What's Your Talent? And Why it's Important to Know

 

What’s your Talent? Have a think about it… because you do have one, I promise.

You might not know that you do, but we all have a talent for something. If you haven’t recognised what it is yet, think of what a benefit it would be to you and other’s once you understand your talents and exploit those in your day-to-day life.

The experiences we have (including our interactions with others) shape our expectations about future outcomes. As a way of dealing with potential ‘threats’ in our lives, we use models of past experience to inform us about what we should do. Of course, we haven’t experienced everything, so we used the best fit option. We match similar experiences with future ones and develop an expectation based on those.

It stands to reason that a person who has had experiences and interactions that were interpreted as evidence that they are not as good as others, will be less successful and just have to make do with what they have. They are more likely going to find it difficult to take bold steps to change their lives. They know how they would like to be, but the gap between the ‘evidence’ and the reality appears too large.

Some of this un-helpful ‘experience’ is bolstered by wider cultural norms. What we considered to be the high watermark of our ideal self can become blurred. This leads to a distortion in what we come to expect of ourselves and occasionally push the bar so high we set ourselves up for frustration and unhappiness.

It may be useful to consider separating out who we are from what we do or at least the material indicators of our self-worth.

Academic achievement continues to be a strong indicator for most people, more so when they are young. Our education system is based on measuring the achievement of children and young adults through the assessment of memory of knowledge. What we discover as we enter the world of work, is that while academic achievement is valuable, it suddenly has less of an impact on what we do.

Many of the young people I taught began to see themselves in relation to their academic achievements, not of who they were and what worth they had outside of the examinations grades they had achieved.

I’m not suggesting that doing well at school is not valuable to you, of course, it is, but not if it is to the detriment of who you are and how you see yourself. Really we should be doing our best…challenging ourselves… but doing our best.

The idea of doing our best has become down valued. Quite often the phrase is interpreted as mediocre: “oh well…at least you did your best.” By definition, we cannot do more than our best, because it is our best.

I would argue that deciding if a person has done their best is really only effectively answered by the individual themselves. If we were to cross-question ourselves and ask if we had done our best, and if we were honest, we can make a truthful assessment about it. The problem of course is that young people are often encouraged to believe that doing their best is not enough, and if we are not careful becomes a blueprint for how they judge their own expectations of success in the future.

Educational Experiences and Our Talents

I spent fifteen years as a teacher and I loved being in the classroom. What I didn’t love was how the focus on teaching to a test left little room for the young people to explore their talents, in fact, it changed their perception of what their talents were. 

If they happened to think differently about the topic we were learning, there was little time for that. If their interests and talents were not on the curriculum, then bad luck, no time for that either. The result? Slowly what they believed was important, correct and had value was confined to the topic list for the subject they were learning.

A measure of that value came from the test or examination results. If you had high test scores, then you were talented in that subject, and if you didn’t you were not.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the students themselves may not have realised that was happening or have spoken in those terms, but it became clear that it was dislocating many from their natural talents. The process of measuring value and talent through their test results led to stress and a distorted perception of whether they were good at anything.

It sounds crazy, but I promise you it is happening right now.


I’ll give you a couple of examples…

Sam’s Story

Sam stared at me with a furrowed brow as I explained a psychological study into Social Learning Theory. He was different from the other A’level students because he wasn’t taking any notes. I wasn’t worried because I knew that his mind was working overtime and he was about to ask a question that would show that he was thinking on a different level from the rest of us.

This had happened many times and often it was such a good point of evaluation that I would turn to the rest of the class and say: ‘Write that down, that’s good.’

There was a problem though… Sam found it almost impossible to write in the way the examination required. If I asked him to tell me the answer to a question he would speak with ease and enthusiasm for the subject that was infectious. Ask him to complete a set of exam questions on paper and that same enthusiasm disappeared.

His dyslexia made it so difficult for him to perform in a way that was demanded by the examination system, no matter how much extra time or scribes were used. We worked hard to practice different ways of helping him to conform for the exam, but even when we managed it, somehow it lost its spark. He managed to do what was required and achieved very respectable grades, but in doing so his talent for verbal academic argument was suppressed.

Louise’s Story

Louise knew how her school report looked, and as her form tutor, I knew that I had to find a way to keep her motivated in the face of what was less than inspiring test scores. Her teacher’s had submitted her latest results and as Louise sat in front of me she shrugged her shoulders and said: “I’m just not as bright as the others.”

