I was watching a rerun of X Factor at my brother’s house at the weekend. Most of the time I was wincing at all the bum notes sung by the people the judges were saying were fantastic, or wincing at everyone who was doing it for their { mom | dad | grandma | grandad | dead parrot } in an attempt to get me emotionally invested. Apart from all that cringe, the other thing I noticed was people saying things like,
“This is my dream!”
This really gets on my nerves because invariably they’ve done nothing to make their dream become a reality, other than turn up to audition on the day. They haven’t put in the hours practising their craft. They’ve not gone out looking for constructive criticism, then using that to improve. They’ve not tried to get some training to perfect their skills. They’ve just turned up thinking that singing a bunch of off key runs will make everyone think they are Mariah.
Getting good at anything takes time and effort. If you enjoy it, you might not notice how much effort you’ve put in, but that doesn’t negate the effort you’ve put in. We always hear people speaking about natural talent, but invariably you see those “winners” put in the effort, as well as having natural gifts.
I remember hearing someone saying you should praise effort, not results. From my experience, life is a grind and the people who succeed are the people that are prepared to work hard. Natural talent doesn’t go that far in life.
Next time you hear someone talk about “their dream”, ask them what they’ve done to make it a reality. If they’ve done nothing, I suggest you tell them they are full of shit and need to get off their lazy ass and make it a reality!
Cheers
Tim…