The Talents and Gifts That You Take For Granted
Self-mastery is not just about improving upon your weaknesses. It is also about remembering, revealing and relishing your strengths. Then using those strengths to become more creative.
I often wonder why humans focus so much of our energy on our weaknesses when it’s really focusing on our strengths that will allow us to excel the fastest.
We have talents and gifts that we take for granted. Thrown in the trash, stuffed in a drawer, left in the trunk. Forgotten children. We bury our god-given gifts deep, trying to fit in or fix ourselves. Hoping that we’ll be accepted by the peer group of our choice.
Fitting in can feel like moving up. But it’s really your way of hiding. It keeps you small. It makes you indistinguishable from the herd. It keeps you in the race, back against the wall, neck-and-neck with the next unwitting co-conspirator in a desperate sprint to the bottom.
But you don’t have to play this game.
You can opt out of the race.
It’s time let go of the ledge and take your first shaky steps alone. You can have, do and be more, but your journey will be a solo quest.
Make a radical change and shock yourself by letting go of people and things that drain you. Your mind needs a cold shower.
Start by pulling your energy away from things that don’t feel like you. Begin saying no to the opportunities that do not excite you. Stop returning calls to the people you don’t like. Don’t fill up your entire calendar with meetings just to make yourself feel busy or important.
Don’t do the things that numb you. Do the things that make you feel alive.
Next, focus your energy on something creative. It doesn’t have to be typical “art.” You don’t need to paint or draw. You don’t need to write a symphony or something to be shown in a gallery. Your best work can come in any form.
Creativity is the practice of extracting something from your mind that was once just a thought and putting enough energy behind that idea to bring it into the real world. Manifestation.
Become the designer and architect of your life. Soon you’ll see how your creativity can be expressed in an infinite number of ways, because every thought and action is creative.
The way you organize a space is creative. Planning this week’s menu for your family — creative. Designing your own workout program and executing it is very creative.
Creativity makes us feel alive. And when we feel alive, it’s much easier to stay awake and aware of the programming that keeps us small. That beats us down. That keeps us from feeling powerful.
Once you develop your own creative pursuit, you’ll be less likely to want to fit in or follow blindly because you’ll have established your own unique perspective of the world.
Of course creativity comes at a price. Nothing worthwhile is free. You will need to make sacrifices in order to feel alive. Creativity will require the courage to do your best work and the commitment to do that work even when you’re scared that it won’t work.
It’s a lot of work, no matter how you slice it.
Creativity will demand absolute dedication to your craft. Because you can’t truly be creative until you’ve made enough mistakes to know what you’re doing.
Creativity will require laughter in the face of defeat and the prospect of mediocrity.
You can live out your highest potential and create a life of meaning and purpose.
Tap in and trust yourself. Your unique personality traits, strengths, skills and preferences are a part of you for a reason. Use them to build a life that supports the things you care about the most.
