By Brideway Foundation [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Growth is good.  It doesn’t matter if you are a novice or a wizened expert, you have the opportunity to deepen and broaden your talents.  You can refine and hone your skills.  You can broaden your knowledge and your perspective.  You can collect new experiences in new situations.  You can blossom through new opportunities.

To the extent that you focus your attention on growing your talents:

  • you will inject new energy into your enterprises
  • you are likely to improve or ease your efforts
  • you may have fun
  • you might find new approaches, solutions, or connections
  • you could proceed in new, unforeseen directions
  • you may cross-pollinate different projects, talents, and ideas

How to Grow Your Talents

This depends on your unique preferences and circumstances. How do you like to learn? What has worked well for you in the past?

If you enjoy more structured learning, the easiest, funnest way to grow is to sign up for a class or workshop.  Committing to a class means that you have a pre-determined time at during which you are devoted to learning. Whether in person or online, classes and workshops also provide the opportunity to interact with other people drawn to the same experience.

A similar approach might be to gather with people to share what you know and teach each other.  This might be once in a while or fairly regularly.  For example, I was part of an Artful Women’s Group that grew out of a metalsmithing class. We all loved working with metal…and ,being DaVincis, we all enjoyed other creative endeavors as well — origami, textiles, painting, sculpture, you name it. We gathered once a month as an erstwhile Creativity Club.  Sometimes, we each worked on our own projects.  More often, we took turns teaching each other different skills and techniques. Occasionally, we’d make a day of visiting galleries together. No matter what we did, we had fun and our talents grew.

It worked well for us but would not for someone who prefers to learn solo.  If you prefer to teach yourself, or to learn from books, or to spend time researching things online, watching YouTube videos and/or otherwise figuring out things for yourself, then clearly these would be more pleasant and successful ways for you to grow your talents.

Whatever your interests, whatever your talents, there is a wealth of information and examples online — and countless opportunities to learn and grow.

My husband pursues photography buy finding ways online to keep growing, learning, and engaged. For example, he’s part of an online community that has weekly photography contests using specific assignments. Those who wish to post entries receive votes and feedback from others. It’s a fun, way to learn from others and provides regular challenges to grow in new directions.

You owe it to yourself to hone your talents. What would be the easiest, funnest most appealing ways to do so?

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Activity:  Take a few moments to consider the easiest, more appealing ways you can grow your talents.

Activity: Take a further few moments to make commitments to develop and grow your talents, going forward:  Sign up for a class or workshop.  Find an online or local group of people who share your interests.  See if there are books in the library or videos on YouTube or local events or exhibitions.  Make a regular appointment with yourself for the purpose of honing your talents.

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Want to re-publish this article? Go for it – just include the author’s name, a link to this original post and the following text blurb:

Are you struggling with too many talents, skills, ideas? You may have The DaVinci Dilemma™! Find tools, fun quizzes, coaching, inspiration and solutions for multi-talented people at http://www.davincidilemma.com/ .

 

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