How do you deal with not being born talented enough?

[Parki]

I want to make music, but unfortunatelly I wasn't born with what it takes to be able to make it at the level I want.

How do I deal with the frustration that comes from this?

WARNING
do NOT try to cheer me up with stuff like "you gotta try harder" or "it just takes enormous amount of effort to make" etc
So for this thread we are going to assume that you have to be born with it.

 

[SamC]

By realizing that your value is not based on anything except for the fact that you are who you are - and that that is what is ultimate love and makes you loved. Self-esteem in other words. When you become conscious of this you stop doing stuff to become, create or be something. Instead, you do, be and create whatever you choose, no matter what because that is what is infinite love. Who gets to decide what´s good and bad? no one, because it is all relative

[something_else]

18 minutes ago, Parki said:

So for this thread we are going to assume that you have to be born with it.

The problem is this is a retarded assumption for like almost all skills

Most of what you call talent is just people who got into something young enough that it's so naturally built into their being that it looks like talent

Sure there are sometimes people who are exceptionally gifted at things but you also notice that most of them tend to work pretty hard at their talent too and that's not coincidence

Their real talent was having enough passion and drive about a single thing to work hard at it but there's no reason you can't recreate such a drive artificially or find something for which you have a natural passion and drive

This isn't designed to cheer you up btw, in fact it should make you feel kinda unpleasant because the whole reason most people blame lack of success on lack of talent is because it makes your own ego feel good

[Parki]

3 minutes ago, something_else said:

The problem is this is a retarded assumption for like almost all skills

The problem is that you of those retards who thinks they could learn everything.
This is very cliche example, but I use it anyway. Perfect pitch. You can't learn it.

I used to be like this "You can learn anything" just to learn after a decade that no.

[something_else]

"Adults who possess relative pitch but do not already have absolute pitch can learn "pseudo-absolute pitch" and become able to identify notes in a way that superficially resembles absolute pitch.[9] Certain people who train to name notes may indeed become able to identify all 12 notes of the scale with 90% accuracy or above,[10] and valproate, a medication used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, may re-open the "critical period" of learning, making the acquisition of absolute pitch, as well as languages, potentially as efficient for adults as for children.[11][12] Even so, this form of pitch training can require considerable motivation, time, and effort, and it is not retained without constant practice and reinforcement.[13]"

I mean that sounds like a pretty good start minus the medication part lol  Pulled from Wikipedia. I also found a lot of places that say perfect pitch is usually found in people who have extensive musical training at young ages. I don't know if that's talent, I suppose it's luck that you started early. I don't know a lot about music so that all might be full of shit, please tell me if it is, but sounds pretty reasonable

Yea you can be lucky and born with special skills or advantages, I'm not disagreeing with that. The problem is that the mindset of "I'm not talented enough to do X" is a really really bad one that you should try and drop

[Spideymon77]

No one is born talented. People are born with ideas of things they want to do and then they do those things at a consistent rate and get good results. My little sister is a great example of this. She's an amazing drawer and in middle school, she mastered the art of shading. She didn't shade when she was in elementary school because she didn't know how but now she does! Fuck it, I'll even send a picture of one of her drawings if you don't believe me.

The fact is you're shooting yourself in the foot. You're saying you have to be born talented and this is already stifling your own personal progress. I didn't know acoustic guitar for shit until my dad taught me a couple basics. G chord, Em chord, D chord, and C chord. After that, my passion for music led me to learn more and I eventually learned some riffs by Adam Jones of Tool. If I did Adam Jones' riffs square one, no effort at all, you best believe I would be on your side but that fact of the matter is I learned it. This wasn't gifted to me. It's actually a bit of a pet peeve of mine to think that some people believe I'm just good and I didn't push myself to learn these things.

[Loba]

@Spideymon77 Same.  It takes a lot of work, like hours each day for years to get good at a craft.

