Question

Question: Do you think people have one true calling in life or are we all multipotentialites?

Answer 1

These people are held up as shining examples for the rest of us, and—while people like this certainly exist (no hate intended to the focused few!)—many of us simply don’t fit into their model. Through social cues and conditioning, we learn to believe in the romantic notion of the One True Calling: the idea that we each have one great thing we are meant to do with our life—OUR DESTINY!

What happens if you don’t fit into this framework? Let’s say you’re curious about several subjects, and there are many things you’d like to do with your life. If you’re unable or unwilling to settle on a single career path, you might worry that you don’t have One True Calling like everybody else, and that, therefore, your life lacks purpose.

It doesn’t. In fact, there is a very good reason for your tendency to shift between things, to devour new knowledge and experiences, and to try on new identities.

You are a multipotentialite

Have you been nodding your head along as you read? Good news! You are probably a multipotentialite: someone with many interests and creative pursuits. If this is the first time you’ve encountered the word, it might seem like a mouthful. If you have a hard time with multipotentialite or it doesn’t feel like a good fit for you, there are other options. Here are the most common terms for the kind of person we’re talking about:

Multipotentialite: someone with many interests and creative pursuits

Polymath: someone who knows a lot about many different things or a person of encyclopedic learning

Renaissance Person: a person who is interested in and knows a lot about many things

Jack-of-All-Trades: a person who can do passable work at various tasks; a handy, versatile person

Generalist: one whose skills, interests, or habits are varied or unspecialized

Scanner: someone with intense curiosity about numerous unrelated subjects (coined by Barbara Sher in her great book Refuse to Choose!)

Puttylike (adj.): able to embody different identities and perform a variety of tasks gracefully

There is no single way to be a multipotentialite. Some of us have a dozen projects on the go at once, others prefer to dive into a single subject for months or years, making it our sole focus until we switch to a new area entirely. A multipotentialite’s interests can occur simultaneously (several interests at one time), sequentially (one interest at a time), or anywhere in between.

To figure out your own place on this spectrum, think about your past interests, projects, and jobs. Notice any patterns? Do you tend to be interested in many different topics at once, or do you prefer to focus intently on one thing at a time before moving on to the next one (and then the next)? How many projects do you like to have on your plate at once, and how many is too many? Perhaps your capacity for taking on projects is like a stove: You have four pots on four burners; some are boiling on high while others simmer in the back. Maybe your metaphorical stove is more like the industrial range in a restaurant, with a griddle and an infinite number of projects sizzling away. Alternatively, maybe you have a campfire that produces one glorious blaze at a time.