THE POWERFUL G’S IN THE LIFE OF MULTITALENTED

“If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude.”

That is a quote by Creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that reflects that it is not always easy to host a kind of overdose of talents: Often one career direction is not a sufficient outlet for one’s creative thrusts. And being basically uncommon may impede the finding of proper peers as a guide or reference for personal maturation.

This complexity of high ability, multitalented and creative people shows up in many ways, such as having – and often being challenged by – many interests and passions.

Dr. Nida H. Garcia, a researcher in Industrial Education Management, considers that the true essence of being multi talented lies not in fame or success but in what multi talented individuals have become because of their talents.  She found by capturing the experiences of a group of multitalented high school students, the Powerful G’s in the life of multitalented students namely: the Greater Self, the Greater Good and the Glorious Divine. These powerful G’s reflect valuable life lessons that can positively influence and direct human actions to deal with the daily challenges of life effectively and to live life meaningfully.

According to talent psychology consultant Karen Ward, juggling multiple interests such as entertainment and sport and doing all of them to a high standard is a personality trait that marks out many of life’s high-achievers. “If a gifted person is motivated to do something, they have the capacity to work very long hours. It’s how they energise themselves,” she says. The theory sounds fine. However, actually running a high-pressure job and pastime in tandem can be nail-biting and, at times, downright exhausting.

One of the myths of high ability, multitalented people is they can choose whatever personal and career paths they want, and realize their abilities without hindrance.However, people who have multiple talents do not necessarily succeed as those who have few of the talents they possess. Here are some of the reasons why it is that way: they are usually confused as to what exactly they are supposed to be doing in life. The “excess” talents constitute distractions to the people who seem to have them. This is because they tend to feed and explore all of their talents at once thereby leading themselves to be less professional in all that they possess as talents. Second, multi-talented people are usually busy doing too many things; they even tend to find themselves helping a lot of people with one challenge or the other. Since they find fulfillment in helping others, they don’t mind saying farewell to one talent after using it in helping people.

Because of the abundance of talents and the unfulfilled quest for success, multi-talented people will switch from one of their talents to another, easily while those who have few talents will stick to their talents and make the best of it. This makes the multi-talented people easily frustrated and increases the tendency of them losing interest in everything, including themselves while sliding in and out of depression at times.

Life is a journey filled with significant lessons,  joys and heartaches, celebrations and hardships, acceptances and rejections, sweet and bitter moments that will ultimately lead individuals to  their exact destination and purpose in life. How individuals perceive the various circumstances in their day to day life, how much attention they pay to the significant lessons that life teaches them, and how the accumulations of these life lessons influence their decisions and actions shape their destination.

Multitalented individuals just like any human being go through this life journey. Yet, being smart, having lots of choices, driven with intensity and passion, create its own unique dilemma. The path of multitalented individuals, involves understanding, overcoming, developing, expressing, and connecting. Having a multitude of talents is not a sure way to success then. A fulfilling life is a perfect blend of an individual’s unique self and rich experiences.

Each and every individual is born with the capacity and the capability to learn and improve one’s skills as well as incorporate new expertise in another field. While some think that individuals who are born with unique talents are blessed, talent alone can carry them only so far and that these individuals need to accompany talent with continuous hard work and great will power to shine through.

Hence, while talents define what people can do, it is their outlook and attitude in life that regulate how well they can do things. In the same manner, it is how people maneuver their journey that determines how remarkable their life will be.

Lama Alhassanieh