I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while. Sometimes when I play people tell me that I’m very talented. And they are right to a certain extent. But I do not think they see the thousands of hours of practice and all the mistakes that I made along the way.
I have had to take whatever “TALENT” I had, and use “HARD WORK” to get where I need I am today. One of the great examples of hard work augmenting talent is seen in the life of Pedro Martinez, RedSox pitcher. He said that he would spend 7 hours everyday working to improve himself. Because he had such a small frame (154 lbs that pitched 97 mph) he had to work that much harder to overcome the pain of pitching. He kept working hard. He kept his goals in mind.
If you don’t work on the talent that you have you will lose even what talent you have. The question is are you ready to work, to do the hard work necessary to achieve your goals? If you do, you will go far. You can overcome, but you have to put in the work…
And hard work can overcome a lack of “talent.” Perhaps not to “star” status, but at least to an acceptable level to enjoy participating in an activity.
Indeed. There are tons of stories where hard work trumps talent. I’m reminded of the tortoise and the hare. 🙂 I should have referenced it in my blog lol. Thanks for stopping by