My inspirational reading this morning as well as the podcast to which I was listening on the way to the gym both spoke about gifts and talents. All of us have at least one; mine happens to be music. I started taking violin lessons when I was 7 years old and caught on very quickly. Throughout my entire musical career, things related to music came naturally to me, whether it was music theory, the history of music, or picking up new instruments and quickly learning how to play them.

Then I auditioned for college – it was in that audition that I realized natural talent would only carry me so far. As a child and young adult, I rarely practiced – it all came so easily to me, I didn’t feel like I needed to do so. Halfway through my college education, I realized how much I really did have to learn and talent wouldn’t carry me any farther without disciplined, dedicated practice and lots of sacrifice.

I quit.

I suppose it was fear – something which came so easily to me was suddenly difficult, it was work, it took time to develop.

I buried my gift.

For a couple of years, music was absent from my life – I neither played nor listened to music. I shut it off.

Nurture yours

After a lot of reading, listening, thinking, and rewiring, I realized that I had been gifted with an affinity for music and had to nurture it in some way. I was no better than anyone else, and certainly much worse than others, it was something that simply came naturally to me and needed to be developed (imagine how much further along I would have been had I taken the raw talent when younger and practiced). But I finished my music degree and brought music back into my life.

You have a gift.

There is at least one thing that comes easily to you. Some people may tell you that it isn’t a talent or a gift, but I say it is. Perhaps it isn’t an obvious one, or a gift over which others ooooh and aaaahhhh. Maybe you speak very well, or understand electrical systems, or the inner workings of cars, or have a deft hand at puppetry! It doesn’t matter – if you have an natural inclination towards something, develop it.

Do something with it. Get better. It may not bring you money or riches, but nurture it anyway. Practice the one thing (or more than one thing) at which you were uniquely gifted, however seemingly big or small the talent.

Get better at it. Develop your gift, and when it gets difficult, keep going.

Don’t quit.