Whether they are called abilities, talents, innate qualities or aptitudes, they are instilled in each of us at birth. They are those essential elements which combine in each of us to define what we do easily and well. Some talents are so firmly implanted in some individuals as to control virtually every moment of their lives. Mozart was impelled to compose his extraordinary music from the age of five. Dickens had finished The Pickwick Papers by the time he was 24. Einstein wrote his first essay on the theory of relativity at the age of sixteen.
But few of us are embryonic Mozarts or Einsteins. All of us are a combination of talents, some more compelling than others, no one of them so predominant as to drive everything we do. What separates and distinguishes us from other individuals is the way in which our unique abilities are patterned or configured in each of us. Research shows that abilities come together for everyone in a definable pattern. We are able to determine this pattern once the individual reaches the age of fourteen.
One combination of aptitudes makes the consummate salesperson. Another combination describes a person that enjoys computer network administration. Another combination explains why a person enjoys one part of management, but not the rest.
Aptitudes are natural talents, special abilities for doing, or learning to do, certain kinds of things easily and quickly. They have little to do with knowledge or culture, or education, or even interests. They have to do with heredity. Musical talent and artistic talent are examples of such aptitudes.
It has been our experience that people tend to be more satisfied and successful in occupations that challenge their aptitudes and do not demand aptitudes that they lack.
At the core of discovering your "natural vocation" is understanding your natural, driving abilities. Research over 40-50 years shows that most sources of job unhappiness stem from natural abilities not being used, or being forced to perform tasks for which you do not have the natural abilities.
If you choose a new career without a knowledge of your innate abilities, you have a relatively high probability of winding up back in a career that you find boring, frustrating, or unfulfilling.
PEOPLE ENJOY DOING WORK THEY DO WELL NATURALLY
Abilities are distinct from skills. Skills are function-driven capacities acquired over time, practice and experience. Abilities are innate. Manual-dexterity, for example, is an ability; violin-concertizing is a resulting skill. We are happiest and most satisfied when we make maximum use of our abilities. An individual may develop the skills to practice law, for example, but if she doesn't have the inborn talents which make the practice of law easy and satisfying, she will find her work unrewarding (and, even, as in the case of many lawyers, frustrating). When we apply our abilities to our study or work, we do our tasks better.
The purpose of a valid test of innate abilities is to determine in a reliable way the ease with which an individual can perform the tasks which measure those abilities. The Highlands Battery consists of nineteen different tasks or worksamples. Together, they tell us what pattern of abilities lies in each of us and how our abilities can be used most easily and effectively.