Accepting who you are and your abilities

Just wanted to get some feedback on this principal/ideology.

As we all know, not all people are created equal. Whether you believe in nature vs nuture, the fact remains we are not all created/designed/born equal. (Whatever your belief)

Aptitude, attention span, metabolism etc etc etc

With that prefaced, when do you accept you are who you are. My example, not everyone can be a engineer or award winning scientist or pro athlete. To a lesser extent this also applies (IMO) to IT or work in general. Some people have the talent and aptitude to become a strong architect, while others maybe top out at the help desk. This isn't a bad / good thing it just is.

I've seen it happen time and time again, (as you get older you see it happen a lot). Employee X is a great help desk tech they get promoted to system administrator and they are terrible. Engineer N promoted to manager and stinks.

Lack of self awareness (skills) could of really hurt this person in their career.

So how do you know when you hit your limit or better known as the Peter Prinicipal. Does it take failure for you to realize you aren't good at something? Or are you more proactive and self aware?

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Comments

p@r0tuXus

I'm a believer of you are what you do. If you don't like who you are, change. This isn't usually done overnight but the power of one's will can mold the universe. Not just in a hokey self-help kind of way, but empirically, science has shown how your thoughts can alter your vibrations and those frequencies feedback into the energy manifested in terms of your "output." I.E. think and therefore you are. The only think stopping you is you.

E Double U

I accept my abilities and find work arounds for my limitations

I keep going no matter the odds or how many times I fail.

dhay13

I don't subscribe to this theory. I believe you can be/do anyone or anything you strive for with some hard work. I am pretty bad at programming. But I bet if I put my heart to it I could become pretty proficient and land a job in that field. If I wanted to be a pro athlete I could have worked harder at it in my younger years. I do believe that the older we get the harder it is to change things like personality traits. Example, I would be a horrible stage performer because I don't like being the center of attention. I like to fly under that radar. That was a character trait I feel you pick up in your childhood years and it is hard to change that later on in life. But in terms of learning how to become a programmer, engineer, attorney, astronaut, I believe we all have the ability to concur that if we really want to. 15 years ago (in my 30's) I barely knew how to turn a computer on. A few years later I was building my own. Most on here were probably building computers and coding as teenagers. Tom Brady wasn't born a football player but he lived and breathed it to become what he is today. He could have just as easily been a fireman or school teacher. Just my opinion.

NavyMooseCCNA

Social awkwardness and difficulty with non-verbal communication have plagued me my entire life. Asperger's is the gift that keeps giving. It has hindered just about every aspect of my life. After receiving my diagnosis at age forty, it explained so much of the trouble I've had. Learning to accept my limitations and stop blaming myself have been the hardest things to do.

Sorry for the thread hijack, but I just wanted to contribute this...

GeekyChick

I think with age and experience you understand yourself better, what you're good at and not good at. It also tends to line up with what you like and enjoy. For example, I wouldn't want to be an actress and I wouldn't be good at it either. So, I wouldn't waste my time on it. Maybe when I was younger I would try things just to find out if I liked them or not or if I was good at it. You have to be introspective and honest with yourself. Some people may be too cocky and think they can do anything and end up failing.

@navymooseccna - you're way ahead of even most people to be aware of your limitations. Thanks for sharing. I'm not aspbergers (not even close) but my son is on the spectrum too. He's a pretty awesome kid. There are things he can do and I'm sure you can that others can't do at all. I'm glad we are all different. How boring would it be if we weren't. Vive la difference.

TechGromit

dhay13 wrote: »

I don't subscribe to this theory. I believe you can be/do anyone or anything you strive for with some hard work.

So your suggesting you can become a great singer with enough hard work when you have an awful singing voice? While I agree if you don't at least try, you'll never succeed, some people just don't have what it takes to be truly great at something. You could train anyone to be a computer programmer, but some people will suck at it and others will become great programmers. I do believe there is a niche for everyone, if you not good at one thing, then there will be something else you will be good at. It's just a matter of finding your niche.

