Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should do it.  I, for example, was once a truly excellent administrative assistant.  Shockingly, nobody seemed to care that I found this job so boring that I wanted to eat the paper clips.  The people around me would have been happy to see me function successfully for years in that position I was ‘just so good at.’  I kept waiting for someone to see how overqualified I was, how I could do so much more.  Guess what?  That didn’t happen. 

    I’m sure you’re not nearly as naïve as I was, and yet many women find themselves slogging along in a career that excites them about as much as turtle food.  They’re waiting:  for their work to be acknowledged, for their potential to be discovered, for their loyalty to be rewarded, or for someone to pick them out of the crowd and say, “You in the purple skirt!  This is your moment!”   

    There is a juicy archetypal story that goes like this: the lovely girl is just going along her way, minding her own business, sitting in an airport or milking the cows or writing term papers when—boom!—someone spots her true worth.  Sometimes it’s a prince, or a boss, or a light shining down from the heavens.  Sometimes it’s a professor, or a talent scout, or Oprah.  In every case, the girl is called out of obscurity through no ambition or initiative of her own.  We love this story; it’s such a convenient one, because then the humble woman can blush and step reluctantly into the limelight.  Oh gosh, she didn’t intend to attract all this attention, but gee, I guess since she’s here she’ll smile bravely and step up to the challenge!  Historically, enterprising women have employed this little fiction to avoid being accused of arrogance, scheming, or unladylike ambition.  Dr. Debra Condren points out in her book Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word that even today, ambitious men are called go-getters with initiative, while ambitious women are known as greedy bitches.  (If this seems terribly dated, think about the media’s portrayal of Hillary Clinton or Martha Stewart.)  So this tale, of the hapless woman being plucked out of the masses, still functions as a good talisman against public scorn.  It’s a harmless story, really—as long as you don’t believe it. 

    Some of my favorite fantasies have lost their sparkle as I learn more about my heroes. The actress who was ‘discovered’ in an airport?  She’d been auditioning for three years before that.  The writer whose book ‘just flowed’?  She then rewrote it nine times.  The teacher who was asked to step up as headmaster in spite of her youth?  She adored teaching and put more time, money, and effort into her own growth as an educator than did any of her colleagues. 

    In his book The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle argues that talent isn’t born, it’s grown.  He believes that there’s no such thing as ‘natural talent.’  He examined people at the top of their fields and found that what they share is not inherent ability, but something he calls ‘deep practice.’  We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect, but according to Coyle, practice simply makes permanent.  What produces mastery is the willingness to do your best, fail, then examine what you did wrong and fix it the next time.  Sustained deep practice causes a substance called myelin to form around the neural pathways associated with that task, increasing speed and accuracy.  (Apparently Einstein’s brain contained a perfectly ordinary number of synapses, to researchers’ great disappointment.  What it did contain was large amounts of this mysterious fatty tissue called myelin.)  Myelin is not inherited, like bone structure; the way you use your brain causes it to multiply or shrink.   

    It’s not enough to slug away dutifully at something you feel ambivalent about.  Coyle pinpoints passion, almost a primal longing, as another key ingredient for mastery.  In other words, he’s saying that the only way to be truly excellent at something is to really want it, and then work really consciously at it. 

    This is pretty much the opposite of conventional career wisdom, which says that you should stick with a marketable version of something that comes easily to you.  (Oh, but you’re so good with numbers—you should be an accountant, because you can!  Not everyone can be a lawyer, you know—you shouldn’t waste that.  You’re so good with kids—you have a natural gift for it!)  This well-meaning advice is based on fear.  Fear says that it’s better to stick with something safe so that you don’t risk failure, embarrassment, or disappointment. 

    But Dr. Martha Beck says that if something is worth doing well, it’s worth doing badly.  In other words, deep practice your heart out!  It won’t be comfortable, and you might in fact fail, be embarrassed, and feel disappointment.  Pardon me, but so what?  Everyone experiences those unpleasant sensations at some point, so you might as well use them in the service of something that sounds really delicious to you.
 
    So how do you find the thing worth shooting for?  Listen to your secret self, your heart’s deepest longings.  Find the thing that calls to you, that makes your heart sing, and then go out and do it really badly about a million times.  You’ll get a little bit better each time until suddenly people will look at you and say, “Oh look at that.  She must be a born leader.”  Or, “she must have always known she was meant to be a water-skiing purple-haired real-estate lawyer, some people are just lucky like that.”  And then you can smile knowingly and tell your own ‘big break’ story—how you pulled yourself out of the crowd and said, “You.  You, my dear, are going to be great.” 

This was originally published in the Career Strategies Guide published by FEW (For Empowering Women) Japan.
Reproduced with permission.