Guest Post: Talent is Worthless if You Lack Motivation

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by Jeremiah Tolbert



I’ve spent much of my life jeal­ous of those around me who were nat­u­rally tal­ented at things. I’ve always wished I had some­thing resem­bling tal­ent in visual arts; I have never been able to draw, and it’s a tal­ent I greatly admire. And while I’ve had some minor suc­cess as a writer (in that I’ve pub­lished a few sto­ries), I don’t believe it comes from nat­ural tal­ent but rather per­se­ver­ance and repeated trial and error.

I always assumed that suc­cess in cre­ative endeav­ors would come more eas­ily if I had this thing called tal­ent. Only as I grow older and I have met more tal­ented peo­ple, I real­ize it’s not as big a part of the equa­tion as I once thought. The most impor­tant thing by far is motivation.

The way I see it, there are three fac­tors in cre­ative pur­suit; you’ve got what­ever skill you bring to the table, you’ve got your aspi­ra­tional goals, and you’ve got your moti­va­tion. Talent might advance you some on the skill track, and goals and dreams are easy; every­body has them.

Skills can be learned. Talent’s a head start, but it’s not every­thing. And basi­cally, it’s worth­less if you lack the drive and moti­va­tion to achieve that goal.

I see it a lot; peo­ple who have skill and goals, but they’re always mak­ing excuses for why they aren’t advanc­ing on them. Not enough time being the biggest one, but as Jay Lake always said, roughly para­phras­ing, if you have time to watch TV, you have time to make something.

It boils down most of the time to the fact that you’re just not moti­vated enough on the pur­suit of your goal. Which isn’t to say that real bar­ri­ers to suc­cess don’t exist; of course they do. But with­out drive, or ambi­tion, or some moti­vat­ing need, you’re going to find a rea­son not to cre­ate. I don’t care how tal­ented you are if you can’t be arsed to work.

Let’s face it; not mak­ing things is a lot eas­ier than mak­ing things. Get your ass moti­vated and work. Or don’t; the world doesn’t really care one way or another. It’s gotta come from you, in the end, or what’s the point?

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