Priston

I think in the IT field you will find people with an actual interest in technology and how it works and people who don't care about technology and how it works.
The people that are interested will go into all the details and learn why each step is done the way it's done. The people that don't care about technology spend more time learning the steps to do something and less time understanding the actual technology.

If your not interested enough to ask why your doing what your doing. You'll never understand what your doing.

If your actually interested in the technology. Keep going! Not everyone learns at the same speed, not everyone has time to study everyday, not everyone has to be <insert difficult certification>

If your just in it for the paycheck and don't care about the technology your working with, then you've got the wrong attitude and a paycheck is all your going to get.

Edit:
Regarding the Peter principle, I think people who are in it for the paycheck will except the promotion and fail. People who follow their interest, rather than a paycheck, are more likely know their limits and will only except the promotion if it aligns with their interest and if they know they will succeed.

DatabaseHead

As much as I hate to say it I am "average" at SQL it's something I have come to grips with, but I LIKE it and work HARD at it. There are people in my field MUCH better than me, I'll never be as good as them (just for the record I am better than 80% in my field but not in the top 20%), but...... I possess natural skills that most of them don't. My relationship building skills are literally a 10 out of 10, I could easily be a sales man and make a killing. (Not what I want to do, like the 7 ft kid who doesn't want to play basketball). Sure being a 7 ft would give you almost a free ride to any division 1 school. But if that person doesn't want to well he / she doesn't have too.

Just like someone who likes to jog, but might not be capable of breaking a sub 5 minute mile.

This is something I am trying to get better at, being realistic with myself. But like NetworkNoob mentioned don't fall in a self defeating trap that you aren't good enough. Or not take a position based off of fear.

What I see is competing and very real mindsets that are both factual.

1. Genetic predisposion and early on learning (environment)
2. The willingness to do whatever it takes (AKA Hard work).

Both play a huge role in your success or lack there of. The more you have on option 1 the less you have to do one option 2 and vice versa. Let's pretend both categories fall in a 10 point number line. 0 - 10 If you are a 2 at 1, then what does it take in option 2 to become functional?

I should start a pod cast with someone, I am polluting the message board. lol

dhay13

TechGromit wrote: »

So your suggesting you can become a great singer with enough hard work when you have an awful singing voice? While I agree if you don't at least try, you'll never succeed, some people just don't have what it takes to be truly great at something. You could train anyone to be a computer programmer, but some people will suck at it and others will become great programmers. I do believe there is a niche for everyone, if you not good at one thing, then there will be something else you will be good at. It's just a matter of finding your niche.

There are some things you can't do due to elements outside of your control. I have no use of my right arm so it would be pretty difficult to be a pro athlete. But that hasn't stopped me from playing high school football, working in law enforcement, participating in martial arts, etc. That is where I get my drive to be able to do anything I put my mind to. I don't have a very good singing voice but I bet if I took voice lessons in my younger years I probably could have ended up with a pretty decent voice at a minimum. What it comes down to is determination. Not saying anyone her doesn't have it but if you live and breath it long enough you will become good at it. But you have to have the passion for it to put that much into it.

GeekyChick

NetworkNewb wrote: »

People aren't usually magically just good at things, failing over and over is part of the process of becoming good. If it is "cocky" to believe you can accomplish almost anything, I hope my kid has an extremely "cocky" attitude.

Ok, I didn't mean for it to sound like you shouldn't try anything you want to because clearly motivation gets you places. I wouldn't have graduated college if it wasn't for my drive, because my grades weren't stellar (spent too much time having fun). But I guess what I'm talking about is people who are annoyingly cocky....not just driven.

Fulcrum45

I think most people will find that effort is the primary bottleneck to success. More so than their actual ability.

