Multipotenialite or How to Find Your True Calling?

Today’s topic refers to perennial question: How to find your purpose in life? I believe each one of us has asked this question at least once, and, in case the answer wasn’t found, keeps on asking again and again. It is important for us to have purpose. Having a purpose means having a direction. Having a direction means moving towards what you think is a success.

So how do you find that one real purpose? A quick Google search gave me the number of “techniques” to be used in defining your mission, which can be summarized as follows:

1. Evaluate your interests
2. Ask yourself what makes you happy, and what inspires?
3. Determine the purpose of humanity and apply it to your own life
4. Find influencers or people who inspire you
5. Define your strengths
6. Write your personal mission statement
7. Get an action plan

Looks good, ha? But what if you don’t want to be bound by one particular interest? What if there are so many subjects you are curious about. You are confident you can become good at just about anything, but often get forced to focus on One Big Purpose? Worry not! People like you are called multipotentialites.

The term was first brought up by Emily Wapnick, and founder of Puttylike – community for people with fast amount of purposes. In her TED talk Wapnick describes the multipotential persona very well: “I would become interested in an area, and then I dive in, and become all consumed, and I’d get to be pretty good at whatever it was, and the you would hit this point where you’d start to get bored.”

The notion of having a Destiny or One True Calling is highly romanticised. Therefore it’s easy to see multipotentiality as a limitation or something one needs to overcome. However Wapnick sees multipotentialates as the rise of new renaissance, when being well versed in multiple disciplines was considered ideal.

According to Wapnick multipotentialite is someone with many interests and creative pursuits. Here are three multipotentialate superpowers:

1. Idea synthesis, which comes from creating something new at the intersection of two different fields. Multipotentialites hold a versatile set of expertise and unique skills that allows them to access a lot of that points at the intersection, where innovation happens.

2. Rapid learning, which happens to be a “side effect” of multipotential personality. Because of all background and expertise multipotentiolite knows how to absorb knowledge and does not afraid to start from scratch. Moreover, past learnings may often be applied in new field in a way it’s not participated

3. Adaptability, or the ability to transform in what one needs to be in a given situation. The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and people need to be able to adapt to this changes. According to Fast Company adaptability is the single most important skill to acquire in order to thrive in 21 century.

Watch Emily Wapnick’s talk here: