The Myth of Natural Ability

I’m currently working on this year-long journaling project that has me reflecting each Sunday afternoon on topics of self, fulfillment, gratitude, etc. One of my recent prompts asked me to consider things I’m really good at. 

As an aside—it’s a fun little delight to grow into a question like this. To feel on a core level the changes in self esteem over my lifetime. Once, in a workshop as a seventeen-year-old, a presenter gave us 5 quiet minutes to jot down a similar list and I, consumed with angst, doodled on my paper until they began speaking again. This time, at 31, I clicked my pen without hesitation.

I wrote that I am a damn good baker. I wrote that I’m disciplined and am good at waking up early and building and managing systems. Wrote that I am an excellent travel planner and that I’m good at picking up other languages. I wrote about my professional life and my personal life and the ways I care about people in my community. 

Only after compiling my list did I read the second part of the prompt where I was to differentiate which things I worked hard at and which things came naturally. 

And my response was one of confusion… because don’t I work hard at all of it?

I trained myself to be a morning person somewhere in middle or high school when I put my alarm clock on the other side of my bedroom thereby forcing myself to be standing to silence it. On days I knew I’d need a little extra motivation, I’d leave a sticky note with an inspiring quote on top of the alarm clock and even if I ended up rolling my bleary eyes, I’d wake up.

Oh, I’m really disciplined? Is this not a choice that I have to make every single day? I’ve been recording daily “Happiness” since I was 17. It’s easy now. But it didn’t used to be. It used to be hard hard. But I kept showing up and day by day and year by year it got a little easier. It became a little more natural. 

I make a great tiramisu. My chocolate chip cookies are frequently requested. The last time I made a multi-tiered burnt almond torte, I sincerely considered opening a bakery. But there was that one time I tried to make Ho-Hos. I’ve never made a brownie I was truly satisfied with. And the first time I tried gluten free flour? Disaster. But I keep baking. I study recipes and I play with flavors and I watch my ingredients and I’ve gotten better because of it. 

I think there’s this myth of natural ability. Since elementary school, I’ve had teachers telling me I was a good writer. I internalized this and took every opportunity I could to keep proving those teachers right. It’s the closest thing I might have had to a natural ability. But was it? Was I born a writer or did my parents read to me? Is it innate or is it that the library was (still is) one of my favorite places? Or because my mom bought “blank books” from the craft store and encouraged me to tell stories? Or because someone—many ones—encouraged it in me. Gave it space to grow. 

I’m sure there is an argument to be made somewhere about things coming naturally. I just have yet to find it. 

What I have found is waking up at 5:00 AM to run before work is work. And it is also good. 

We do ourselves a disservice thinking we should inherently be “really good” at something. It gives us permission not to try… not to show up… not to push through the discomfort of being bad or looking stupid or falling over and over again. Falling so we can stand up. Standing up so we can move forward. Moving forward so we can grow in confidence and ability. Growing and trusting and learning and believing that it’s not too late to be great at something. 

That it’s not too late to start.