Before you can start to put your God-given talents to work, you first have to know what these are. In some cases this might be obvious. You might have known for a long time that you are good at writing or mathematics or foreign languages. You might have realised that you are good at dealing with people and not so good at organizing your time. You may be good at a particular sport or craft.

Buy yourself a notebook – a nice, jazzy-covered one that is suited to the task of inspiring you to find out which is the best road for you to take in life. On the first page jot down everything you can think of that you are good at, or that others have told you you are good at. It might not be clear to start with where these things fit into your plan for success, but knowing yourself is an essential part of your personal road map.

Now, on another page, jot down all those things that you consider yourself bad at, or which others have told you you are bad at. These things might be holding you back from using the things you are good at. It is easy to focus on drawbacks, seeing them as obstacles. There’s no point in applying for the job I saw advertised this morning, we tell ourselves, because although I would be well capable of doing it, I would first have to do an interview and I am not good at selling myself to people.

But more important than being good at something is having the passion for it. As it says in Luke 12:34, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

We will be able to sell ourselves to people if we concentrate on what we have to offer – our natural skills and abilities, rather than our lack of skill or inability to do something. If we are passionate about the thing we are good at, or even the thing we are only moderately good at, when we talk about it we will automatically be selling ourselves without even thinking about it.

When setting up a business we can hire those who are good at the things we are not, and use our time more fruitfully doing those we are good at. But if there is a passion lacking for the business, then we don’t have a business at all.

So beyond the things we know we are good at, there are those about which we are passionate, the things that fascinate us so much that we want to learn more about them. We don’t have to be very good at these things to make a success of working with them and to gather riches from some good idea connected with them.

There are many people who are very good at sport, though very few who will ever make it to the top of the sporting tree. But those who are fascinated by sport, who have a passion for it, can still find success working with other aspects of it than actually playing it.

If you are a fan of a particular sport the way is open to you to serve the needs of other fans, which you can strongly identify with. Fans love to read about their sporting heroes in newspapers, magazines and books, which is why there are so many sports’ journalists, sporting magazines, and biographies of famous sports people. And someone has to write and produce all these.

Fans love to learn how to improve their own somewhat mediocre games and get pleasure out of small improvements. This is why there are so many sporting coaches, sports’ clubs, shops selling sports’ equipment. If you are someone with a passion for sport, there is a niche for you in there somewhere which will allow you to gather riches while serving your brother or sister fans at the same time.

No matter what you are good at, no matter what fascinates you, it is here that you should look for your opportunity. Your first step on the road to success is to find your own personal niche through studying yourself as if you were a school subject.

Ask yourself? Have I been given any particular talent? What am I good at? What do others see me as being good at? What do I love to do? What fascinates me? Once you have a clearer idea of these things, you will have put your foot on the first part of the road to success. You will be embarking on God’s plan for you to gather earthly riches so that you can use them to bring good to your fellow man.

Now that you have chosen your path to earthly riches, what do you do next? Find out by clicking here.