Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 May 2009 06:35:27
Encouragement is one of those things which helps push us forward and gives us the confidence to push doors we perhaps otherwise wouldn't, similarly criticism is something which can often stop us pushing doors or trying new things. This was a point, far more eloquently, made by Maggi Dawn in this post on her blog in March. It's a post my mind has remembered and keeps reflecting on. The central point she makes is thinking about the impact others can have on the use, or otherwise of our talents.
Beyond recieving encouragement and criticism directly whether we recieve feedback at all and whether that feedback is good or bad can be another issue. Equally, what opportunities we are given to use / develop our gifts and abilities comes into it.
If a child is musical, (with the exception of singing), they need to be given an instrument to find and develop their gift. If they are an artist they need to be given the paper and pens to discover their talent. Now they may be bad examples because within the UK primary schooling system both of those things come into the category of fairly standard things for kids to have the opportunity to do..... but you get my drift.
Once people are given the chance feedback is useful. No response can be worse than a bad response because you honestly don't know what people think. I can think of atleast three occassions in the last couple of years where I would have loved some feedback on something I was doing but didn't get any... in each case I have taken the silence as indifference.
Another thing which is useful in all this is people being prepared to encourage by commenting on what they see other peoples gifts and abilities to be and so these can be developed. It's so often said that we know more about our weaknesses than our strengths and are too good at picking out our faults and I think that's true. Sometimes when we are struggling to identify what we're any good at we could be helped by honest friends who are willing to say I think your strengths lie here and these are the things you need to think about developing.... not to boost the ego but to provide insights into what others can see in us that we sometimes can't see in ourselves. Often when you start doing this at some level you can give people confidence because in it you can also identify their passions. This is a skill that any of us who are in the position of giving 1:1 tutorials do as a matter of routine (whether we recognise it or not) but are slow, often, to do outside of the professional setting. Yet as we go on new adventures in life, (and life is a set of adventures), we need to recognise these things.
How can we use the gifts God has given us if we don't know what those gifts are?