There is a funny thing about being an adult. By the time we reach a certain age, many of us have become remarkably good at knowing what we are not good at. We’re not musical. We’re hopeless at sport. We can’t draw, etc. Perhaps we tried something once, struggled with it and quietly filed it away under “not for me”. Yet how much of what we believe about our abilities is actually based on experience, and how much comes from an old verdict we have simply carried with us?
As children, we are constantly discovering what we can and cannot do. We draw dreadful pictures, fall off bikes, mispronounce words, and get answers wrong. We try again because nobody expects a child to be particularly good at something on the first attempt. Somewhere along the way, many of us become less willing to look foolish while learning. We become accustomed to being competent, and there can be something surprisingly uncomfortable about putting ourselves in a situation where we don’t know what we’re doing. Yet perhaps being willing to be a beginner again is exactly how we discover something new about ourselves.
You may have changed
One of the interesting things about returning to an old interest is discovering you are no longer the same person who abandoned it. Perhaps you tried painting twenty years ago and decided you had no talent, gave up a musical instrument because you found it difficult, or decided you simply weren’t suited to photography. Since then, you’ve acquired knowledge, patience, confidence and life experience, while your interests and approach to problems may have changed too. The person who struggled with something at 30 may approach it very differently at 60 or 70, perhaps with greater patience or less concern about whether anyone else thinks they’re good at it. Even if you don’t become better at the activity, you may enjoy it in a way you couldn’t appreciate when you were younger. Sometimes the most interesting reason for trying again is simply finding out whether you still dislike it.
There is another possibility, too. Perhaps your next discovery is hiding in something you’ve never attempted. Most of us develop a fairly settled picture of ourselves over the years. We know what we enjoy, what we’re confident doing and what seems to belong to other people. Yet nobody starts life knowing whether they have an aptitude for pottery, music, woodworking or learning another language. You cannot discover a talent for something you never give yourself the opportunity to try. This doesn’t mean buying expensive equipment or committing yourself to a complete reinvention. Treat a new interest as an experiment. Go to a class, borrow the equipment, watch a beginner’s tutorial or simply have a go. You’re not deciding who you are; you’re giving yourself enough experience to find out whether something sparks your interest.
Talent isn’t always obvious
We tend to imagine talent as something which reveals itself immediately, but many abilities develop quietly through curiosity and practice. A first attempt can tell you very little about your eventual ability. You might discover a good eye for colour without ever having considered yourself artistic, or find you have an unexpected aptitude for working with your hands. Sometimes the talent isn’t in the activity itself but in the way you approach it. Someone who enjoys researching family history might discover an instinct for detective work, while a person who loves organising trips might have a natural talent for planning.
Of course, you have to be prepared to be bad at something first. Being a beginner can feel strangely uncomfortable when you’ve spent decades becoming competent. You don’t know the terminology, the equipment or the unwritten rules, while someone else seems to understand everything immediately. None of this tells you whether you’ll eventually become good at it; it simply tells you you’re at the beginning. There can be something rather liberating about remembering nobody is keeping score. You can simply decide to find out what happens when you try. Removing the pressure to become good at something may even make it easier to discover whether you genuinely enjoy it.
What if you surprise yourself?
Perhaps the most exciting possibility isn’t becoming particularly good at something. it is discovering a side of yourself you didn’t know existed. You might find you have a talent for writing after never considering yourself creative, or find a patience for making things you never knew you possessed. None of these possibilities requires some extraordinary ability to have been hiding all along. They simply require you to give yourself the chance to find out.
You might discover the opposite, of course. You could try something and be spectacularly hopeless at it, with no hidden talent emerging despite your best efforts, that’s useful information too. Not every experiment needs to produce a new skill or passion, and there is no failure in deciding an activity isn’t for you. You may even discover you enjoy being bad at something because there is no pressure to perform when you’re doing it simply for yourself.
Leave a few doors open
As we get older, it can be tempting to become increasingly certain about who we are. Some of this knowledge is useful, but too much certainty can quietly become a limitation. If you’ve decided you’re not creative, you may stop looking for evidence which challenges the conclusion.
Perhaps there is value in leaving a few doors open. Return to something you haven’t touched for years, or try something completely unfamiliar, without deciding in advance where it has to lead. You may uncover a talent, rediscover an old interest or simply enjoy doing something new.