How do I discover my strength and harness them to have a fruitful career? Is this a question you’ve been asking yourself? If yes, then this article could help you in unlocking your abilities and become invaluable.
Unlocking Your Abilities
One of the wonderful things in living today’s world is we have almost infinite opportunities. We have so many things at our disposal that could help us make the best use of our abilities and become instrumental.
In this post we’ll be looking at ‘TALENT’, things that constitute talent and how you could possibly unlock the talents in you.
What is Talent?
Your talent is your natural abilities or qualities that you’ve possessed in a field or activity. I believe talent consists of three things, which are Gift, Love and Skill. So if you have a gift and then you love that gift and then learn more skills to improve on that gift then you’re TALENTED. Now let’s look at each in details.
-Your Natural Gifts
Your gifts are the things that you were born with, things that you can do naturally, and things that are effortless to you. Some people have one or two gifts and others may have many gifts. Some Gifts might appear earlier in life while others will appear later as you grow.
Everyone was born with a gift and as we grow, our parents, siblings or people around us could easily notice our gifts and sometimes help us harness them. But there a times people grow finding it hard in discovering their gifts or it takes time before they could actually unlock the natural gifts in them.
If you think that you haven’t yet discovered your natural gifts try to ask yourself these questions:
-What comes easily to you?
-When you were a child what sort of things came easily to you?
-What are the areas where you have received awards or public praise?
-What are the areas where others have said, I wish I could do that as well as you?
Taking a few minutes of your leisure time and answering these questions could give you a clear view of what your natural gifts are.
-What Do You Love Doing?
Love are things that you’re passionate about doing, things that you enjoy doing. You could have a gift and have no love for that gift or you don’t enjoy doing it.
Finding out what your gifts are is not enough, there is a key element that can help you harness that gift, which is love. If you love doing what you do best you could have a blissful career. Loving what you do could also help you endure the moments of your job that you dislike. For example, I love teaching people but I dislike the process of preparing exams and marking scripts, but because I love the job I’ll be ready to endure that little annoyance.
There are many people who are in a career in pursuit of the money but they don’t actually love that job. This might not benefit both you and your employer, and you could end up being frustrated or less successful in that job and you might end up quitting or changing a career over time. However, the reality is, many people have difficulties making a living doing what they love. Sometimes they lack the physique necessary or doing something that is over-saturated, for instance, many people love sports but lack the athleticism, physical strength or skills to do sport. So love alone does not guaranty a successful career but it’s a critical element.
Ask yourself this question:
-What would I do if money is no object or if at all you don’t need to worry about paying the bills? Taking a moment to answer this question could also help you in unlocking your abilities through love.
-Skills Acquired
Now that you’ve understood what gift and love are, let’s talk about skills. Your skills are things that you learn over time. They’re the things that you’ve been trained to do. You could learn skills to harness your gifts so that you can be more competent. You can get skills from education, mentorship, on-the-job-training or through self-taught.
We are educated our entire life to improve our skills and that education can come from a variety of sources. While school provides a great skills training it’s not the only source, our family, friends, mentors and people around us also provide skills training.
Every job that you have had has provided an on-the-job-training or your employer might also provide you with an opportunity to attend some training courses to improve your skills. If you’re a student, every training or seminar you’ve attended has increased your skills.
Personally, every job that I took adds up my skills and experience. I always make sure that my employers provide me with the opportunity to study so that I can acquire more skills which will actually benefit me and the employer. If you’re unemployed or you’ve a job that doesn’t provide those opportunities you may use your own earnings to pay for courses or get a mentor who will help and train you to improve on your skills or you could teach yourself.
Throughout my life I have acquired different skills from Computing, Video Making, Teaching, Blogging and Tailoring, and surprisingly, I’m beginning to see other talents popping up. Most of these I didn’t acquire from school but via self-taught. “The secret of self-taught is the ability to know how to know”.
In this section you will need to answer these questions:
-What did you focused on in your education?
-What was your best subject in secondary school?
-If you went to college or university what was your major? What was your minor?
-If you attended a trade school what trade did you learn?
This places a big development in your skills. Next, what careers were you exposed to growing up? You might have heard your parents always discussing about something or you spend time with someone at their work place or listened to conversations, this could naturally influence your skills. For instance, my father and brother are both fashion designers and that actually influenced me to become creative in whatever I do. Hearing my dad or brother talking about patterns, fabrics and quality really helped me in my career and makes me to become result oriented.
Before composing this article I have interviewed few talented people. Now let’s take a moment to read what they’ve shared.
Q1: What is your talent?
Ans: My talent is with electronic devices. I felt in love with them at a very early age.
~Muhammed Kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: My talent is writing. I am good at writing fiction and even nonfiction. I have always loved storytelling and as such, I developed my writing skills and aspire to be a writer.
Ans: My talent is being a strategic planner. Also, I am a very consistent and a very determined individual.
Ans: My talents are: Poetry, Acting, drawing and designing.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: My talent is writing…
Ans: I think my talent is understanding and solving problems. When am faced with a problem, I first try to understand the problem, then try and visualize, after that, I look at the cause of the problem, that helps me break it down into pieces, then I attack those pieces bit by bit.
~Michael Jalloh (Computer Programmer)
Q2: From your own point of view, what are the things that constitutes talent?
Ans: To my own point of view a talent is when you’re able to do certain things easily as mostly it comes to you naturally than others. For instance for you to understand certain things is easier for you than others.
