I have talked about ‘too much of something good’ before when I wrote on overconfidence. Now what I want to write about is being just too good at something, and even for something. Can you be too good at something that it becomes nothing to you? It is Monday so let’s say you are at work and you realize how good you are at it that it doesn’t seem like work anymore, you are more than a master in that field. That can be a great thing because it means you have realized your full potential at it or it can mean you need more challenges. One of my favorite songs is no limit by Usher and Young Thug, it says there can never be a place where you reach and say I have this thing fully figured out in and out. But hey you can be too good at times.
The other thing about being too good is that some people are scared of it or don’t need it, they want a rather normal thing and not the absolute best in something. Well, not everyone is highly ambitious and have the drive to get scary good. It is all about ambition and even testosterone here, we don’t have the same supply of testosterone even though you can increase it by eating meat and doing push-ups. Not everyone wants to be an ace in science fiction or medicine. Only a few individuals are usually interested in what’s beyond the obvious. There is usually more suffering in ambition than normalcy, if you want to be so good it means you will keep going, doing researches, or learning new methods each day and constantly testing out new things to get that good, who needs all that hustle?
Most people don’t know their potential, and reaching your full potential can be difficult if you don’t even what you got. It sometimes takes a coach to get you there, don’t dismiss good coaches, find them if you can, and let them help you out.
I usually laugh when I hear musicians in songs and actors in movies say you don’t even know what you got or motivational speakers say you don’t know how strong you are until you find yourself in a situation where being strong is the only option. Well, despite the potential you think someone has, if they don’t realize how good they can be, it will be hard igniting that fire in them but you can try. And potential is also hard to tell, I can’t know right off that if someone is well cut for leadership like many Africans. The talent scouts should tell us how they go about it. One thing about leadership talent is the ability to speak up or ask the right questions, that means you already have some courage or confidence. From there you can build up on the action, get doing things forget even about the questions you are asking. You will realize your potential when you get doing things and keep perfecting them.
Will something lose fun if you become too good at it? You can argue that people like having to work towards something and solve new things every day, that’s why I don’t agree that you can be too good at something to the point where you don’t need new knowledge lest you get specific and say I am only narrowing down on neurosurgery or fiction writing. You can get good to the point that it doesn’t even matter anymore what you don’t know. You know everything you need to do whatever you want to do. In the layman language, you have what it takes. I laugh when my friends say I got it when it is clear sometimes that they don’t. You don’t know what you don’t know.
Yes, you can be too good for something, naturally, you outgrow some things if you keep improving, you become beyond it. And you can also be too good at something that all you have to do is learn new ways of doing it or even event new methods of doing it. A great dancer who is good at it can create new dance moves, a beginner will still have to learn all the moves in the craft. You should aim to be an inventor like Musk. I think Musk is not even an entrepreneur; he is a creator of new products that we have never seen before.
It is good to master a field, it gives you some confidence at it, don’t say you don’t want to be too good, you can easily end up being average. And average is a normal thing, however for some things I don’t mind the normal. I would eat normal food, I wear normal clothes most of the time. I have normal gadgets, I am typing this in a Lenovo mini laptop, which is quite regular. But this article is not normal. It should be good if not too good because I consider writing my talent and hustle.
I am sure you want to be good at most things if you some ambition, and the potential to be good at those things. Good is better than average, too good is way beyond, we are talking stratosphere level.
No limit!
