7th January 2024, 3:24 PM
I'm not so sure about "natural" gifts/talents I have. Many skills can be attributed to one's upbringing or environment. Encouragement is a motivator for people to dedicate more time to a skill, which leads to improvement. Having access to people or resources which answer your questions is also important. I can source nearly all of my "gifts" to some external motivator. I care about results and opinions more than the process itself—I'll dedicate more time and effort into projects if others enjoy what I make. Others have different motivators. 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will. 5% pleasure, 50% pain. And 100% reason to be pedantic about what natural means.
Explaining your skills, and confidence in yourself, are also "skills" themselves. Valuable ones, at that—at least in hiring processes which aren't 100% merit-based, which means most of them. This line of thinking can be seen as selfish or cocky, which I'd imagine leads to a disparity in how much people develop these skills.
I hope you're not undervaluing having a diverse set of interests. They expose you to a variety of ideas and communities and help develop interconnected skillsets (some of which may not be obvious). You're also introducing yourself to new opportunities to use these developed skills regularly (if you find fulfillment in not sucking at something). I find exploring diverse interests fulfilling, even if I consider myself amateur-ish regarding my hobbies. I've never regretted dedicating time to a hobby even if I'm not proud of my results. There's more than just personal benefits, too—others will appreciate when you share your knowledge, even if it's what you may consider "surface level".
To answer the thread (sort of), using the skills I developed to create things others enjoy or find helpful. I'm not particularly great at these individual skills, but I've found niches where my "amateur" skills I've developed (e.g. programming, art) have strengthened or even created communities—which motivates me to strengthen these skills further.
Explaining your skills, and confidence in yourself, are also "skills" themselves. Valuable ones, at that—at least in hiring processes which aren't 100% merit-based, which means most of them. This line of thinking can be seen as selfish or cocky, which I'd imagine leads to a disparity in how much people develop these skills.
(6th January 2024, 10:18 PM)Delphinoid_ Wrote: I don't think I have any gifts / natural talents. Most of the skills I have are pretty amateurish, and I don't think "being interested in a lot of things" is really a talent.
Recently a friend said I was talented at wording things in the weirdest way possible, like accidentally making things sound inappropriate or suggestive. Maybe this counts, but man do I hate the idea of that lol
I hope you're not undervaluing having a diverse set of interests. They expose you to a variety of ideas and communities and help develop interconnected skillsets (some of which may not be obvious). You're also introducing yourself to new opportunities to use these developed skills regularly (if you find fulfillment in not sucking at something). I find exploring diverse interests fulfilling, even if I consider myself amateur-ish regarding my hobbies. I've never regretted dedicating time to a hobby even if I'm not proud of my results. There's more than just personal benefits, too—others will appreciate when you share your knowledge, even if it's what you may consider "surface level".
To answer the thread (sort of), using the skills I developed to create things others enjoy or find helpful. I'm not particularly great at these individual skills, but I've found niches where my "amateur" skills I've developed (e.g. programming, art) have strengthened or even created communities—which motivates me to strengthen these skills further.
