“Anyone who claims to not be good at anything is lying”
– Me
Doubts plague the minds of anyone who’s ever experienced failure. Who’s experienced failure? Everyone. It’s hard not to get trapped in a cycle of self-deprecation, especially when failure strikes multiple times in a row.
How can we combat such negative thoughts? For me, I try to remind myself that skills are not inherent. Allow me to explain. A few years ago I went on a skiing trip with some friends, I had never been skiing before so of course I fell, quite spectacularly might I add. Does this mean that I’m inherently terrible at skiing? Of course not, I just hadn’t developed the skills to stay on my two feet.
In another personal example, I recently tried to record a tik-tok of myself as a promotion for this very blog. I came to realize very quickly that I am terrible at speaking in front of a camera. With all the social media we’re exposed to, it seems so easy until you try and do it yourself. There is a slight difference with this example; a friend of mine also attempted to record a video and absolutely thrived on camera. Watching the footage back you could tell their expressions were wonderful, they weren’t nervous, and (what I would consider most important) you could make out every word with pristine clarity. So why couldn’t I do the same on my first attempt? This brings me to the differences between skills and traits.
Traits are more inherent and genetic. Most often they’ll pop up when you don’t expect them to. Perhaps you’ll try a new sport and shine amongst your peers, or maybe you’ll pick up an instrument and nail all the notes immediately. The incredible thing about humans is that we’re all different, and a select few of us possess traits that don’t translate very well into skills. The most prominent of these is singing. Yes of course you can practice, work on lung capacity, and tune your vocal to the best of your ability, but at the end of the day, those with the most vocal talent were gifted that at birth. This may seem a little drab at first but it’s important to remember that we all have traits. Every single human on earth was born with a trait that sets them apart and makes them proficient at something, they just have to find what it is. So to say you’re not good at anything is just ridiculous and wrong.
Skills are things that anyone can learn and perfect. These are things like instruments, sports, or cooking. Now I’m aware there may be extenuating circumstances that could make that statement false, but for the sake of a more broad argument, we are going to ignore those for the time being.
Whatever it is you love to do, it’s likely there’s a skill you can practice to perfect it. I myself am trying to practice my writing skills, it’s my passion and there is always something new to learn.
Another fantastic thing about skills is that you can always improve. For example, my father, who is in the middle of his life, has recently started his journey to obtain a prestigious Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification. Why is this relevant? Well just to put things into perspective, this is an extremely difficult achievement that takes multiple years to accomplish and it’s being done by a man who is well beyond his “schooling years”. That’s the wonderful thing about skills, there is no time limit. With enough passion and dedication, you can obtain new and impressive skills at any point in your life.
To anyone reading this who has doubts just remember your traits and skills. Greatness is not something everyone is born with, but it is something everyone can obtain. So what skill are you going to strive for?
I really hope you enjoyed reading this week’s post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read what I have to say.
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