Читать книгу Stop Playing Safe - Margie Warrell - Страница 17

In The Element, Sir Ken Robinson wrote that our element is the point at which natural talent and skill meets personal passion. When people are in their ‘element’ they are both more productive and successful.

Your task here is to identify the things you've always been good at, sometimes making you wonder why other people find them so hard. Are you able to see patterns and opportunities amid complexity and uncertainty that others can't? Are you an amazing listener who is able to take in different perspectives and synthesise a way forward? Are you naturally creative, adept at finding ‘out of the box solutions’? Are you a natural-born rebel with an ability to identify where the status quo needs disrupting? Are you brilliant in the details, able to execute with a precision that others find tedious? Are you a natural deal-maker, technocrat, diplomat or entrepreneur?

Of course you may not have sharpened the strengths to the extent required to achieve your boldest goals. But that doesn't mean you lack anything but practice. The good news here is that most people do not aspire towards ambitions for which they have no real talent (and those who do tend to gravitate to televised talent shows).

The flipside is also true.

I've always been uncannily good at mental arithmetic. Maybe from my years working in a milk bar serving meat pies and making shakes, and later in pubs pouring beers, where I could add up the amount due faster in my head than on a register. But I've never had any interest in pursuing a career that involved focusing on numbers. As you might guess, people are my passion. That said, I'd have enjoyed being a professional singer — think Barbra Streisand meets Lady Gaga. But a marked absence of Barbra-Gaga-like talent meant that was not to be. While I did spring a surprise song on Andrew at our wedding, our kids will happily assure you their mother was never destined for the shortlist of A Star Is Born.

In this age of perfectionism, it's all too easy to get lured into the falsehood that you have to be ‘the best’ — the best consultant, the best sales rep, the best engineer, the best designer, the best writer. Not true! It's not about being the best but being your best. Does that mean you’ll sometimes wish you were better? Of course you will. But by letting go of comparisons and consistently giving the best you can on the good days and not-so-good, you’ll eventually arrive at a point that you’ll realise how little reason you ever had to doubt your one-of-a-kind value in your workplace and the world.