Natural Talent and Skills Are Overrated. To Be Successful, You Must Focus on Consistent Practice.
You need to focus on what you can control.
Talent makes us dream. There's no denying it. At least once in our school career, we have all met a talented person for whom everything seems easy. But no matter how hard you tried and how motivated you were, that person always did better than you.
This gave you the impression that natural talent and innate skills made all the difference in life.
In reality, this is not the case. Talent and skills are totally overrated. Sure, having natural talent and innate skills is important, but it won't allow you to achieve great things if you don't add to it the magic ingredient that really makes all the difference.
Natural talent and innate skills are overrated
The magical ingredient is nothing less than consistent practice over many years.
While talent may be enough in school, it will not be enough in professional life. Those who achieve great things are those who can put in the effort every day to reach their goals.
This is great news for you and me.
Like you, I place myself in the category of ordinary people who want to achieve extraordinary things. To succeed, we can't rely on our especially above-average talent, but rather on our desire to make a difference.
That's a good thing because then your success will depend on things you can actually control.
You need to focus on what you can control: consistent practice
If you can't control the natural talent that you have, as well as your innate skills, you can decide how much practice you will put into an area where you want to achieve great things.
Let's say you want to become a great writer.
You may not have the talent of a Stephen King, but you can at least have the thing that King focused on throughout his career to achieve immense success: consistent practice.
Stephen King has been writing stories daily for several decades. This constant practice has allowed him to successfully fascinate hundreds of millions of readers. His intrinsic talent was probably unique, but without this constant practice of his art, I don't think he would have been as successful.
He himself says this frequently.
So you can focus on writing new stories every day. I'm not saying publish every day, I'm saying practice the art you want to succeed in every day. By practicing day after day, you will progress without even realizing it.
If you follow this approach, you will be surprised at the writer you will become in a few years.
Final Thoughts
It's all about patience and hard work here. This is true in every field. Those who achieve great things are those who know how to fail again and again and never give up. Each failure allows you to progress and get closer to your big goal.
In time, you will even realize that having less innate talent and skills will have given you an advantage in life.
Instead of being able to rely solely on that, you have had to struggle throughout your life. You could never afford to be lazy. In the long run, that's what makes all the difference.
It's up to you to continue to fight every day until the day you reach the great success you aspire to.