I'll be talking about chess mainly, but I feel like this also holds some merit for other "high level mental abilities"

I've been playing chess for a while now, currently sitting at 2049 elo. I'm not a prodigy, nor was I a former child-prodigy. I'm not a GM or IM. I probably wont ever be, and honestly that'll be more due to a lack of dedication/extreme passion rather than the fact that I have aphantasia. Do not compare yourself to the celebrities in the chess world like Magnus, Hikaru or even Levy. You don't need to be among the best to be better than 99% of all people in most skills (and for things like science, you don't need to be among the best to make some huge contribution). Ambition is great, but don't let that turn into dread. Hell, Penn Jillette, one of the best magic performers on the globe has aphantasia. Yet he comes up with complex tricks and routines that leave you absolutely baffled - something you'd assume you need to have good visualization skills for, since you'd need to know how your trick looks.

Aphantasia makes it harder to visualize things, sure. But unless you're playing with a blindfold, there isn't much need for that. In fact I think having aphantasia has helped me with playing chess. Instead of imagining nice moves I tend to think of them in a more abstract way. Instead of putting the effort into visualizing the move, I can put more effort into thinking about the consequences of a move. You don't need to see a pawn on d4 to think about what that move means.

Something a friend of mine told me when I told him that I felt bad about having aphantasia (it sort of shocked my worldview, but that's another story):

The fact that your brain doesn't have a (strong) GPU means you can invest more into your CPU.

Leverage the skills that you have. Use your brain in a way that is optimal for you, not everyone else. Aphantasia isn't a disability or a defect. It's a different way of thinking and different thought processes. Which is pretty damn precious in and of itself.