My Parents Lied to me..
When I was growing up my parents were typically encouraging. Son, they would tell me, “You can grow up to be anything you want to be”.
On the surface this is harmless enough and my parents were sincere in their desire for me to have be able to do whatever I wanted. And truth be told, no one knows what potential a young child has. Like a blank canvas, the masterpiece of ones life begins at the moment of conception. But at the tender age of six or seven, the canvas remains largely blank.
But the truth is, we really cannot grow up to be anything we want. Some of us, no matter how hard we try, will never be a star basketball player. Our DNA may have blessed us with shorter genes than Michael Jordon. At 6’4” tall and in the 240 pound range, I wouldn’t make a very good horse jockey. It’s just not in my DNA. Nor is math. I recognized in the 5th grade that I would not be good at math. Nor sports…I am pretty uncoordinated and lacked the innate talent many of my teammates had in the various sports I tried.
And while the physical aspects of our bodies are fixed by DNA, the path of experiences and the environment we grow up in shapes us just as dramatically. The sooner a person recognizes this, the better. Unfortunately, our system of educating young people delays this realization for far too long? How? Because as youngsters we are encouraged by our parents, teachers and other mentors to “work on our weaknesses”. The end result of this philosophy? If we are diligent, and work hard on the weaknesses, in the end, we have some really strong weaknesses. Along with frustration and poor self esteem as we are constantly comparing ourselves to others.
Think of all of your life skills, talents and abilities as a bulls-eye. A bulls-eye is a set of circles that gets smaller and smaller as you move toward the center. The center is generally the target.
Using this analogy, the largest circle, the outer circle, represents those things in your life that you really suck at. And not only do you perform these tasks poorly, you loathe doing them. They deplete your energy and you dread doing them. On a bell curve, your performance of these tasks would put you in the lower percentile. Below average.
Note the size of the circle of stuff you are really horrible at and hate doing. It is vast and huge. For me, repetitive tasks fall into this big circle. As does doing paper work and accounting (I can read a balance sheet and an income statement just fine, I just loathe putting one together). The amount of stuff I do poorly and despise doing is very large indeed. I bet just reading this several of your own popped into your mind.
The next smaller circle is stuff you are above average in doing. Meaning you can do it better than most. But these tasks don’t give you any energy and you can take it or leave it.
The next smaller circle, the one slightly larger than the bulls-eye, is your circle of excellence. This is the set of things you do in your life that you are excellent at. Perhaps you do these things better than 90% of the rest of the world. You enjoy doing these things and you derive some energy from doing them. Folks that get paid doing things in this area of their skills are generally happy and recognized for their talents.
But I want you to consider the bull’s-eye. This tiny dot in the center represents the one or two things in your life that you are capable of doing that are extraordinary. One or two things you do better than just about anyone else on the planet. In fact, because of who you are, you do this more remarkably than anyone else. Think of this as you God given talent. And once you find this focal point of your life, and pursue it with all your heart, you will actually find yourself getting increasing amounts of energy doing more and more of it. And, without a doubt, you will live a life of joy and passion that is sadly not found by most inhabitants on this earth.
So how do you find your bulls-eye? Simple. Stop working on your weaknesses. Eliminate, outsource or delegate, without apology or guilt, all the stuff in your like you hate doing or do poorly. Eliminate all that stuff in your life that sucks your energy well dry. Because only by making room in your life for the talent of your bulls-eye to shine through will you find it. And just because you lack talent and desire to do something doesn’t mean it is not someone else’s bulls-eye. By your unwillingness to let some stuff go, you greedily rob someone else of living their passion.
A couple of cautions – You may not recognize your true bulls-eye talent because it is so a part of you that you cannot stand away from it enough to recognize it. That is where people that really know you and are not threatened by your realization of your bulls-eye talent can help you to discover it.
Another caution is that it is really easy to get trapped at the excellence level. I say trapped because this is a cozy place to be. You are doing stuff you enjoy and are getting rewarded for it in terms of accolades and money. But I would encourage you to continue the journey a little further to the center of your existence and find your bulls-eye. And then share that brightness with the world.
So your parents lied to you. You can’t be anything you want to be. But the world doesn’t want you to be just anything; the world wants and needs you to be your bulls-eye.
