Multipotentiality

When you have so many ripening fruits on the tree, how do you pick one?

I've wanted to be a fashion designer, horse trainer, gallery fine artist, costume designer, children's book author/illustrator, teacher, therapist… And these are the ones I've actively worked at. I also enjoy doing a lot of other things, hiking, gardening, singing, dancing, acting, psychology, and brain science... There seems to not be enough hours in a day, or enough years in a lifetime!

As a young person I dreaded the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question. Maybe I’d just have a bunch of part time jobs... Or in undergrad the "what is your major?" question sent me whirling. In "therapy school" I dreaded the "what is your theory?" question. I cringe when I hear the advice, "do something you're good at." I'm good at most of the things I pursue. I have the potential to be great at many of them. But because I'm interested in so many things, I may not be "great" at all of them because I don't have the laser focus to dedicate to learning them.

A pivotal moment for me was when I learned about Equine Assisted Therapy. And many Equine Therapists combine expressive arts in their treatments, even better! Therapy allows me to combine a love of stories (Narrative Therapy being one of the theories I tend to like) brain science (Polyvagal theory, etc) and education with horses and art.

I still struggle sometimes with questions of which way am I going? However, I've learned some things along the way. Some people are "scanners," they hop from thing to thing learning just enough to be interesting, and when it starts to get boring, they move on. Some people manage to combine things like I have done. Some people find careers that need a bunch of different skills, some people cycle careers. Some people find a "boring" income job so they can focus on interesting hobbies.

Does this take a lot of energy? You bet. But it also is very fulfilling to those of us whose have a deep and intense curiosity. The trick is finding the way that you are fulfilled and able to meet at least the most important potentials that pull at you. One of the ways to do this is to find role models, who are people you admire and how have they managed the multipotentiality problem? Another way is to do a value sort, figure out what your most important values are and which of your potentialities align with those values? Can you focus on one option for a while if you promise yourself you will get to the others in the future? Which interests can you turn into hobbies? How frequently do you need to do a thing for you to feel satisfied by it? Both the beauty and the curse of having multipotentiality is that you get to decide. And no matter how you choose to go about it, make a decision!

Decisions are rarely final. And one of the great things about brains is that once a decision is made you tend to form a bias in favor of that decision. As long as you actually decided. If you undermine that process by looking for evidence of why this was the “wrong” decision, you are still looking at the other options, and you haven’t actually made a decision. But you can put parameters around your decisions. “I will ‘go to nursing school’ (or whatever your choice is) for one year (or whatever is a reasonable length of time) and then re-evaluate how that is going.” Then really commit to that decision, both the action step, and the re-evaluation. You can also take the stepping stone approach and set smaller goals for yourself, “I will take the GRE and see how that goes.”

So look for role models, figure out your top values, know how you work best, and MAKE A DECISION! even a small one. (and if you find that you do need to change your mind, be gentle with yourself. decisions can always be modified.)