Emilie Wapnick's Blog, page 5

Two Tools to Decide if Your Ideas are Good

I’d love to tell you that I’m not afraid of commitment, but I’ve rewritten this sentence a dozen times already and I doubt this will be the last. 

But, I’m used to it. As a multipotentialite, I’ve perfected the art of being paralyzed by indecision. And normally I’m stuck on major life decisions, so it’s nice to be impaled on something as simple as a sentence for a change.

Naturally, there’s more than one reason why I get stuck in these cycles of beginning to doubting to undoing and back to beginning again. (That’s right! I can’t even commit to a single underlying problem!). Sometimes it’s fear of changing my mind, or of failure. Often, it’s just plain old indecision.

But frequently I struggle with the very concept of comparing my options against one another. Trying to decide if I should work on this project or that project feels like being asked if Wednesday is better than July*. So I’ve been wondering… what makes one idea better than another?

*July is better, but that’s not the point.

The only way to be sure of choosing the best path is to see the future. But even without that skill, we can improve on guessing. My suggested tactic is to turn impossibly vague questions, like Is this a good plan? into a large number of more specific questions, like How many hours a week can I realistically devote to this?

To make that process more concrete and accessible, I’ve compiled a list of questions and a flowchart, both of which I hope you will find useful when assessing your own ideas.

Tool One: Questions

The instructions are simple: ask yourself some questions about each idea you’re trying to choose between, add up the associated points, and compare both the point totals and your emotional reaction. This isn’t purely about the result—the process is just as important. Tapping into your gut feelings while rationally assessing the material and psychological impacts of an idea will inform your decision making, no matter what ‘score’ you end up with. 

As you ask yourself these questions it will surely occur to you that they are not quite relevant, or that you disagree with the weighting, or even that the weighting ought to be the other way around.

For example, perhaps you’re desperate for a tougher challenge, in which case you’d prefer to subtract points for easy ideas and add them to harder ones. That’s perfect! This isn’t an objective assessment; it’s an entry point into your own personal evaluation. Change the points as much as you like, so they fit you and your life!

It’s also worth remembering that every answer is a function of time. In other words, your assessment can only ever be accurate as a snapshot of a particular moment. Which is also great! Life would be very boring if our desires didn’t change and evolve.

Personally, I advise against worrying about that too much in advance. When paralyzed by indecision, it’s better to make progress on something than nothing. What if I change my mind later? isn’t a good reason to ignore your mind right now.

With that in mind, let’s get into the questions. Run a couple of ideas through, and see what comes out with a better point total!

QuestionYesNoDoes this idea thrill me in a deep, inexplicable manner?+30Will pursuing this idea be fun?+1-1Will I still want to pursue this after the initial fun wears off?+2-2Will pursuing this idea be easy?+10Is there a guaranteed payoff of some kind? (Financial, new skills, new people)+1-1Is there a potential of a very high payoff? (Financial, new skills, new opportunities)+20Is there a high cost of failure?-30Is the time investment short?+2Subtract a suitable amount of points for the payoff versus time investmentWill I have to give up a lot to do this? (Use your judgement of where certain sacrifices lie along the spectrum.)-3+1Is this idea very similar to a project I’m currently working on?-10What level of friction is there?None:
+2Minor difficulties:
-1
Major institutional opposition:
-3Is there a good reason to do or not do this, that hasn’t been mentioned yet?+1 per reason to do-1 per reason not to do

There are a few potential outcomes, depending on your point totals:

An obvious winner, and you’re happy with it. Easy.An obvious winner, and you’re not happy. Interesting. At least this gives you some additional input into that process. Why are you unhappy with this winning idea?No obvious winner, but some obvious eliminations. Progress!No obvious winner, no obvious eliminations.  Oh well. It would be surprising if a single table from the internet could solve all potential situations. But even no obvious result is still a result – maybe there’s no right answer, or you’re in the happy situation of choosing between good options.

If you’re still lacking clarity, then perhaps this second idea will help.

Tool 2: A lovely flowchart

But perhaps answering a bunch of questions and adding up numbers doesn’t feel very fun at the moment. Luckily, this is why humans invented flowcharts! 

