Build confidence in uncertainty

The idea of being a polymath (one who excels in many subjects) has resonated so deeply in my mind this couple of years. It’s all started when I watched a TED video on YouTube hosted by Emilie Wapnick on the subject of “Why some of us don’t have one true calling.” The term she used was multipotentialites. I will break it down into several sections for us to really dive deep into her idea. 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

She started off by sharing how she had too many interests, where she struggled to find an answer to the above question. She began to find the pattern which she thought could explain the inconsistency. She used to be really interested and devoted on a subject, only to be left off out of boredom. This pattern had caused herself anxiety for two main reasons, first, how likely could she turn one of those interests into a career if she kept leaving when things get boring, and how she started to sense something wrong for being unable to stick with anything. 

We live in a society where everyone should only pursue one thing and be happy with their choice. It means we need to kill everything else for “The One”. For some it’s not easy, especially for us who are open to all possibilities. We want to do well for life, and at the same time, we still want to keep our options open. 

The idea of “one true calling” is highly applauded nowadays; somehow we put too much effort to define those phrases. If I could only choose one question to ask in order to try to understand kids, I would pick the question above, no doubt. Yet, that’s the question we get asked at almost every points of our life. Answering to that question might be easy in the beginning, just name any profession available and we’re good to go. As time goes by, we start to be pickier with our answers. Time shows its glorious power. When we chose one subject to study at Uni, we just killed hundreds of possibilities on what we could’ve been.

Multipotentialites superpowers

Then, she made peace with herself and found three so-called superpowers the people with many interests have. 

• Idea-synthesis

Mix of ideas and experiences came from the journey could be really resourceful in finding new roads people would never think about. Innovation happens at the intersections. Multipotentialites, with their ability to find the core of many subjects, could make that happen by combining two or more subjects into new ventures to pursue.

• Rapid-learning

The key of successful learning experience always starts from the point of not-knowing. From there we build our glossaries of knowledge page-by-page or failure-by-failure. Most people feel good with what they know and what they’re good at. They feel too good until it becomes a fear to learn something new, what we called “comfort-zone”. Multipotentialites have overcome those challenge by familiarize themselves in the learning position. They are used to be beginners, and when a subject sparks their interest, they go hard on learning and finding and researching. Also, the skills they learned when they were beginners before are easily transferable to the new subjects they are beginners now.

• Adaptability

The ability to fit ourselves into every situation is highly regarded as one of the most important skills to develop in order to succeed in the 21st century. Changes are inevitable, and how we pivot will measure ourselves up to thriving. Multipotentialites are known to be the best to adjust themselves because in order to have interest in many different subjects and to thrive at them, they need to be adaptive and constantly adjusting to situations.

Where are you now?

Let’s think about jigsaw puzzle. Of those thousands-of-pieces in a box, what is the probability of two pieces to match at the first draw if we draw two pieces from the pools? What is the probability of us finding the “one true calling” if all the pressure are on our shoulders picking the subject to study in Uni? How do we finish the jigsaw puzzle if we struggle in finding a match for the piece we hold? And if even we found the match for the piece, how those two-pieces-bound-together find a next piece to match to form the whole picture? What if the pool is incomplete? Where do we find the missing pieces?

It might be the case that the pool is incomplete, if those small pieces represented what we need to thrive in the world. We could have interests and motivations on hand, but missing skills, or we could have connections and skills, but missing confidence. What would you do if that’s the case? Would you just simply choose to not choosing, or would you jump into other pools where you could find what you need? It’s okay.

If we zoom-out on our vision a little bit, we start to see the big picture, and start realizing that in order to complete the jigsaw, we don’t need all matched pieces on hand to be transferred to the frame, but by putting one piece at a time diligently, and make sure we have room to adjust.

If you want to watch the talk, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZdcB6bjI8