The Common Pencil

Michelangelo destroyed many of his sketches and drawings to make it seem like his mastery was effortless.

Are you talented? What is your gift? Many of us think that you have to be talented in order to become an artist or musician. What happens when you think this way is that ideas get discarded in your mind before they get a chance to grow.
It becomes normal to think that living the dream is for people that are more special than you are. “This [insert goal] is not for people like me.” Or “I will never reach [insert goal] because I have no talent.”
Instead of pursuing dreams and passions, you turn into a couch potato that just wants to make it to retirement without too much fuss.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with living like a couch potato, as long as that is the life you wish to live. But if you want to achieve more in life, I would like to invite you to think about this:
Talent does not exist! On top of that, we don’t even need it. Talent is overrated. It is repeated effort that can make you successful. Nobody is born with talent. We are all equally (non)special.

Is this knowledge relieving to you? It is to me. It means that someone like me can be successful too.

I think that, in order to ‘reach success’ you need to decide in which direction you would like your life to go. If anything was possible, how would you like to live your life? What do you need to do to get there?

With love,

Heleen Charlotte.