I’ve always believed that some people are just more talented than others. They’re the football stars, the singers and actors, the musicians, the amazing CEO’s, designers and artists who excel at what they do. I’ve always believed that they just somehow have some sort of exceptional ability that they then, through fortuitous circumstances, wrangled into vast wealth and fame.
Turns out, not so much.
In every case of excellence, be it Motzart, Bill Gates, Michael Jackson or your favorite sporting star, their excellence is developed through repetition and practice. For instance, The Beatles, when the first formed, were kinda crap. Luckily for them they were booked to play in Hamburg, Germany. Rather than the hour or two of performance every couple of weekends they were doing in Liverpool in Hamburg they were expected to play eight hours a day seven days a week. Which they did. They went to Germany a struggling group of artists and came back as a cohesive, slick band with great stage presence.
In the book Talent is Overrated: Exploding the Talent Myth, this idea of natural talent is explored in detail. Some people may have natural talent at some things, but to develop that to world class level, or even any level of expertise, takes time and practice. Lots and lots of practice. Lots and lots; in fact the amount of time spent practicing is often the only difference between those who win and those who come second.
For me this is an eye opening fact, for a number of different reasons, but particularly in terms of body acceptance.
My goal with body acceptance is to get to a point where I feel content with who I am. It would be great to feel confident and sexy, but for the moment I’ll settle for content. In particular what I want to eliminate is that nasty little voice in my head that says some of the cruelest things. Ironically that voice is only so good at tearing me down because of years and years of practice.
As Pink says in her song *#@$!% Perfect “…change those voices in your head, make them like you instead…” And that’s what I plan to do.
At the moment it feels like a drop in the ocean – I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself, oops, no wait, I like myself, really I do. But that’s ok, because you know what, if I practice this I’ll get better at it. If I keep practicing then eventually I’m going to get to a spot where I can be content with myself, the way I am; the size that I am. And then, maybe, it’s a short step from there to confident and sexy me.
Leave a Reply