You don't find yourself; you create yourself

Lyman MacInnis -
May 16, 2005
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A young woman takes a year off from university to backpack through Europe and 'find' herself. A not-so-young man is struggling at his job; he says he's having trouble 'finding' himself.

The young woman will probably have a wonderful time, experiencing adventures that will prove valuable to her for the rest of her life. The not-quite-so-young man may eventually land a job he enjoys. But they aren't going to passively "find" themselves.

You don't find yourself; you create yourself. And you do it by recognizing and developing your abilities, acquiring new ones and using all of them to your best advantage.

There are three good ways to identify abilities you already possess and to discover those that may be lacking. Most people don't have a problem with the first method; it's simply objectively assessing what it is that you do and don't do well. However, it's sometimes difficult to be sufficiently objective, so the second way is to ask others - such as colleagues, bosses, and mentors - for their assessments. Finally, and this is the one most often overlooked, you have to try new things and try doing old things in new ways. In addition to discovering an ability you don't know you have, you may identify an ability you should have. Opportunities are never missed; the ones you don't take advantage of, someone else will. When you aren't improving, someone else is; and when you come up against that person, you will lose.

Now to using your abilities to your best advantage. If you're expecting something magical, you're about to be disappointed. It all boils down to good old-fashioned hard work.

It's been said that hard work without ability is a shame, but ability without hard work is a tragedy. There are examples everywhere. There are athletes with an abundance of so-called natural ability who never come close to reaching their potential. It's likely because they don't work hard enough in games, don't practise enough or simply don't care enough. There are the bright, young people who won't give that extra effort, such as the lawyer who didn't develop his communication skills, so didn't make partner. There are the students whose marks remain short of what they could be because not enough notes were taken, or the notes weren't reviewed, so the scholarship was won by someone else.

Speaking of students, there are many people who achieve great success with little formal education. These are people who are often said to have made it on natural ability. Maybe so, but it's rare indeed for people to achieve lasting success without a concerted effort to make the most of their abilities, natural and acquired. It's what you actually do that counts, not what you are capable of doing.

By now you should have gotten the message that hard work is a key ingredient of using your ability. That's the good news. The bad news is there's more required. It's the quality of your work that's going to count most in the long run, and the quality of your work is greatly affected by your attitude. Quality work is usually the link between wanting something and getting it. The person who got a good job probably did whatever was necessary to do a good job. The best preparation for tomorrow is always a job well done today.

Not only will this approach work wonders in reaching your goals and achieving success, but a job well done is one of life's most satisfying experiences. If you think about it, you can come up with many examples from your own experiences of the gratifying feeling of knowing you've done your very best. Good enough is the enemy of best.

Here's a way to test this theory about the importance of attitude. The next time you're faced with a boring chore, or a task that you don't particularly enjoy, say to yourself that just this once you're going to do it with a positive attitude and to the very best of your ability. No complaining. No loss of concentration. Just dig in with enthusiasm and do it better than you've ever done it before. The result will amaze you. Continue to do this over a long period of time and the results will be positively staggering. If you consistently give the world your very best, the very best will come back to you.

Many years ago there was a Ripley's Believe It Or Not cartoon depicting an ordinary iron bar worth, at the time, about $5. The cartoon went on to point out that the iron bar made into horseshoes would be worth about $10. Made into sewing needles it would be worth $3,285. If it was turned into balance springs for watches it would be worth a quarter of a million dollars, an increase of 50,000 per cent!

Ability is very much like that iron bar. It's worth only what you do with it, and Easy Street is a dead end.

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