What are some of the things you have put a lot of effort into only to realize that you have absolutely zero talent?

In spite of that did any of you persist and manage to actually get good at those things?

A few of mine:

- Learning foreign languages. Tried so so hard to study Japanese and did my best to immerse myself in the language while living in Tokyo for 5 years. End result: was able to have a simple and tedious conversation about the weather and still only understand about 5-10% of any TV program I watched.

- Musical instruments. Put effort into guitar and piano but again I had so little talent that it always felt like a massive chore and I just quit altogether.

- Running. Have actually done this for many, many years but even at my absolute peak (running 6x a week and doing intervals, tempo runs, long runs, hill sprints) a 47 minute 10k was the best I could do, whereas I've had friends who don't train and will casually run way below that. Still, unlike with foreign languages and instruments, I guess running isn't something you need to be good at to enjoy or get benefits from.

Think the worst thing is that when you finally realize you're hopeless at something and give it up, it was all just a giant waste of time, especially because any minimal progress that you did make is quickly lost (couldn't play Chopsticks on the piano now and would struggle to order a beer in Japanese, having not spoken it for a few year).

Persistence is key I guess but hard to persist when you're so bad at something and you see others around you making swift, seemingly effortless progress.

I suck at drawing/painting

I probably should have added this one as well. I'm horrific at it. That said I never really made any effort to learn because I was so obviously terrible.

I like watching those Bob Ross videos though but just lol at his spiel about how anybody can learn to paint. If I tried it would end up like this:

ball sports (basket ball, football, volleyball, etc)

musical instruments

fulfilling my biological purpose of having sexorz

Think this is key. If you love something it doesn't matter if you suck at it but often I find it hard to enjoy things if I don't have a modicum of talent.

Would love to be talented in music, art, foreign languages, etc. Instead, the stuff that I am actually naturally talented at always happens to be the most useless thing imaginable, like table football lol.

Negociation

drawing/painting and singing

Patting your head and rubbing your tummy

And spelling!

this

also dumb as rock at maths and similar subjects and honestly always kinda sucked at school in general (no homo) apart from a couple of subjects that I aced, but I guess it takes something to trick your way through the system and end up at uni anyway. seen lots of people that were on a similar level fail at it and alot of them are now tradies.

Come on brah, top 5% is pretty damn good. Definitely not something you're untalented at.

Yeah, I'm struggling to think of jobs where pure reaction time would be enough to make bank. Think it factors into lots of things, especially sports, but not enough by itself.

Plumber or electrician are good but won't take advantage of your freakish reaction times.

I feel like this is a talent in its own right.

art, I can't color in between the lines. srs
anything requiring finesse outside of athletics. I am good at breaking chit. just broke the wall inside wall off my work truck today trying to bend a ladder rack that was bolted to the truck wall.

most right brain activities in general...

Yes I spelled it in French, that's why I don't correct it, but my English is a problem currently, as I'm trying to apply for jobs online.

Pretending to be interested when someone is a boring kunt who won't shut up.

Sorry brah, was just joking. Your English sounds just fine and good luck with the applications.

I can't sing at all. I have a terrible singing voice. And because I have a deep, rich, mellow speaking voice everyone seems to assume I can sing. But I can't at all. Also spent years trying to play guitar and, although I'm good enough at it to do a party piece or two, I suck.

No matter how many times it's been presented, I simply can not swallow the blue pill.

singing
math

Those are the main two.

Basketball
Drawing
Life

Physical fights

I ll likely be KOd in like 12 seconds

Math

This. I can't draw, paint, sculpt, any kind of art

Music production. I have teached myself (through tutorials) video editing (Premiere/After Effects), photo editing (Photoshop), 3D (Blender), etc, but recording and mixing my music and getting an ok result (not even looking for profesional results) has been impossible throught the years. I guess i always found it boring and didn´t put in the hours.

Very interesting to read, I realize I have some talent because I can color between lines, I even enjoy doing it.
BRB gigging that on fiverr

miscing

Running...I was an 8min mile in jr high and I’m not or ever have been fat. Just slow af. Can’t jump very high either but always played ever sport in school.

Tradie stuff. And i own a house so it's something i should be good at. you save so much money if you can do it yourself instead of calling someone every time... i think it's more because i'm lazy but either way i'm not doing it

lol @ tradies?