A recent conversation with a friend made me rethink a couple of things which I thought, at a time, were facts.

I’ve grown up in an environment where people’s achievements were attributed to talent and hard work. “He plays the piano so well.” “He is a talented boy.” “Oh yes, he spends a lot of time playing the piano.” “No wonder he is so good at it.”

In fact I argued with my friend, that this was all it was factored to. Though out the conversation, she pointed out that the experiences of a person also greatly factor their achievements.

For example, I enjoyed working on the logical problems in GRE. This was probably because I did well in that section, in fact a lot better than the mathematical and verbal sections. I wonder why that was. Was I, as a person good at solving puzzles, was it a talent of mine? My sister had worked on her GRE ages before I even considered taking mine.  So, could it be attributed to the fact that as a child, the prep software my sister working on her GRE, had a great user design in the form of a car, and I was intrigued by it? I remember, the younger version of me seeing that as a game and doing my best to solve the test questions(though I failed miserably at it.) Was it because my sister had spent the time then to explain to me how those problems could be solved? Eventually, through life, whenever I encountered a similar logical problem, I would try and solve it. I think it was the latter, now that I think deeply about it.

Another observation I found interesting was the mindset with which you approach a task. “Oh yeah, that’s easy”. “This is pretty interesting”. When you approach a task with that thought in mind, you do well in it. Or at least better than approaching it with an “I can’t do it” attitude.

However, this brings for a head or tail issue. Do you approach a task with a positive mindset because you are good at it? Or do you do well in a task because you approach it with a positive mindset?

One of the biggest setbacks for me, when approaching a task or acquiring a skill, was seeing how much better the people around me were. “There was no way I could get into a top-tier college. Look how perfect her score is! There is no way I will be able to get that score. So it does not make sense for to even try!”

The more I looked around, I could see people trying hard to set a mark in this world. And a mark they will set. I have come to realize that, whatever task you are faced with, when you go at it with a level of confidence and a generous helping of hard work, you CAN master it.