If You’re a Jack of All Trades, You Need To Read This
You’re the type of person who seems to be good at everything you try, so it could be hard to pick one thing to focus on. You have more options than the average person. You might be passionate about many of the skills or hobbies you’ve picked up, but you’re not a professional in any of these disciplines. You’re not Spielberg with a camera, or Ed Sheeran with a guitar, or Shaun White on a snowboard. You know what all three of these people have done that you probably haven’t yet? Made a choice.
They made a choice to become a director, musical artist, snowboarder. Or maybe they had it easier and didn’t have to make a choice. Maybe it was chosen for them. Some people realize their destiny sooner than others. You’re a jack of all trades though, this is likely something you’ve struggled with.
You can envision a future with a number of different career opportunities. This is a barrier you must break; it can hold you back forever. You will never get anywhere until you start definitively down a single path. Make a choice and stick with it. Opportunities and experiences will arise that you never could have had when you were a jack-of-all-trades dreamer. Don’t let the fear of missing out on something hold you back from starting anything.
Once you make that choice and stick to it with a burning passion, firstly you will not fail because you’ve made the decision in your mind. Like Will Smith said in one of my favorite all-time interviews, and I’m paraphrasing here: Don’t set out day one to build the biggest, baddest wall. You’ll become discouraged before long. Instead, wake up each day and lay one brick as perfectly as you can lay it, and then at night be proud of what you’ve done that day and soon enough you will have the biggest, baddest wall.
Secondly, once you’ve made your choice, whatever it is, and stuck with it laying your perfect brick every day and dealing with the slow beginnings by remaining proud of yourself, proud of each and every little victory until they turn into bigger and bigger victories, once you’ve done this you will have a further advantage over the others. You are a jack of all trades by nature, so you will have more to offer than your counterparts or your competition. You are more easily adaptable and thus more valuable in a lot of fields.
You just have to make that choice and start laying your bricks as perfectly as you can lay them, one day at a time. The longer you wait to decide and continue being content with being “good” at a lot of different things, the less likely you will ever be truly great at one thing.
