordinary? The journey of life will show us how to find them. Discovering our talents generally involves trial and error. It takes tenacity when we seemingly fail, yet something else will surface even when we are not good at something. Sometimes, the process of elimination yields the most significant rewards.
We mustn’t be afraid of moving beyond our known experiences into the unknown, looking outside the limitations we previously believed to be accurate. We must let go of the voices inside that tell us we are not enough; those are simply the opinions of others who haven’t discovered their passions.
Self-reflection will lead to self-realization, and self-realization will lead to transformation.
Broadening our horizons and engaging in activities outside our routine can help uncover hidden talents or untapped passions. We can extend our interests through sports, hobbies, travel, classes, or workshops. Yet, retracing our childlike curiosity about the workings of the world around us may benefit us most of all.
Returning to childhood interests, dreams, or what we wanted to do when we grew up, those teenage interests which kept us reading or dreaming of our future lives all night. Those interests, when we were young, may help us identify the innate workings of our brain and our soul’s yearnings.
Journaling and writing down unfiltered feelings and thoughts helps isolate passions and expose concealed talents or obstacles that may hold us back. Occasionally, it isn’t easy to write unfiltered, but automatic writing can assist in writing without editing our reflections.
There are many tools to help assess our personality strengths. Family and friends may see things in you that you may have overlooked; Enneagrams or the Myers and Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can give insights. Some online quizzes may provide insight into areas of your potential. Once identified, find communities of like-minded people to explore further that interest.
Understanding our talents can be those things that we do naturally well. Yet, please don’t mistake ease for something we don’t need to work at or develop. Instead, they should bring joy while we learn how to excel. Through the joy, our unique potential will surface.
Patience is a virtue, and discovering our distinctive talents may take time. If we allow ourselves to delve deep into who we are without the pressure of ‘finding’ something, the journey itself may be a gift.
Life is a short journey. We can blow in the wind or dig deep to uncover the unique gifts we were born with, making our time far-reaching and favorable to those we encounter. The choice is always ours to make. Are you ready to begin the exploration?
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.~Horace
