Do you ever dislike an activity you are good at?

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So in the past year I took a 6 week sketching course...one class per week. And I learned how do do realistic looking portraits of people, if I'd pick up some damn charcol and print off a picture of someone on the internet I could do it in an hour make a charcol sketch that looks like them ok maybe it would take a little longer if its my first one since the class was a while ago and I may have to re-look at notes. note's being somewhat step by step looking drawings of how to draw a nose or an ear....the teacher did show me a great trick for drawing noses something that has entirely perplexed me for ever.....but yeah I just didn't get into it, I only did it because my grandpa was trying to be nice and paid for it and I thought it might be kind of cool....but everyone I showed my drawings from the class to said how good I was at it, yet I somehow got no satisfaction so I haven't bothered to try drawing any portraits since than but now I know that I can and that people think i am great at it....but in the real world who is going to care, maybe that is part of why I don't get more into it.

friends/family you draw & gift your portraits to
clients if you ever do it professionally
victims of crime if you ever become a police sketch artist
someone who happens to see your work and likes it - never know who or when.. could be a guest in your home next week, or someone who isn't even born yet who sees your work decades from now

More importantly than anyone else.. how about you? Just the sense of accomplishment of getting better at something.. doing something you enjoy.. producing quality artwork etc. If YOU care about it, then really that's all the reason in the world you need to do something as a hobby.

This is a good response, things might mean more to people than you can really imagine and its all art. I have painting in room that I look at everyday that some random guy my parents bought a couch from that I helped move, it means more to me than any print or anything I could buy ever would because it was personally given to me and its just a character in my life that cross paths with me at some point, its a not a great painting and worth nothing but what is art besides what it is worth to you? I never got how people could pay tons of money for prints of art when you can get something from a real person but perhaps I'm just sentimental like that.

When I was a kid I was told I was kind of talented at drawing/sketching as well or at least that is what my relatives and other adults in my life said, I never really cared for it and art was probably my least favorite class in school. Art in school to me never made sense, art is suppose to be an expression of yourself right and the class is just following orders which I didn't like anyways. My art teacher wasn't too cool, certainly didn't fit the stereotype and would like to single me out and punish me by taking me off whatever project everybody was doing and make me do bookwork. As you can imagine I didn't do well in school. I remember back when I was in like 3rd of 4th grade they had us do sketches of the other side of some picture from a magazine, you'd do one side then the other. This was like 1999 or so and for whatever reason I picked this picture of George W. Bush and I did really good job at it, I use to have it pasted in a notebook that I've long since lost and I wish still had it. My relatives really tried to encourage me to pursue this talent more but I disliked the attention and resisted, I believe I even dramatically vowed to never draw again to my parents after they wouldn't leave me alone about which is pretty much exactly what I did. In retrospect I regret it, I wish I pursued it more as well as a lot of other things and there is truth in saying use it or lose it. I don't think you'll ever be regretful of learning something or fostering a talent, the same isn't true the other way around.

Learning and getting better at something is a great feeling, while not art I've learning I think starting to really get IT stuff in the training and I do feel some sense of accomplishment in it. I've been out of school for quite awhile now so to learn anything new feels good, I don't know if this is what I am meant to pursue but I know am actually capable of it now so I'm hoping maybe I'll have more confidence in pursuing other things. I've never thought of myself as particularly talented at writing, back in school I was told I wasn't good at it but now I've Voc Rehab tell "oh wow, you're pretty good at writing" and it's hard for me to believe it and I'm just humble person I guess I dunno, I don't know how to react to it. I lack some self-confidence and I feel like I don't like myself sometimes so when somebody praises me for anything its hard for me to think it is sincere or that I've really done anything warranting it.

I took an A Level (2 year) course in what I was told was "Philosophy and Ethics" but turned out to be a very Christian focused Religious Studies.

I really didn't enjoy the material, although my teachers were wonderful. I was having such a bad year (my head of year expressed that he hadn't thought I'd make it to the end of the year when I returned) but they still managed to make lessons engaging for me.

At the end of the year, I did not nearly as well as I'd wanted in 3 of my subjects (C,C,D as per the UK grading system) but in RS I got 100% in both exams.

The result was that, if I wanted to have any hope of getting into university (after re-taking my other ones) I needed to keep RS for the second year. At the end of that year I got 100% in one exam and three marks short in the other.

I don't recall disliking any academic subjects I was good at, but there are many things in my everyday life I'm good at but often dislike. I lose motivation when a thing gets too easy, or when it doesn't develop.

I'm quite good at playing and recording my own music, but a month or two ago I stopped working on a couple of songs because I couldn't stand the boredom of optimising all the variables that my skills allow me to control. The work is all perfectly do-able, but I've done the same kind of thing so often before that it bores me. If I saw a new goal in there, something I'd never achieved before, or a new, quicker way of working, I'd probably be back working on it again.

