Even people with exceptional talents can feel insecure and struggle with low or unhealthy self-esteem. Meryl Streep, for example, has said, “I have varying degrees of confidence and self-loathing…. “You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent… Or that you’re boring and they’re going to find out that you don’t know [...]
By Emilie Wapnick The other day, someone mentioned that throughout their life, they’ve used their multipotentialite pursuits as a way of growing their confidence. In other words, by diving into new things and acquiring new skills, they’ve learned to believe in themselves more as a person. I’ve never thought about it that way, but it [...]
Willem Kuipers is author of the book Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon: Extra Intelligent, Intense, and Effective. Read the Foreword by Linda Silverman (and see link to the author’s site) in the post The Gift of Being Uncommon. In a section of the book – Is it a Gift to be Uncommon? – he [...]
By Lisa Erickson, MS, LMHC : The caller says they went to my website and started to cry. I have heard this reaction before. It isn’t because they read the page on addictions or the one on depression. There is only one page that evokes this response. The caller has read about giftedness on my [...]
From the Foreword by Linda Silverman to the book Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon: Extra Intelligent, Intense, and Effective by Willem Kuipers. I have just started reading the book, and as Dr. Silverman notes here, it has a number of stimulating perspectives: The vast majority of gifted adults are never identified. Even those who [...]
By Matthew C. Makel, Duke University Talent Identification Program What happens to gifted kids when they grow up? A hundred years ago, people feared that early ripe would lead to early rot, with gifted children growing up to lead difficult adulthoods. Numerous counterexamples have diminished that belief. Today, a more common discussion is about the [...]
By Sarah Williams Some among us, plain and simple, are born great. There are people who have high capacities for specific talents, such as those who are math wizards or seemingly inherently know everything scientific. The world is home to a select few highly gifted people blessed with abilities the average human can only envy. [...]
“I did not perform well socially in junior high. I was a strange girl and I was in a lot of pain because of that, like most teenagers.” Claire Danes Elaine Aron, PhD comments on some of the consequences of being very sensitive as a child: “…family and school problems, childhood illnesses, and the like [...]
Being different as a child One of the personal qualities that seems to be shared by most gifted children is being different and divergent – in terms of thinking, interests, values and behavior. Many gifted adults feel “wrong” or anxious about “not fitting in” even though being different can be a strength, a positive attribute. [...]
10 Paradoxes The article “the 10 paradoxes of creative people” (from the excellent site Change Therapy), lists some of the paradoxes described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention) : 1. Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they’re also often quiet and at [...]
“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized.” Stephen Hawking Just who has the ego problem? One sense of the word “ego” is a distorted self-regard, what psychologist Carl Jung referred to as “inflated consciousness… hypnotized by itself.” But high level achievement often brings with it [...]
“I’ve always been the nerdy, geekish outsider who still remembers how a lot of my classmates used to torture me…” Actor Sarah Michelle Gellar continued, “Growing up, I always felt different from other kids… All the success that the series – Buffy – has enjoyed has erased a lot of self-doubts that I grew up [...]
{Excerpted from book: The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression, by Eric Maisel, PhD.} For an artist, it is a driven pursuit, whether we acknowledge this or not, that endless search for meaning. Each work we attempt poses the same questions. Perhaps this time I will see more clearly, understand something more. [...]
Giftedness often tied to achievement So much categorizing people as gifted children or adults emphasizes having achieved significantly, having some distinction – high IQ or SAT scores, having a bestseller book or movie or being a sport superstar. And with perfectionism and high levels of self criticism, many gifted and talented people feel they don’t [...]
“I always feel like something of an impostor. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Jodie Foster made that comment recently when she was a recipient of the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award. A highly accomplished actor-director-producer, Foster said, “I don’t feel very powerful. I feel fragile… unsure, struggling to figure it all out.” Continued on Women [...]
“If it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be any Paramount Studios.” Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in the movie Sunset Blvd For some people with exceptional abilities, the realization that they are, in fact, more capable in many ways than ordinary people can lead to a distorted self-concept, a deep sense they really are better [...]
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this something, at whatever cost, must be attained.” Marie Curie Challenges of adult giftedness In her article Discovering the Gifted Ex-Child, Stephanie [...]
Not settling for underachievement We may not have realized all or even many of the promises of our identity as a gifted kid, and through circumstance or suppression left talents unmanifested or unspoken. But that doesn’t mean we have lost that aspect of who we are. You can learn more about the traits that gifted [...]
Nancy Drew: sure of herself In the movie “Nancy Drew,” the heroine (played with style and grace by Emma Roberts) uses and celebrates her intuitive and intellectual abilities as a teen sleuth, and accepts the fact she is exceptional, and does not fit in with her high school peers mainly concerned with cliques, clothes and [...]
“There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn’t see. I thought I was crazy or an egomaniac for claiming to see things other people didn’t see. As a child I would say, ‘but this is going on!’ and everybody would look at me as if I [...]
Site author: Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology, is a writer and researcher on creative expression and personal growth, especially for high ability adults. He is creator and publisher of the Talent Development Resources series of sites, and author of the book Developing Multiple Talents - The personal side of creative expression.
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