How to Figure Out What You're Not Good At | Hacker News Reader

How to Figure Out What You're Not Good At

blog.martin-haehnel.de

35 pointsdonutshop14 comments

How do you debug it properly? Suppose you see others not have the mysterious difficulties that you have. What if they were simply pretrained - through prior exposure to that material?

How would you even know that this was the case?

I think if you're fortunate enough to really, deeply want something, then you should simply train to become good at it. Don't worry about your natural talents, since those will change.

Personal anecdote. I started learning a rigorous dance in late 20s. No fitness or movement or musical background. Programming/sit on my ass background only.

After 10 years of it, when I try something like tai chi now, the teachers pick out that I'm genuinely "gifted" or "talented". Then I tell them I'm a dancer and they'd be like "oh that explains it".

This happened even 5 years into dance training. I had absolutely no talent for it - I always struggled with mysterious problems others never had. Whether it's postural, rhythmic, musical, whatever. Had it all.

My point is, identity change happens much faster than we imagine, when you go all-in. It doesn't take 50 years. But it's also slower than we imagine. It's not 5 months. You have to understand the timelines of human change.

Of course on day 1, week 1, year 1, even year 3, everything sucks. You can't then write an essay saying "here's my lessons from learning journey". I will believe an essay when the author gave his youth to understanding the nature of talent. Not if he gave it 3 years.

> talent doesn’t feel like you’re amazing. It feels like the difficulties that trouble others are mysteriously absent in your case

There's a problem: money.

If you have lots of it, you have less difficulties than others in many, many areas. Things go easier for you.

Also, money has nothing to do with being good at something. You might have inherited it, or won the lottery, or stolen it.

Perks of being wealthy that you take for granted and might not even notice could be offering you tremendous advantages compared to less resourceful peers.

I think money is the wrong thing to focus on.

I've found that if you want to identify your talents, don't think about what you're good at. Ask yourself what easy thing everyone else is inexplicably bad at.

That's all OP means.

Repeating the thing I just challenged won't make it a better argument. If anything, it makes it worse.

That’s part of it but I do feel like this is a legitimate reality in lots of things.

I think games might be a bit poor example because the vastness of categories. I don't think anyone is just good in all games. You might be very competitive in counter-strike and games like it, but fall apart in something like starcraft and vice-versa. Spending 10K hours in EVE-Online does nothing for playing Spyro or Dark Souls

I don't think you will get competitive at games by just playing it a lot. Many pro players watch other players, talk to other players, train with other pro players, are coached by other players, so they don't just play 1k hours, they learn from others that have also played 1k hours. Just like you don't get good at football or tennis just playing games, you train specific skills, get coaches, etc.

As with many other things, each strategy will take you at some point (just playing matches), and to get beyond, you many need very different strategies (learn from other players, get coaching, etc).

The gaming example is a real turn-off, it feels like answering an interview question about your weaknesses with something like ‘I’m too much of a perfectionist’ or ‘I never give up.’

Could have made a stronger, even inspiring post with a better (more honest and daring) example.

What if you don't have any talents. (Or at least havn't discovered it yet) I seem to be quite mediocre at everything.

Sometimes it's the environment.

The people around you, the job, the inventives, your health (ADHD), the bad habbits.

There's always a chance.

Jeremy Utley has some good advice for such a situation. https://youtu.be/wv779vmyPVY

This is normal, most people are like this. The idea that there’s something out there that you’re just amazing at without even trying very hard is a trap and believing it will destroy your life. You just have to pick something you want to be good at and do it until you are.

There is probably something you are naturally better at, but it might not be something that is very visible, like juggling, or playing guitar. It might be something like being patient with people.

Also, do you have things that you are really interested in, or enjoy doing? I think sometimes the basis for what people call "talent", is really just that some people happen to really like a thing, and then spend a lot of time doing it. )There is obviously also the flip side of this, which is people often prefer doing things they are naturally good at.)

As a final thing, if you really don't have any particular talents, who cares? You are no less valuable a human because of this.

It's unlikely you'll be a natural at anything. This is nonsense pushed by the self-improvement demagogues. Even in much simpler societies humans develop skills through practice. The way most of us get good at anything is through repetition. Just show up and do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com