No in fact I tend to dislike activities I'm bad at.

Got in such a mental mess once that the sound of myself on saxophone depressed me, so gave it up for a year and didn't listen to music at all for that year.

Sax fluctuates between being highly rewarding and frustrating to play, and loving or hating the actual object can follow suit.

Guess the same's true of other instruments - I bet guitar smashing is quite common.

In Literature study, having to crit a text that you simply don't like is good for you, but I really really hate certain books because of having done this. Jane Austen? - needs a few police car chases to liven it up.

I used to be good at math but hating it, because my school taught it in a very rigid way and got mad at me for doing it differently. I'm not that good at math now, though, because I've been pretty successful at avoiding it and as a result I've missed out on a bunch of learning. But I'm both good at and enjoy statistics, because I'm interested in scientific research.

I'm also bilingual but hate speaking French, because the aforementioned school was a French immersion school. I tense up if I even hear my name spoken with a French accent.

I'm an excellent problem solver and can fix many objects creatively. Which mean everyone comes to me expecting their problems fixed, and dump me their broken stuff. Which are really annoying. If only they're efficient about it then I wouldn't mind too much, but people also tend to vent on and on about their issues and expect comforting words, when they come to you with their problems. I f****** hate giving comforting words. Last time my mom spend a whole half an hour telling about her ongoing battle with a lamp that would turn on and off by itself, spooking her and made her suspect ghosts, aliens or thieves hiding in her house. After tolerating all those, I said "Why don't you unplug it?" She was like "Oh what a good idea! I knew you can help me. " I just want to find a crack and crawl in.

I fall into this camp, for the most part. If I dislike an activity then I usually can't be bothered to become good at it.

There are a few exceptions...the ones I can think of are copyediting/proofreading/critiquing someone's writing, and dream interpretation...I know I'm good at the former, and I've been told a few times I'm good at the latter--but the first is so tedious and unrewarding (I'm usually not that interested in the story, often the person is just not a good writer, I never get any return feedback on my own writing, barely get any thanks despite the hours I put into the critique, and my suggestions for grammar correction/improvement are almost always brushed off with irritation and I'm told to "just focus on the story" ); and the second just...utterly drains the life out of me for some reason. ;_; Thus I tend to dislike doing those things.

But those talents tie in with things I'm good at AND like to do, so...not sure if they count. :/

Usually I just go through phases of getting fed up/discouraged with something I'm good at and like to do, because it no longer feels rewarding...like writing. And I try to tell myself I hate it when I really don't. Or I get bored and move from one activity I'm good at to another, though eventually I'll return to the first activity (I go through "interest phases").

I guess its not so much that I dislike the sketching I mean I did think it was pretty cool I picked it up so easy, and actually am good at it especially for a beginner, even the teacher of the class said that. Previous to that class I had drew much more abstract sort of sketches of people that look more cartoonish I have one like that I drew and colored with colored pencil of a bunch of musicians/vocalists I like. But yeah sort of nice not feeling limited to the more abstract style though I still don't dislike drawing in that style.

Maybe its more I don't like to feel pressured, like I found I am good at it...but for some reason if people pressure me to keep up on something it kills my motivation....I am sure if I get bored I'll pick up some charcoal and start sketching, but if I feel pressure to do it if I don't feel like it then it just kills all the motivation. Not sure why.

Unless I'm forgetting something, no. I always like to do the things that I'm good at.

Heck yes - was near the top of my class in computer programming in first year university but found programming to be like watching paint drying. Which is why I'm not a computer progammer. I'm quite happy to leave programming to those who are good at it and enjoy it.

Interesting. Pressure doesn't so much kill my motivation (in fact, sometimes it inspires me, because at least it means somebody is paying attention to what I'm doing!) as it stresses me out so much that I start to feel resentful and like not doing the activity at all. For example, again, writing, which I love; and I love when I get positive feedback on it and know that people are in fact reading (otherwise, why write?); but when people start to nag about when there will be an update, when this or when that, or will you write something this way instead of that way, or how about you work on this story instead of that one...I start feeling all angry and spiteful inside and like not doing any writing at all. Naggy pressure just makes me shut down, mentally.

Alternately, I also feel horrible when people have an expectation that I'll do something in a certain way or by a certain time, etc., and I find that I just can't fulfill that expectation...I hate to let people down, and sometimes it seems not doing anything at all is the easiest way to avoid that.

It's difficult finding a balance between "good" pressure that motivates me, and "bad" pressure that makes me shut down, though it's rather a null issue since at the moment I'm not receiving any pressure whatsoever. And that's what really kills my motivation. :/

This was also part of the reason I learned to dislike offering writing critique and dream interpretation...people started expecting/demanding too much, or they expected me to do something in a certain way, and that just shut me down inside.

It's the same with me, I like sketching and drawing but sometimes it makes me depressed when I spend too much time and concentration on it or when I think it's not good enough even thought people compliment it.