Perhaps this flowchart will succeed where the questions failed. It takes the most important factors—things like Do I want to do this?, Does it vaguely seem like a good idea?, and Is it actually possible?—as well as considering the effect of personality. If you are generally overeager or overcautious, it can be helpful to build in a counterbalancing step into your decision-making process. Some people will use any excuse to jump into something new and would benefit from a little more caution, while others are over-cautious and perhaps need to reflect more on the positives to break free of paralysis. 

Pick an idea, start at the diamond, and see where you end up:

Of course, just like the list of questions, this flowchart is not infallible. These are tools for feeding our intuition, not replacing it.

Just like if you weren’t happy with the winner of your points totals, if you reached “Try it!” and got a sinking feeling, then you have discovered some useful information about your true desires.

Life isn’t about optimization

In the end, there’s no perfect way to make decisions. And there shouldn’t be! There’s nothing wrong with choosing the most interesting direction instead of the most optimal path. But whatever you desire to obtain from your next idea, I hope these tools can help you make a decision.

Download the Questions & Flow Chart

If you found these tools helpful, feel free to download them as a PDF so you can return to them any time!

Your turn

How do you decide between different ideas? What criteria are missing from these questions and the flowchart? Share your thoughts with the community in the comments.

Doing/being/exploring ALL THE THINGS is easier with a community!

Did you know we have a private community of hundreds of multipotentialites from around the world? We support each other, share advice and cheer each other on as we building lives and career around ALL our passions.

Learn more about the Puttyverse and get notified next time we open the doors:

The post Two Tools to Decide if Your Ideas are Good appeared first on Puttylike.

How to Make Massive Progress and Reignite Your Multipotentialite Spirit in 24 Hours

Do you ever feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to make a real dent in your projects? Are there new things you’ve been dying to explore or longstanding projects that you never seem to get to?

This is, unfortunately, the reality of being a multipod in a busy, ever-demanding world: so many passions, so little time!

In addition to the ever-present time crunch, we also sometimes have to deal with our big goals and projects being SUPER TERRIFYING (read: hard to work on)—particularly if they are deeply meaningful to us.

One of the most important aspects of building a life around many passions is nailing the all-important productivity piece. We all need to figure out personal systems and schedules that allow us to balance our many passions with real-life circumstances and commitments. How do you focus on many things in a sustainable, ongoing, healthy way? That is the work of a lifetime and a topic we’ve written about at length on Puttylike.

Even the most organized among us experiences times when things get out of balance and our multipotentialite projects take up residence on the back burner. In these times, a boost of inspiration and creativity can help get you back on track. Sometimes, you just need a reminder of how deeply satisfying it is to fully step into your many passions.

What if you took 24 hours to be your biggest, boldest, multipotentialite self?

I have an idea to help jump-start your multipotentiality.

Set aside 24 hours.

During these 24 hours, give yourself permission to do whatever the heck you want. You know all those half-finished projects you have lying around? That mental list of would-love-to-dos? All those books you wish you had the time to read? It’s time to dust them off!

Here’s how it works:

1. Schedule it

Look at your calendar and set aside 24 hours sometime in the future. Pick a day on your calendar that’s as wide open as possible. Talk to your partner and family if necessary, to make appropriate arrangements so that you won’t get interrupted.

2. Make a (loose) plan

Do some brainstorming and think about what you might like to work on. What have you been itching to do? What’s been on your list forever? What new shiny projects or learning opportunities have caught your eye? Write ’em all down.

You can schedule out your 24 hours in detail if you like, but I recommend having a list of ideas and then leaving things open to see what you feel most inspired to do in the moment.

These 24 hours are largely about releasing the need to adhere to other people’s expectations. Instead, your job will be to follow your creative intuition. That said, if there are specific goals you’d like to accomplish, write those down too.

3. Do it!

Start at a specific time and end exactly 24 hours later. Make sure to take breaks and take care of your physical and emotional needs. (Yes, you may sleep!) But mostly remember to have fun.

If you happen to be an adrenaline junkie who likes the challenge of being on for 24 hours, go for it! But most of us need sleep in order to be our best selves, so feel free to take the night. Rest is super important for our creativity and well-being. It’s also a radical act in our hustle-obsessed culture.

