Natural talent will not take me any further than it has – only hard work and discipline will take me beyond the level I am today
I've always been someone who has had a moderate level of natural ability in a number of areas - I can play a couple of musical instruments, have a reasonable level of sporting ability (I can generally hit, throw and catch most balls) and have a decent ability to think linearly and strategically.
As I turned the page into my 40th year, I've realized that most of those natural talents are probably going to decline in the years to come. That's not supposed to sound defeatist, I simply know that my physical and mental capacities will never be as sharp as they were when I was in my 20s or 30s. Rather than feel bad about that, I recognize it means that I need to be more disciplined and diligent at working on the areas that I want to either keep or develop further.
Looking back, I can see that in my teens and 20s, I was convinced that if I could just tap more into my natural talents, I'd magically improve. I quickly began to realize that I would never have the musical ability of a Matthew Bellamy or Daniel Johns, the sporting ability of a Michael Jordan or LeBron James or the leadership capacity of a Warren Buffet or Andy Stanley. However, as I've matured and learned more about those people and many others, I've discovered that even with the natural ability they had, each of them maximized what they had been given through sacrifice, hard work and discipline and that whatever ability I had or will ever have, I need to make the same choices.
One of my biggest hopes for this next decade is to focus more and more on the opportunities that God puts in front of me while also zooming in on the areas where I have above average natural gifting, learning, reading and training about what it means to leverage those strengths to be as effective as I can be.
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