~Muhammed Kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: The ability to do something creative and original. Being dexterous in something that you don’t need any preparation to do it, and having the love and zeal to do it…
Ans: Prayers, Self-realization, persistence and your level of strength in seeking for knowledge and endeavours in your interested arena. In order to carve a place for yourself in the world you living are things that constitutes a great talent.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: As far as am concerned, a talent is an innate ability that you are gifted with… it is not something that you can learn but something you can definitely improve upon.
Ans: I think a talent is anything that you can use without over thinking it and it’s beneficial to you and others.
~Michael Jalloh (Computer Programmer)
Q3: When did you discover your talents?
Ans: When I was in primary School, as early as my grade 2.
~Muhammed Kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: Early childhood…
Ans: I discovered these at my first year at university. When I started my studies, I was overwhelmed by the workload and the advanced modules. In order to be on track, I had to plan effectively by writing my essays and reports in advance and working five times harder than other students.
Ans: I knew the path I’d wanted to trek ever since I was in primary school and so I gave focus to all to them.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: I discovered my talent when I was 14 yrs…
Ans: Honestly I can’t remember. I always liked to ask questions since when I was a kid. People use to think that I will be a lawyer, but I think that was me just trying to understand things better.
~Michael Jalloh (Computer Programmer)
Q4: Did your parents, siblings or friends play a part in discovering your talents?
Ans: Well my father help me a lot to discover my talent. I did my first computer classes at grade 5 and own a computer soon after that.
~Muhammed kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: My mom used to tell me bedtime stories which made me love stories…
Ans: My sister always tells me that she admires my consistency for example, going to the gym all the time. Additionally, seeing how my parents sacrificed a lot to give me a better life, this pushes me to always give my 100% best at everything since this is a one life opportunity.
Ans: It was my reading that sparked it. And yes, my best friend is actually the main reason I started writing. She was the one who pushed me to write my first story.
Ans: My father is my primary support, he helped me discover myself as an artist and did his utmost best to provide materials for my works, his inspiration is seen in every creative work I do.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: No not really. Don’t think so
~Michael Jalloh(Computer Programmer)
Q5: How many talents do you have?
Ans: Well I will say I’m talented in computer programming and handy jobs, examples masonry, carpenter, electronic devices. It just comes to me easily.
~Muhammed Kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: Two. Writing and speaking… I am great at speaking in public.
Ans: I can say about five aptitudes which are determination, planning and organisational skills, consistency, creativity and problem solver.
Ans: I have a lot of talents and I need support so I can unveil my other talents and skills.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: Understanding and solving a Problem, learning something new and being able to think outside the box.
~Michael Jalloh (Computer Programmer)
Q6: Do you love your talent?
Ans: Yes I love it so much. It’s my love and passion for it that drives me to get better and better at it each day.
~Muhammed Kanyi (Computer Programmer)
Ans: I love my talent very much
Ans: Not only I love my talents but I am very grateful for having them especially being a hard worker, having excellent planning skills and being a problem solver. For this reason, these help me to break through my obstacles and live life at my fullest.
Ans: I adore my talent… I can’t imagine not being a writer… it’s a part of me… like my arm or leg… lol
Ans: I love my talents more than I love anything in this world, my talents made me appreciate myself for who I truly am.
~Lamin Barrow (The Rainbow Poet)
Ans: I love it. Don’t think I will change it
~Michael Jalloh (Computer Programmer)
Now, like you’ve read from these talented people, you will realise that most people unlocked their abilities when they were very young. Some in secondary and others in university, others were helped or encouraged by people around them and others via self-taught. Whatever the case may be, try to spend more time trying to improve on your strength instead of wasting a lot of time trying to improve your weakness.
-Improve On Your Technological Skills Regularly
Now let’s talk about how important technology is in your chosen career. Technology can play a vital role in whatever career you’re in. Compare the phone that you’re using today and the one you were using as recently as 10 years ago, the increase in power and sophistication is staggering. Without a commitment to regularly improve on your technological skills is easy to fall behind.
You will need to always try and get up to date with new technological improvements. One of the greatest gifts that we have in the 21st century is the opportunity to learn almost anything online. You also may need to take lectures on at least basic computer user skills like file management, word processing, spreadsheet, database, creating presentations, using the internet and emailing. These few technological skills will definitely play a vital role in whatever career you’re in.
Final Thoughts
Look up to someone who is already successful in his/her career or trying be successful in what they do. This could motivate you to follow their footsteps and even do better.
Try rating yourself from 0-10 every month, like it’s said, when performance is measured; performance improves. Don’t let a month go by without learning something new. If you’re not improving, then you’re stagnating and that’s the last thing you want for yourself. People always keep asking me these questions: When did you know how to do that? You did that? I never thought you know how to that. Well,I learn anything I could easily grab and I have the ability to learn things without being taught and that’s the reason I got many talents.
Try to always identify the areas that you need to improve on, and see how best you could improve on them. You have to jump over from just being good and become better. Let’s say you need to do a better job on accomplishing tasks on time. To improve on that you will need to try and exceed your boss’s or customer’s expectations by getting things done earlier. This definitely makes you the go-to-person in your industry. Good Luck!
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This article was inspired by a course on LinkedIn Learning
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/discovering-your-strengths-2018/find-career-success-and-perform-at-your-best
Ousman Faal [Digital Vigilante] is a Tech Entrepreneur & Digital Skills Trainer who teaches both in the classroom and online. He has experience in various technologies and likes sharing it with others. Ousman has published 149 articles on this blog. He is the CEO of Faalen Technologies and Skills.gm.
