02 Dec Be a Multipotentialite with a varied Life List!
Remember being asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Did you become that ONE goal? Or do you still have the aim to pursue many varied goals? If “yes” is your answer, join the multipotentialites!
In her TED Talk, Why some of us don’t have a true calling, Emilie Wapnick explores the issues raised by adults asking children and young people “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is an age-old conversation starter which can spark imagination and passion, and also anxiety if the child can’t make a decision.
If we all pursued and achieved our six year old ambitions there would be a lot more astronauts, ballet dancers and superheroes around! As our passions develop in our teenage years along with our personalities, however, we find new goals evolving in education, interests, and career. When required to make decisions on our careers, our personalities, passions, ideas and responsibilities change from our teenage years to early adulthood, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond.
Movement in society through education, relationships, job transfers, redundancy, and opportunities means that we are no longer tied to one place, business, or even type of industry through our working lives. Redundancy can especially force us to rethink the skills we have, and our passions, strengths and priorities. It is possible to retrain at any age, but also to take transferable skills to a completely different career.
Emilie Wapnick highlights a term in her talk about people who can transfer their skills to different kinds of careers – multipotentialites. One great example is Professor Brian Cox, one of our most famous physicists, and writer and media presenter of highly acclaimed science programmes who was also a successful drummer in the 1990s pop group D:Ream. John Bishop, the comedian, was a footballer and pharmaceutical rep before taking to the stage. Many sports professionals are forced to rethink their careers on retirement to become entrepreneurs, motivational speakers, coaches and journalists.
You can also pursue your interests by doing voluntary work, taking courses for pleasure, or enjoying a passion as a hobby without it being your primary focus in life as your career.
We all have the opportunity to be multipotentialites, pursuing our different passions and by utilising the Life List completed on Advance Performance’s Peak Performance course. The Life List enables you to examine each area of your life to consider your priorities, where you would like to devote more time and energy and highlight your life goals. When you consciously fill in your Life List and write down your affirmations, you are committing yourself to pursue your goals. Affirmations help create the visual images of the goals which form those all-important dendrites!
As 2015 approaches its end, read through your Life List and take some time to highlight your achievements of 2015, as well as the goals where you would like to devote more time and energy. You may want to spend more time pursuing an exercise related goal next year, or more time pursuing family goals, and this year end is a great time to revise and recommit to your goals.
Just as Emilie says in her talk, your Life List shows you don’t have to just pursue one goal, you have the potential, talents and motivation to pursue several. All that’s needed is the commitment, self-belief and the time to achieve them. So if you aren’t an astronaut or a ballet dancer…maybe your successes lie in being a multipotentialite?!