Do you have talent?

There's a powerful belief that people with talent can achieve beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. Talent implies that everything is easy for a chosen few and difficult or impossible for everyone else. Those who believe they lack talent feel they are outside a charmed circle with no magic way to get in.

Well, as Richard Bach says in Illusions, "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." "No talent" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Saying it makes it true.

What is talent anyway? Here are three definitions: A special natural ability or aptitude. A capacity for achievement or success. An inborn characteristic that has to be cultivated. The first doesn't amount to much without the second and third. Talent is a potential, not a guarantee of success. There's no real test for talent--it's a matter of faith and experience. Talent consists of wanting to do and believing that you can.

It requires the relentless pursuit of your creative goals. Practice, patience, perseverance. When you feel disappointed about your progress, remember that it took Beethoven twenty years to compose his "Ode to Joy."

Flaubert said, "Talent is long patience."