Mind-Manual

Being good at something “naturally” vs having to work hard to get good at it

In moments when I’m not feeling as good about myself, I wonder if I’m not as good as someone who does a lot of the things I’ve learned to do “naturally”. For example, I’ve learned amazing ways to study less and now get great grades by spending much less time studying than I used to for worse grades. However, in those moments of weakness I confess I’m envious of people who are naturally calibrated to spend even less time than myself and do well. Do you ever feel that way?

Another example is that I’m not “naturally” an entrepreneur but I am becoming one. I read books like Howard Shultz’s Pour Your Heart Into It (story of Starbucks) and he writes as if he never had any doubts or periods of thinking, “Am I crazy? Maybe I should just give up.” I reckon I’ll get to a place where I have that much confidence in myself (or the ability to edit my memory of low confidence moments :p), but I won’t have gotten there “naturally”. For some reason, I feel that being naturally calibrated is better than to have to that calibration through conscious hard work. I don’t really know why. It just feels less genuine and less real. Perhaps this is a consequence of our society’s awe and deification of natural ability over hard work, though it seems like both are necessary for success. To be fair though when I’m feeling down on myself, I’m not appreciating the things I AM naturally calibrated to do, such as pursue improvement, or being naturally happy.

I don’t really have a resolution for this yet. Just throwing this out there in case you feel similarly.

Edit: Perhaps this is just the feeling before a quantum leap.

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