PocketLumberjack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Z%C3%A1topek

EANx

Improvise, adapt, overcome. No one expects a guy to be able to give birth but people under 5'5" have been known to dunk a basketball (Muggsy Bouges was 5'3" and played 10 years in the NBA). There's a huge difference between being in the top 10℅ and trying to be in the top .001℅. don't let a lack of natural ability keep you from being in the top 10℅.

DatabaseHead

EANx wrote: »

Improvise, adapt, overcome. No one expects a guy to be able to give birth but people under 5'5" have been known to dunk a basketball (Muggsy Bouges was 5'3" and played 10 years in the NBA). There's a huge difference between being in the top 10℅ and trying to be in the top .001℅. don't let a lack of natural ability keep you from being in the top 10℅.

+1 on the last part, maybe "special ability" only applies to the 1% and hard work ties back to the other 99%. Something to consider....

jcundiff

As my sig says, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard"! I am a firm believer in this and its one of my favorite quotes... the less talent you have the harder you work to be average or above. "I cant" attitude leads to 1 thing ... FAILURE... if you want something, you work hard to improve until you can get there

snunez889

Im not a believer of someone being born better than others. No one is born a pro athlete, their pro because they worked their ass off and put all their effort and time in reaching that goal. Don't get me wrong, some genetics of other factors do come into play, but to me this is a marginal advantage. That margin is like a Tom Bradey to a [FONT=Roboto, arial, sans-serif]Philip Rivers. Neither one was born a QB, they worked hard to get there.
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Hippodrome

Just a good thread and timely for me as I just got passed over for a second job in Security. Need to work harder, thanks everyone.

Moon Child

I use to think you had to be a brain with a very high IQ to be a lawyer or engineer, but through my life experiences I am learning that isn't true. I have met several lawyers who just went to colleges that are not that hard to get into with just B average grades who graduated from 3rd and 4th tier law schools. One friend I know graduated from Valparaiso Law School and was able to get a job as a lawyer. He has been a lawyer for a few years now. Valpo only requires a 3.0 undergrad GPA and it is not hard to get accepted with just an average LSAT score.

A friend of mine graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago with a degree in Electrical Engineering, just barely getting good enough grades to get his engineering degree. He has been a successful engineer for the past 10 years. He told me his IQ was only 110. I didn't believe him. He has a type A workaholic type personality. His life is his career.

A lot of people think they are not good enough and sell themselves short.

paul78

This topic comes up from time to time on TE. And each time it's discussed, there are always good and insightful comments. There is a fairly well known book on the subject that is usually referenced - Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I tend to prescribe to the notion that high-achievers get to their zenith through hard work and constant practice.

xxxkaliboyxxx

People are very special, just look at the 100s and 1000s of kids in the military. I have only interacted with a small percentage, but these kids are special. They are doing things that they thought were never possible and a lot of times in direct danger. Take for example my old driver in Afghanistan. She joined the Army at 17 and was a mom. She got to us in our ramp up for our next tour. She struggled really hard at first with all the training we had to prepare for. Our mission was to conduct military police operations, she was afraid and rightfully so, but she didn't give up. She ended up being one of my best soldiers that deployment and the youngest.

People can surprise you. We talked all the time and she never thought in a hundred years she would be doing what we were doing in Afghanistan.

I guess my point is, training hard to build a good foundation and then getting put on the spot to see what your made of, shows a person's true ability. Sure, bullets flying motivated us to perform, but this 18 year old girl achieved great things that I must admit, I wasn't sure at times. Why couldn't this logic be put into the IT world minus the bullets? Build a good foundation by training/studying and then achieving the unachievable when people would doubt you including yourself? Your a ok sysadmin? nothing a little hard work won't fix up.

Pseudonym

For the people using singing as an example. Anybody can be a good singer. It might take some people 1000 hours of practice, it might take other people 20,000 hours of practice to get to the same level, but that's irrelevant. Anyone can do virtually anything with enough dedication. Just because other people have a head start doesn't mean you should just give up.

Hard work and passion always beats talent. The only thing better is having all 3. Which is very rare.