Not Just Talent, Commitment Is What You Need to Succeed in Life

"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." - Stephen King, American novelist

Many people believe that talent is the only thing you need to have, to be successful in life. Many tend to measure a person's ability by the marks/ranks he/she scored in academics. But, do all the top scorers, though talented, can really succeed in life? Will they bring Nobel Prizes to their country? Where will they be after 10 years from now? The answer for all the above questions is most likely to be not outstanding.

This is just because talent alone cannot assure success. Many of these top scorers think that they are talented and can easily get any job that they wish - but the fact is talent can make you eligible for a job, but not successful in life.

It's not talent, you need to have commitment to succeed in life
Though talent gets you further, it is commitment that leads to success. Commitment towards your learning or towards your work, will help you grow in your career, while talent at the most, can help you in acquiring a job.

If you flip through history, you will find people who were successful, had commitment to their goals, than just their talent. Take the example of our Indian Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry (2009), Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, a Ph.D scholar in Physics. An interesting fact about him is that he failed to qualify for the national-level entrance exams like IIT and Christian Medical College entrance exam, and opted for the basic sciences (B.Sc.) in his UG.

Though he was a highly qualified Ph.D holder in Physics, he transitioned to Biology, by doing a two-year graduation program. Later, in the year 1983, he started his research work in Bio-chemistry and spent many years of his career on it.

If we really see, his failure at the IIT entrance shows that he was an above average student and not that brilliant. But he pursued his passion towards Bio-chemistry for decades by staying out of comfort zone, and finally won the Nobel prize for his work on ribosomes in the year 2009. It took almost 16 years for him to become a Nobel laureate. Though he was talented, it was only his commitment that has made him a successful person.

Not only Venkataraman Ramakrishnan, there are many such people who may/may not have talent, but have succeeded in life because of their strong commitment. A recent example is Rahul Dravid, who himself stated that, unlike his talented counterparts, he didn't have the natural flair for batting; it was his practice, perseverance, hard work and commitment that made him the second highest test run scorer.

Hence, it is commitment, not just talent, that will lead you to success and to achieve your goals in life.

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek." 

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