Get support

Spending 24 hours living as your full multipotentialite self and diving into ALL-THE-THINGS is a wonderful experience, but it can be hard to do alone. This idea is very much outside of the norm and it can be easy to second-guess yourself and bow out midway through the experience (or not begin at all).

If the idea of giving yourself the gift of 24 hours to dream and create appeals to you, but you’d like to do it alongside a group of other excited multipotentialites, then you are invited to the Puttython that I’m hosting on October 15, 2022!

Join me and a bunch of other multipotentialites

On October 15, I’ll be leading a Puttython for members of the Puttyverse. This is exactly the process I described above: it’s 24 hours where you’ll get to dive into your projects and do all the things you want to do rather than the things you feel like you have to do. Writing, gardening, learning languages, composing a song…whatever you’re itching to do!

You now have permission to take one day (just one day!) to give your body, mind, or spirit exactly what it’s been shouting for.

Some puttypeep showing off their projects during a past PuttythonSo cool!The Puttython Schedule

Kick-Off Huddle
October 15, 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 18:00 CEST

At this Kick-Off Huddle on Zoom, we’ll all share what we plan on doing for the next 24 hours and get inspired by each other. Then we’ll head off and get to it!

Check-in Huddle
October 15, 5:00 pm PDT / 8:00 pm EDT / 16 October at 02:00 CEST

How’s it going? Come share what you’ve been working on. If you’re running into any creative blocks, your community is here to help! Got questions? We’re a super resourceful group and there’s bound to be someone who can help.

Check-in Huddle
October 16, 1:00 am PDT / 4:00 am EDT / 10:00 CEST

It might be the middle of the night for the North Americans, but those of you in other time zones might be up bright and early! Here’s another opportunity to talk about how your Puttython is going and get help and support.

Show ‘n’ Tell Huddle
October 16, 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 18:00 CEST

We’ll end the Puttython with a classic Show ‘n’ Tell. Whoever wants to share can do so. In the past, we’ve had musical performances, been graced with garden tours, witnessed beautiful paintings and other works of art, checked out brand new websites and so much more. We’re a community of multipotentialites after all, so the projects are always very eclectic!

What other kind of socializing and support does the Puttython offer?

Throughout the 24 hours, the Puttyverse forums will be bustling with participants’ personal Puttython updates, and we’ll have a 24 hour co-working lounge available on Zoom for folks who want more accountability or socializing.

You can participate in as much or as little of the Puttython as you like. Even casual participation can be super valuable. The community is always there as a touchstone to come back to as you do your thing.

We typically run this special 24-hour Puttython event just twice a year. This time, I’m going to be leading it! Yup, that’s right. Here’s your chance to spend 24 hours with one Emilie Wapnick.

More importantly, though, it’s your chance to make some really amazing multipotentialite friends from around the world. When you go through the Puttython with people, you build real connections.

How to join

All members of the Puttyverse community are invited to the upcoming Puttython. To join the Puttyverse, just sign up here before the doors close Friday morning.

I cannot wait to PUTTYTHON IT UP with you!

xo Emilie

Doing/being/exploring ALL THE THINGS is easier with a community!

Did you know we have a private community of hundreds of multipotentialites from around the world? We support each other, share advice and cheer each other on as we build lives and careers around ALL our passions.

Learn more and join the Puttyverse community here:

The post How to Make Massive Progress and Reignite Your Multipotentialite Spirit in 24 Hours appeared first on Puttylike.

The Four Types of Imposter: Which One Are You?

Hello, my name is Mel and I am an imposter.

While there are many things I don’t know how to do, I do know how to be an imposter—in fact, I’ve identified at least four ways to be one. I’ve been the naïve imposter, the secret imposter, the unbothered imposter, and the fearful imposter. What I’ve learned is pretty surprising: Becoming an expert in being an imposter can enhance your life as a multipotentialite, once you decouple it from your sense of self-worth and the fear of being found out. Here’s how I got there.

The Naïve Impostor

I almost failed kindergarten. That’s pretty hard to do, and yet I got fairly close until my parents insisted on getting me tested for what we call “exceptionalities” in Ontario. Apparently the results of my tests didn’t mean that I needed to repeat kindergarten—they meant that I should skip a grade. So I started Grade 1 in the middle of the year, as an imposter. I was a year younger than everyone and had never sat at a desk all day. Students spoke a level of French that was beyond me, and I had no friends.

