As a High School Senior I was voted “the most talented.” This of course was not so much of a nod to my many accomplishments, but rather an acknowledgment that I had become very adept at being mediocre in many areas.
Though I was never stellar in many of my High School pursuits some people are. They have great talents in areas like sports, music, or in a particular academic field. I have a cousin, for example, who is very talented in playing the guitar. His fingers move across the strings in a magnificent way. While watching Roger play, he makes it look effortless and graceful, almost easy.
While my cousin Roger, certainly has natural talent in music, he also has spent the time to develop his talents. As mentioned before, talents are those abilities that are inborn, that cannot be changed a lot, nor can they be created if there is no underlying talent in a particular area. In other words if I do not have any talent in drawing I will be hard pressed to become a good artist no matter how long or hard I try. Strengths on the other hand are highly learnable character traits, such as courage, and can be greatly enhanced. I may have a trait for being temperate yet still have a drinking problem. Thankfully I can learn to employ my strength in temperance in order to overcome my weakness in drinking. Strengths in short have the potential to be grown from a 1 all the way to a 100.
Strengths are where most positive psychologists and experts on self-development argue that we should spend our time. The argument is clear: why waste your time trying to be something that just does not align with your talents when you could develop your strengths which can be used in a wide variety of situations. A good case in point for this view is found in the book Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath (2007). The book is a treatise on why we should focus on our strengths and how to find out what are strengths are. Discussing the ramifications of focusing on strengths Buckingham relates the familiar story of Rudy.
Rudy of course is Rudy Ruettiger who in the early 1970’s walked onto the University of Notre Dame football team. Rudy was small and really lacked a lot of athletic talent (5’ 6” 165lbs). Yet for years Rudy practiced hard and was essentially the other player’s practice dummy. As many of us know from the inspirational film by the same name, Rudy was able to play in the last game of the season. Rudy played a total of two plays and recorded a sack on his last play. He was carried off the field by his teammates to the cheers of the crowd.
Rudy is inspirational. Rudy had a large basket of character strengths like persistence, optimism, and tenacity that allowed him to reach his goal of playing collegiate football. This is a great achievement, but we have to ask if all of Rudy’s efforts really were worth the outcome. Certainly, the inspiration of his story is of great value, but what really is the message? The message, when we strip away the emotional impact of the story is: if you work really hard, even if you don’t have a lot of talent for something, you might be able to play two plays and make one tackle for you whole career.
This seems to be a little misguided. It reminds me of a story I heard about a blind boy who dreamed of being a pilot. His parents, operating under the old adage “you can be anything that you want to be” encouraged him to study flying. Unfortunately, today’s technology does not allow for a blind person to become a pilot. The boy became dismayed when this became clear and fell into depression. The truth is we cannot become what ever we want to be. We can only become what God has endowed us to be. This endowment is reflected in our strengths and talents.
Rudy is a great example of how strengths can help us overcome a lack of talent in an area, but it also shows us that it may be more useful to use our strengths in areas where we have talent. Imagine if Rudy had used his strengths to focus on a goal where he had a good amount of natural talent. What if Rudy had natural talent in sculpting and used his strengths of persistence and tenacity to work in that area? We may never know what Rudy could have done if he had decided to work towards something for which he possessed great natural ability, but we do not have to live after the old adages of the past.
What I am driving at of course is that we should figure out where our natural talent lies and then use our strengths to enhance it. This does not always work though. We may have a talent in something that will never make us a living, but none-the-less we love. We may have a great talent in water skiing, but this may not translate to a career. On the other hand we may be able to sell boating equipment that is associated with our talent. Or we may just employ our talent in one area of our lives, outside of work. In short we can find ways to exercise our talents even if they do not coincide with our work lives or our personal life calling, but we should seek ways to use our strengths in areas of personal talent in order to achieve optimal life satisfaction.
References
Rath, Tom (2007). Strengths Finder 2.0. The Gallup Organization; Gallup Press
0 comments:
Post a Comment