Gift vs Passion - Paul Olasehinde (26/01/2015)

Somehow, as I was scrolling through my Facebook timeline I came across a short but interesting video of Steve Harvey, stating that in order to get the most out of your life you should focus on your gift and not your talent. 

He defined your gift as:“The thing you do best with the least amount of effort”After the first watch I thought yeah maybe he’s right, you will find more people not honing their gifts but rather perusing other avenues. Following my own pondering and conversations with other people, I thought it is possible that he 
may be wrong. We all have gifts, I’m a firm believer of that, but does that mean our gift must be what we pursue? Or that it must ultimately become our life?

Let’s say for example Melanie is a gifted singer and she could practice her gift and become an amazing singer but Melanie wants to be a business director, that’s her passion. She doesn’t have a natural affinity for business but that’s what she wants to be. Is that wrong? Even if she didn’t get to be that business director, is it wrong for her to have focused on that rather than her gift?  Should she put business in the backseat and focus on what she knows?

This video reminded me of a previous speech I watched by Jim Carey who spoke about chasing your dreams and not playing it safe through an example of his dad, who could have been a comedian like him but instead became an accountant although ultimately he was not happy. He ended the speech by saying “You can fail at what you don’t want so might as well take a chance doing what you love.”

Although it’s not directly linked to what I’m discussing, we can still take from it that it is better to do what you love, than what you don’t. So if your gift isn’t what you love, why do it? From conversations I’ve had with others, an occurring trend seems to be that paying attention to your gift or passion means you can’t make time for the other or that is what you must become e.g. Melanie being a good singer means she must be singer! This notion, in my opinion is wrong. You can be a great singer, maybe even better than the voices you hear on TV, but you may not be made for that. 

Your gift may not be used on such a grand scale but that is not to lessen its value. Personally I feel like the link in all of this is motivation. Motivation is what will drive you to do what you do. Not just in your career but anything and everything. What is your motivation? Are you trying to prove a point? Or is it a dream you 
have? You may have a gift and you may be excellent at it but if you’re not motivated to peruse that further, you wont because you don’t have the desire to. Maybe there is an aspect of it being too easy if it’s a gift and normally passions tend to be (and please note I said tend to be) things we aren’t excellent at. 

Over the years we come to realise our passions, such as a desire to help people that may want us to become a doctor or social worker for example. However, our gifts are naturally with us from birth so we may not be drawn to them as much as our passions because we have always had them.There are so many avenues to go down. We normally have more than one gift and more than one passion, what happens then? I really don’t think there is a definite answer, but I do believe in honing, and working on your gifts because there is always room for improvement. In addition to that, I believe that your gift is to be shared with others, even the world.

So although I’m on the fence about pursing your gift over your passion and vice versa, I will always say use your gift as much as you can to bless others. In the end we could always pursue 
both at the same time, (yes I’m going to double back on myself again) but maybe we’ll always lean more towards one than the other. I guess this whole process is easier if your gift and passion are in sync =].