THE TRUTH ABOUT TALENT

A lot of people believe that talent is a natural ‘gift’ that a few lucky individuals receive at birth. However, neuroscience research is now uncovering the truth about talent and how we develop our skills.

Our brains are made up of over 100 billion specialized cells called neurons.

When you decide to wiggle your big toe, neurons in your brain fire electrical signals that travel through your nervous system to reach the muscles in your toe and tell them to wiggle.

In this simple example, the process of wiggling your toe can be seen to be the equivalent of an electrical circuit that is activated by your mind.

At a higher level, any skill that you want to develop is in fact just a more complex neural circuit. For example learning to play the piano involves creating a circuit that involves your eyes, your brain and your fingers.

The most amazing thing about the neural circuits of our body is that they are made up of living tissue, which means they have the ability to grow and improve.

The first time you fire a particular neural circuit it is usually weak and poorly connected.

However, the more you fire the same circuit, the stronger it becomes. Not only do the connections between your neurons improve, but you also activate special cells that wrap your neural pathways in a substance called myelin, which improves the conduction of the electrical signals.

So what does all this actually mean?

It means that talent is not something you receive at birth, but rather, something that you develop through the creation and reinforcement of particular neural pathways.

Once you adopt this view of talent, you will quickly realise that you really can do anything that you put your mind to.

All you have to do is:

(1) Make a definite decision to develop a particular skill
(2) Start doing it immediately no matter how bad you initially are
(3) Push through the awkward stage by understanding it takes time to build a neural circuit
(4) Continue to perform the skill regularly in order to strengthen your neural pathways

Here’s an example that illustrates how this process works:

Trevor was a 43-year-old single man who was a little dissatisfied with his life. He had grown up believing that talent was a God-given gift and it seemed that somehow he had missed out on receiving any useful talents.

One evening, Trevor sat at home watching an old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical on TV. He was amazed by their poise and gracefulness. He wished he could dance like they did but he knew that he had two left feet and no sense of rhythm.

However, the idea of learning to dance stayed with him, and a few days later Trevor tentatively decided to give it a go. He signed up at a dance studio and had his first lesson.

It was a disaster.

He didn’t know his left hand from his right, and he managed to step on the instructor’s toes five times.

He had decided not to return the following week, when he happened to see a documentary on the Discovery Channel that described the way in which neural circuits in the brain develop through repeated firing.

Trevor suddenly realised that if he wanted to learn to dance all he had to do was push through his initial embarrassment and keep dancing.

He therefore made a resolute decision that no matter what happened, he would keep attending the dance studio until the end of the year.

As the weeks and months went by, something amazing began to happen in Trevor’s brain and nervous system – He gradually began to develop the neural circuits required for dancing and little by little he gained control of his wayward feet.

By the end of the year he was a different person. His brain was literally rewired with the neural circuits of a competent dancer. He was confident and he thoroughly enjoyed the social dances at the studio.

In addition to his dancing skills, Trevor had learnt an even more valuable lesson. He had learnt that talent is not a God-given gift, but rather the result of creating specific neural circuits through regular practice and repetition.

So today I’d like to encourage you to think about talent as being something you develop rather than something you are given. With this new perspective, comes the freedom to choose what skills you’d really like to develop in your life. Once you’ve decided on a specific skill, commit yourself to making it happen and get started.

Understand that it takes time to strengthen the neural pathways required to perform any skill and be prepared to feel a little uncomfortable when you first begin.

If you can push through this initial awkward stage, you will gradually develop the neural circuits you need and eventually people will marvel at your amazing ‘natural’ talent.

Until next time
Dare to Dream