There are times in our lives when we feel discouraged and down. The situation worsens if there is no one else to uplift our morale. During such times, you need to remember that you are blessed with immense talents, and once you recognize these, you will be able to get back on the driving seat again.
However, the most difficult question to answer would be how to identify your talents?
The hustle and bustle of life keep us so occupied that we often forget to sit back and reflect on ourselves. But when life brings you to your knees, that is when you start losing confidence . You need to develop courage and discover your talent during such times.
There are various ways you can use to discover your talent. Some of them we have elaborated on in this write-up.
If you want to identify your talents and use them to your advantage, then peruse the coming sections. In the coming section, we have tried to answer the most sought-after question – “how to discover your talent,” in the coming section.
How to Discover Your Talents Using These 13 Easy Tips
1. Take a life assessment.
No life assessment resembles the other. Every Life Assessment test would be different from the other. If you want to know about your potential in life, take this assessment test.
Besides being free of cost, it allows you to understand how you perform in different aspects of life. You will be able to identify and pinpoint the facet of life that needs maximum attention.
Additionally, with the help of such tests, you can realize what makes you tick.
The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator is one of the most promising tools that can help you define your life and personality patterns. It would allow you to check what type of motivations in life are more suited to you.
Once you can judge the category you come into, you can list your strengths and shortcomings more precisely.
You can even use the results of such tests for a walk-in interview, on a date, or any other high-stake situation. Play around with your newly discovered strengths.
2. Find what makes you feel strong.
Talent identity is all about finding what makes you stronger. When we say stronger, you must be purposeful in life and experience growth and satisfaction. That is what this entire life is all about.
You must have come across situations where everything seems flawless and easy. When you are good at some things, everything appears easier. Our inner sense always draws us to things that make us feel calm and content in life.
However, you feel low when you feel out of place or do not really get that satisfaction from your daily life.
These are the times to identify and recall what made you feel good about your life. It might be your talent to deal with kids or play games. Whatever it may be, that would define your strength.
You need to ensure that you pursue such talents, whatever you are good at. If you are good with kids, try babysitting or volunteering your time in any after-school program. That is what would make define your schedule as per your strengths.
3. Find what you spend the most money on.
One of the best ways to identify talent is by checking where you spend your money the most. If you are not good at maintaining books or records of your finances, try out using free and easy-to-use applications such as Mint. It would allow you to determine where your maximum dollars are spent.
Following your green would lead you to discover your talent. If you check your finances for the past 12 months, you will find a specific spending pattern on certain things. If you spend regular money to keep up with your gym schedule, maybe you are good at it, and that is what your talent is!
Use this discovery of talent to your advantage by going on advanced stages of such activities and enjoying your life to the fullest. This would give you utmost satisfaction.
4. Ask your friends what your best and worst qualities are.
Why not retort to talking to the very close people you, such as your family or friends. They are the ones who have been with you for a long time, and these are the people who would undoubtedly know clearly what your passions and interests are. More importantly, they can tell you what you are good at.
It can be anything from singing to dancing to cracking jokes. Things that come to you effortlessly and entertain others are your talents.
When you ask your friends about your best and worst qualities, ask them to be brutally honest with you. Knowing about your weaknesses or worst qualities helps you isolate such habits or activities from your life. This would only leave you with things that you are good at.
5. Ask your family what you loved as a child.
Why not talk to your mother, dad, or siblings and check with them about what you loved when you were a child.
Maybe you are having difficulty remembering such things, but they would surely remember. These are the people in your life who have known you for the longest.
There are things and habits that we pick up as kids and try to be good at these. Maybe we were good at it, but we tended to forget such things as we grew.
Your past behaviors, likes, and dislikes would give you a clear insight into your personality and how you grew up.
If some of these things still tickle your brain or bring excitement, these were the things that you loved and were good at. That’s what your talent is! Try to recreate your childhood and bring back the same level of gusto when you realize your strengths.
6. Write in a journal.
Sometimes nothing works, and we just don’t feel like discussing our feelings with anyone. Do you know what is good during such times? Using a pen and paper would be the best companion when you need to be alone and discover your talents.
