Yes, I am asking “Are You Playing On Your Unique Strength”? There are people telling you that “You are Unique”. But I am asking you, are you really unique or do you really want to become unique? These days uniqueness is a desire, but people do not know how to use their natural gift of uniqueness.
Have you thought, why this happens?
Schooling
Schooling happens to create semblance and order as society needs generalization and categorization. This is the reason every child has to go through the same teaching style and the same subjects. 99% of the schools are working on developing Logic, Language, Rational and Planning part of the child’s brain i.e. the left hemisphere of the brain. Very few schools in the world work on the right hemisphere of the brain where Music, Intuition, Emotions, Creativity and Holistic perception resides. Each child is subjected to the same exam and they have to pass every exam before they can be promoted to the next class. So, if you are a musician you have to still solve mathematics, physics and chemistry till a certain grade. There is no school where children who have musical talent can be groomed, keeping music as the primary subject and other subjects written in a way that right-brain dominant children can understand them easily. A generalized way of teaching kills the child’s uniqueness at the budding stage.
Social Pressure
By the time you come to youth, you already have set parameters of success. You are chasing a dream which is given to you by your society and which is not really yours. Most of you might want to become a commercial success instead of a professional success. Just ask, who told you that financial success is so important? Why no one told us how much money is enough for us? Do we realize that these thoughts came to us from the society and unknowingly we are fulfilling society’s expectations? There is a constant unknown pressure on everyone’s head to match standards set by the society. In this, your uniqueness takes a massive hit or in a worst case scenario you forget who you really are.
Role Modelling
In the starting phase of your youth, you are already imitating and copying your idols or role models. You are encouraged by your family, school, and society to idolize someone or to become like someone. Once you start copying someone, your uniqueness further goes down. You can get inspired by someone’s qualities and you try to imbibe those into your personality – this is a good idea but copying someone’s manners, dressing style, hairstyle, etc. is not going to make you your idol. But what is sure to happen is that you will lose your uniqueness.
In these times when everyone wants you to become like someone and to become financially independent, is it advisable to work on your uniqueness? Is uniqueness really a gift?
These are very important, appropriate questions since your personality and success is judged by comparing them with someone else’s. So, is uniqueness really a gift or a recipe to fail? It is true that in the society, at the look of it, uniqueness is not a gift. But trust me uniqueness is a gift. How?
Uniqueness
- Defines your personality: If you follow your uniqueness, it defines your personality and makes it different from another person’s personality. Your personality is a gift because it helps you gain love, affection and work in your unique way. If you follow and adapt another’s personality, then even your success will have a stain of discord in it.
- Defines your niche: If you follow your uniqueness, you will find that your talents will be shaped uniquely. This expression of talent will be very different from others and will help create your niche at your workplace as well as in your family. There will be some things which will be done well by you effortlessly and that’s your niche.
- Defines your place in society: With a unique personality and niche, you will stand out in the society. This will give you a specific place in society. Not everyone should become a doctor, engineer, politician, businessman, or a popular profession. Someone has to do social service, create music, some have to join defence forces, some have to become a farmer or a fisherman. All work is important, and we need help from different professions. If you follow your uniqueness, you will fit well with your work and do justice to the work at hand and with yourself too.
- Gives you your identity: It is a differentiating factor between two people. Uniqueness makes people in the same profession, approach things differently, and also make identical twins’ behaviour different. Uniqueness creates your identity. Uniqueness in your personality is like your fingerprint with which you are identified. Without your uniqueness, you are lost or you cannot be identified.
- Helps you create path-breaking work: All the people who have done some path-breaking work accepted their uniqueness and followed it despite the challenges they faced in their lives. Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Ram Krishna Paramahansa, Swami Vivekanand, C.V. Raman, Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, etc. are few people who did path-breaking work that you cannot compare with anyone else as they were unique.
- Is a sign of human possibility and growth: Uniqueness helps to create new human possibility when people follow their uniqueness. What human is capable of, from sports to spirituality is created by people who never settled with set norms. They followed their unique skills and what was in their hearts. By knowing such people, I see what human being is capable of – like in Christ we see the epitome of love, in Buddha we see the epitome of Compassion, in Shri Krishna we see the epitome of Action, in Mother Terresa we see the epitome of Service for strangers, like how these spiritual people keep pushing the possibility of human consciousness. In sports, we see records broken by different individuals every other day. These athletes keep pushing the limits of the human body’s and mind’s possibility and growth. Different scientists with their invention keep bridging the gap between miracle and science. These scientists are stretching the limits of the human mind and its creations. Examples in each profession are well known and all these human possibilities and growth happened due to the individual’s uniqueness.
Now the question is how to find your uniqueness: Answer the below questions to reach your uniqueness.
- What talents you have?
- Which work do you love to do?
- Which work you can do for hours without getting tired?
- Are your talent and the work you love related?
If talent and work which you love are related, then it is your uniqueness. If they are not related, then you need to consult a coach to find your uniqueness. Also, the coach will be helpful if you think your talent does not have a chance of growth or market value.
Till you read my next blog, till then Work on Your Uniqueness,Stay Healthy, and Stress-free!!