I closed her report folder and said: ‘How’s the planning going for the House Competitions?’ She relaxed a bit and smiled as she described how she was certain her house was going to win because she had managed to get the students from the younger years involved making banners, fund-raising as well as organising an assembly presentation for later in the term.

Louise had a talent. She could organise an event better than anyone I knew. She was able to get her peers motivated and enthusiastic about a cause far better than any teacher in the school. When I was asked to take an assembly and was too busy, I knew the person to ask was Louise.

A few days earlier, I had passed the school hall during the lunch break and saw Louise with a group of at least thirty students from the younger years rehearsing a play for the Christmas competition. The students listened to her as she gave them instructions and responded to her natural ability to praise them. Her enthusiasm was infectious and her talent for dealing with people was clear to see.

Problem Number One: Her examination courses were not testing those skills. They were testing her ability to remember information and write it down.

Problem Number Two: Her educational success and talent were measured by those examination results.

Problem Number Three: That system had prevented her from recognising that she had a talent and a very valuable one. So, understandably, she believed that she wasn’t as ‘bright’ as other people.

Talent becomes devalued when it doesn't meet a prescribed 

expectation of what talent means.

Of course the same is true for those that do have a talent for doing exactly what was required of them by education...

The A* Student

One of my students had worked her way through school and had achieved consistently high grades in her assessments. She was a very talented student who worked incredibly hard and would put a lot of pressure on herself. She talked to me about it one day and described it as being “the A* kid”.

She explained that now she felt an expectation from those around her to always get the highest grade in her exams. The pressure of having to maintain that expectation was having a negative effect on her.

Rather than acknowledging her talents and the skills that she had, the expectation was that she should repeat success every time. This is fine as long as she continued to do that… but what happens when inevitably things don’t always go to plan in life?

Without resilience and a strong sense of self-worth, I would hazard a guess that she would struggle.

Fortunately for this particular student, she had parents who understood her talents but also understood that positive self-regard without the conditions of academic success was more important.

Why it’s important to know your talents

Recognising what our talents are and exploiting them is the way we all bolster our self-esteem and our sense of value. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t given value in your early years, in fact, it’s even more important to exploit it now; it is the antidote to unhelpful past experiences.

If you don’t think you have any talents, then it can be useful to do a ‘psychological stock take’. This is sometimes the first step I would do with someone who I am coaching, where we discuss who they are…

I know that sounds like a very therapy type question, but try asking someone and very often they come up with a description of their job, family and then run out of things to say.

What we really want to take stock of is who we want to be? What are the things we would do differently if we had the chance?

And most importantly… 

What talents have you had to put to one side because you didn't know that was your talent?

Very often a person’s hidden talents are within the answers to those three questions.

Blind to our Talents

It is not uncommon for a person to be unaware of their talents, because it is what they do every day and they never realise that it was anything special.

The students I mentioned above would have been unaware of their talents because they came naturally to them. If it was never pointed out, how would they know?

Often in an assessment session for coaching, it becomes clear to me what someone’s talents are, but they haven’t realised it. Once we know our talents we can develop and exploit the benefits they provide.


Imagine what that does for someone’s self-esteem and confidence…

How Hypnotherapy Can Help

Coaching is a way of applying psychological techniques to achieve your goals. The coaching process helps you focus, plan and execute the changes you want to make to your life.

Combining it with Hypnotherapy you are able to learn the skills of self-hypnosis and auto-suggestion to boost your confidence and self-belief.

The Coaching process helps to focus on what you want to achieve, but importantly how you are going to achieve it, while the use of hypnotherapy helps you to re-program the way you think about it.

One takes care of the conscious mind (coaching), and the other the unconscious one (hypnotherapy).

Combing Hypnotherapy with focused Coaching can help a person deal with the negative self-doubt that has stood in their way of succeeding and/or using their talents.

Your car works better when it’s been tuned, the same is true of our metal attitude.

Coaching with Hypnotherapy helps ‘tune’ our thinking so that you find it easier to make the changes that will help you become the person you’ve wanted to be.


David treats clients at Kettering Osteopaths and Oundle Osteopaths. For a Free initial consultation call David on 01536 350328 or visit www.ketteringhypnotherapy.com