Take your journal and let your thoughts go wild. Write something every day in this journal and make it your routine activity. When you allow your thoughts to flow freely, they will direct you to the things you love.
After about a week or a month, start re-reading your journal. You will realize that numerous things would attract your attention, and you would like to revisit those thoughts.
Your journal holds the answer to discovering your talents. It would show you what you miss from your life and what you need to do next. It would also allow you to discover what you desire.
Reading your journal will allow you to list down your strengths and opportunities.
7. Look for talent in others.
Don’t force yourself to do so when you cannot dig deep down in your mindset. Take a break and observe others. There are times when the talent of others inspires us. What attracts us could secretly become our talent.
Sometimes observing others also inspires us to realize that we are good at it. For example, if an article inspires you but you believe you could have contributed to it in a better way, maybe your hidden talent is writing.
Look out for something that connects to your soul. It should inspire you and make you feel happy and content.
There would be times when the talent of others would make you feel jealous. But worry not, you can use this to your advantage too! You can seek advice from such a person and get help to develop such talent yourself.
8. Take stock of your book/music/movie collections.
We live in a modern society full of audio and video content everywhere. If you collect books, music, or movies, this would be a good time to check your inventory.
Try to mind what type of media you consume. The category of media that you are fond of reflects your clear inclination to enjoy it.
Sometimes that helps us determine our identity. There are things that light fire in our lives. Our media collection would give us an idea of what we like. If you find a specific pattern towards a particular segment, dig deep into it by finding other related activities.
Connect with others who follow similar talents. Sometimes even they can guide us through the next steps of discovering the hidden talents.
9. Remember what you have been thanked for.
We do numerous deeds in our lifetime. For a few, we are thanked, and for others, we are not. Try to find out the various things you were thanked for in the past. How did it make you feel?
If you felt good, then try to recollect if doing a similar errand at a later stage also leads to getting “thanks” from someone. When you are thanked for something regularly, you are good at it, which could be your hidden talent.
You might be a good listener, a good motivator, or a good teacher. These small thank yous’ may seem insignificant at times. However, somewhere deep down, these are our talents.
10. Be open to change.
Once you have found how to identify talent, be open to change. You might have to make major life-changing decisions after discovering your talent.
It might seem unsettling initially, but that is what would make you happy eventually. You cannot expect to stay stagnant and grow. You need to accept change and do it willingly.
Don’t retort to finding reasons to delay or neglect such changes. You need to give yourself a chance to live a life that makes you happy through your talents.
You will have to let go of all the preconceived notions and willingly accept the new thoughts and habits. You will find that such changes would make your content and prepare you for more life challenges.
11. Select Your Talents
It might turn out that you are multi-talented. You can be good with more than one thing in life. And this can be a good thing since it proves to be very motivating.
You need to choose from the list of things you are good at during such times.
Decide what talent ticks your heart and soul. What makes you happy and content is what you should shortlist and pursue.
Just choose and dig deep into your passions to live a happy and content life.
12. Upgrade
Discovering your talent does not mean that your story of self-discovery has ended. It requires you to constantly learn and upgrade your knowledge and become more proficient to upgrade your skillset.
Take up courses, attend seminars, watch videos, read books, or do anything that will help you with upgrading your talent.
With time almost everything becomes outdated, and therefore you should never be satisfied when it comes to learning and upgrading your knowledge.
13. Reach Perfection
Perfection is constant evolution and up-gradation of knowledge. Flawlessness means to become better compared to the person you were yesterday!
Hustle, question constantly, select your abilities, update and arrive at your compulsiveness. Be the best form of you!
That is how you reach perfection!
Final Thoughts
Life is not always a straight line. It is sometimes zigzag or runs in circles. We need to be aware of our strengths if we need to deal with the ups and downs of our lives. Our strengths give us the courage and vision to fight mental demons and face life’s challenges.
Hopefully, you enjoyed reading our rundown of steps that will help you find answers to “how to discover your talent.” Let the above pointers guide you to discover your talents.
Featured photo credit: Debby Hudson via unsplash.com