Writing about the need for creating your personal development plan, gave me greater appreciation for doing work that you love. When you look at the basic components that make us proficient at something, you’ll find that having a passion or purpose for what you do makes it interesting, exciting, intriguing and fun. Here’s how…
Being proficient at something requires:
- Skills
- Knowledge
- Experience
Take a basic example – bookkeeping. It requires skills in organization and the ability to track items of expense and income. It takes knowledge of basic math to understand which items add to the bottom line and which subtract. Over time, the repeated performance of skills and use of knowledge, i.e., experience, allows one to work faster and have a greater understanding of the numbers.
I am proficient at bookkeeping yet I don’t do it. I don’t do it because I lack the natural talent to enjoy the work. Had my professor’s encouragement and my great accounting grades in college persuaded me, I would now be a very frustrated accountant.
While one can be proficient at something, true mastery and enjoyment comes only when another component is present – talent.
Talent is defined as natural ability or aptitude and/or the capacity for achievement or success. I lack talent to be a bookkeeper. A love of numbers, a delight for orderly spreadsheets or a joy derived from making sense of past income and expenses; I am not sure exactly what talent it is but I know I do not have it! Getting better at bookkeeping will not solve my issue as I have no interest in getting better. Fortunately, there are plenty of skilled, knowledgeable, experienced bookkeepers who can keep my books in order and ENJOY doing it!
Where is your proficiency being misapplied? What are you doing that you are great at yet despise? What are you not doing that you love?