Do You Know How to Play Your Free Square ?

Do you know how to play your free square?

In the game of Bingo, every player starts with a bonus: the free square in the middle. Because everybody gets one, nobody thinks much of it, but the free square is just as valuable in winning the game as B-7 or O-69.

We have “free squares” in our lives, too: talents, abilities, and inexplicable aptitudes that make certain things almost effortless. Maybe we can sing, or we’re good at math, or children warm to us and listen when we talk. But when someone comments on our free square, we tend to say, “Oh, that. It’s nothing.” Because we didn’t work hard to get it, the same way a player doesn’t have to perform to get a free square on the Bingo card, we undervalue what may be our most serviceable attribute

If you’re unclear about your own free square, answer the following questions: Is there an area of your life, even one you may have regarded as insignificant, in which good things tend to happen repeatedly and automatically? Do you have an aptitude for something that seems so natural you can’t understand why other people struggle with it? What do you get compliments about? How would you finish the sentence, “I’ve just got a knack for…?"

The next time you think you might not have what it takes to get the kind of life you’re after, enlist the help of your free square. Do you know how to play your free square?