Everyone Is Gifted
A wise person once said, “Everyone is gifted, but some people never open their package.”
Do you know what your gifts are? It’s a valid question. There are so many people on the planet living in automatic mode out of necessity or out of habit. They’re not very aware of the “tools” they’ve been gifted with and don’t actively and consciously rise to their own potential.
If you’re reading this, you probably already have some awareness or at least a yearning to know. And it’s possible, too, that if you’ve dropped out of automatic gear to carve out time to reflect, you might be finding it difficult to see what you’re trying to see. You might be struggling to step back and look at yourself objectively. If so, that’s perfectly normal… you live in the skin you’re in, and it’s the only viewpoint you’ve known for a long time.
That’s why a self-inquiry process can be so useful. When you’re open and willing, it can bring extraordinary clarity.
Self-inquiry is not very difficult to do… that is, as long as you’re asking yourself good questions and you trust that you DO have the answers. The idea is to let the answers come forth so that the left side of your brain can notice patterns and do the analyzing work it’s meant to do for you.
Below are a few areas of self-inquiry to help you (and the left side of your brain) recognize your own gifts.
Look at your sense of time and energy
A popular question to start with is “What do you like doing so much that you lose track of time?” Another variation of this question is, “What activities and tasks make you still feel energized at the end of the day (versus those activities that drain your energy)?” Identifying what you enjoy doing can point to the gifts and talents required to do them.
Look into your childhood
Consider the talents that have always come naturally to you, even when you were young. Perhaps you were not as naturally gifted as Mozart, who understood music at age 3 and was composing at age 5, but you do have something that stood out about you. Were you always taking apart appliances and putting them back together again? Were you the one who everyone came to when they needed a friend to talk to? If you can’t think of anything, reflect on the kinds of things that strongly captured your imagination. What were your dreams when you were a kid? Did you want to be an astronaut, a ballerina, an archaeologist, etc. There are qualities that attracted you to those roles that reveal clues about your gifts.
Consider the dark side
There are clues hidden in the dark side, too. The truth is that our greatest strengths can also be our greatest weaknesses. What are the negative labels that you’ve been called – such as bossy, compulsive, daydreamer, etc.? Your gifts show up in your life no matter what you’re doing because they are who you are. Consider how your gifts might have been misunderstood, even ridiculed, or how they were misapplied and, therefore, would be considered weaknesses when used at the “wrong” place or time.
You are gifted. Don’t ignore the impulse you’re feeling to open your package and look inside. Don’t delay! The world is waiting to see what’s inside, too!