I'm not where I want to be yet, but when I do it will be because I practiced each day for a few years.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Loba

[Danioover9000]

@Parki

On 19/10/2021 at 10:42 PM, Parki said:

I want to make music, but unfortunatelly I wasn't born with what it takes to be able to make it at the level I want.

How do I deal with the frustration that comes from this?

WARNING
do NOT try to cheer me up with stuff like "you gotta try harder" or "it just takes enormous amount of effort to make" etc
So for this thread we are going to assume that you have to be born with it.

 

   Take a deep breath and relax. Focus on the feelings that make up frustration, label each one as 'FEEL', and let the emotion frustration be. When I say feelings that make up the emotion, I mean the bodily sensations in your awareness that sums up the emotion frustration. For example,  with the emotion rage, that consists of rapid breathing, faster and harder heart beats, hotness around face, neck and shoulders, more muscle tension, tensed jaw, brows furrowed and so on.

   If you notice any imagery with frustration, notice that, label as 'SEE', and observe that thought appearance. If it's a thought sound, and especially if it's you physically and/or mentally talking to yourself about this situation negatively, even positively, notice that, label as 'HEAR', and listen until it finishes and moves on. If it's outside your body, that which you can point to it's appearance, it's sounds it's making, it's kinesthetic aspects, that is triggering this frustration, notice it, label it 'outside see/hear/feel', and observe it, until you feel that emotion ends  and another one begin. This practice is mindfulness with labeling, and it's one I use alongside NLP that quickly helps with managing strong negative feelings around situations, people, places and new habits I want to secure in for success.

   I don't know what frustration means to you personally, but I'll share what frustration means to me to see if it is the same, similar or different emotion to yours. Frustration to me is a smaller subset of emotion under 'Lust'. It comes from situations where people or world elements interrupt my flow, focus, routines, practices and while I'm giving/recieving pleasure, such that I have to address the unwanted interruption that's taking away from the pleasure/satisfaction I was getting from those actions. The feelings that make up frustration that effect me are a sigh, subtle but quick tension, slight furrow, feeling of panicking, and feeling hotter.

[Gili Trawangan]

Assuming you really don't have the talent, I would be pragmatic and just find a different passion.

Mine used to be film, I wanted nothing more than to be a great film director. It became obvious over time that it would never happen, for lack of talent and also the wrong circumstances. I wasn't raised in a country with good film infrastructure, and life just took me in a different direction. So I focused on something else and found something that I have the talent for and that fits my life circumstances.

Following your passion also needs to take into account the context.

[Moksha]

Make music. Who cares what you are born with, or not?

Ask yourself what your true motivation is for making music. Is it for fame and money? Or does the music itself bring you joy?

Fame and money will not bring fulfillment, even for the most gifted virtuoso. Making music for the joy of making music will.

[TK2021]

Many people replying here don't understand that you need to actually be exceptionally talented if you wanna be exceptional at what you do if millions and billions are already trying to be exceptional at it. No amount of hard work will make you Lionel Messi. You will most likely not even be able to make a living if you dedicate your entire life to football from 5 years of age.

If your trying to make money, find something you enjoy, which doesn't already have millions and billions of other people trying to be good at it.

[Moksha]

24 minutes ago, nuwu said:

You are like telling a bird "who cares if you can't fly? just fly! :3"

Is flying being the best, or is it being?

[Byun Sean]

This is a limiting belief that can cost you so much.

What makes you believe you were born "not talented"?

 

 

Its also fairly common that people have unique strengths and weaknesses and their strengths are not recognized in their totality by both themselves and society. Mainly due to where the education system is at.

Thus, most kids end up feeling stupid because everyone is comparing each other by the same cultural standards which are completely fabricated 

and are far from the actual truth.

[Kensho]

The core of the work of self help teaches that one has to find his strengnths and inclinations and follow them. 

Music apparently is not one of them.

Be careful of using your lack of talent as an excuse. 

[Dayo]

@Parki. since you don't want to hear about other alternative perspectives to talent. You believe you don't have talent in music. You can drop music and find something you have talent in.

[Nahm]

Let controlling go, understand what an assumption is.