The advantage of being an imposter so young was that I still had high self-esteem. It didn’t occur to me that being an imposter was something to be ashamed of. In fact, I thought it was kind of cool. There I was in a totally foreign environment that could give me endless learning opportunities…and new friends!

I passed Grade 1.

As a multipotentialite, can you think of a time when you forgot to be scared of being an imposter? Maybe you were so happy to be there, completely absorbed in learning something new, that you didn’t feel self-judgement holding you back. What did you learn? How did you flourish in that judgement-free zone?

The Secret Impostor

After managing to pass Grades 1-11, I won a scholarship to a prestigious private school. The scholarship was meant for a Grade 9 student, but they awarded it to me even though I was entering Grade 12. Right off the bat, imposter. This scholarship was to help increase the diversity of the school population (I’ll let you guess what that means), so it was also sort of a secret. I don’t remember thinking it was a particularly oppressive secret because it was so obvious to me that I was different from my classmates. If I accepted the scholarship, I knew I would have to accept being an imposter.

On “grub days” when we didn’t have to wear our school uniform, I wore clothes from BiWay, which is very generously described as a “chain discount store that sold surplus goods from other well-known brands”. While my classmates spent time at the local country club or visited each other’s cottages in Muskoka, I did my homework at home. Everyone was nice to me at school, but I didn’t make a lot of deep friendships. Although we took the same classes, our lives were so different after hours.

The Unbothered Impostor

At that time, if anyone were to tell me that I didn’t belong at that school, I would have said, “of course I don’t!” and laughed hysterically at the implication that I didn’t already feel like an imposter every single day. It never occurred to me to try to feel differently, because there were social and economic factors outside of my control that contributed to my status as an imposter. It wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t feel burdened with the responsibility to change it.

When I graduated from that school, I won the award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to the School. I was so surprised that I missed hearing why I won the award. The announcer said the name of the award and described why the winner had won it before they said my name, so I stopped listening (and my parents stopped recording the ceremony on their video camera) because I guess both my family and I didn’t think they could possibly be talking about me.

Like the naïve imposter I was in kindergarten, at that private school I was too busy learning to fear being an imposter. (Unlike in kindergarten, I had So. Much. Homework!) As a secret imposter, I also got the benefit of not having a harsh spotlight trained onto my lack of credentials. My school did a great job of giving me the resources to masquerade among my classmates as an equal, even though I secretly knew I didn’t belong there.

Have you ever embraced a multipotentialite pursuit as a secret or unbothered imposter? Did you ever chuckle to yourself thinking, If only they knew! while grabbing the chance to pursue a multipotentialite dream that shouldn’t be possible for someone like you? What were the risks? What were the rewards?

The Fearful Impostor

Now don’t get me wrong – I have also struggled with the fear of being an imposter many times, especially in my dance career. My passion for dance has given me leadership and teaching opportunities before some people believe I am qualified, so I used to experience imposter syndrome every time someone questioned my lack of dance credentials.

A few years into grad school, I was chosen to create a new university varsity dance team. I was thrilled! That was, until I overheard a dancer in the bathroom mocking my lack of credentials. She loudly exclaimed how ridiculous it was that I had been chosen to be in charge, when it was clear that everyone else had been dancing for longer and at a higher level than I had. I don’t remember much after that moment, besides wanting to crawl in a hole and perish.

Becoming an expert in being an imposter can enhance your life as a multipotentialite, once you decouple it from your sense of self-worth and the fear of being found out.

Impostor Syndrome makes us afraid of being found out

Imposter syndrome makes us more – not less – anxious every time we experience success.

Let me say that again.

When we experience imposter syndrome, experiencing success does not make us feel better.

Instead, success feels like a ticking time bomb – each success counts down to the GAME OVER! when someone realizes that we are not actually responsible for anything good that’s happened to us. It’s always luck or someone being nice to us that gets the credit for our success.  

Imposter syndrome can make you a very popular person – everyone gets credited in your highlight reel of multipotentialite successes. It can also keep you humble – you recognize how much you don’t know and still have to learn.  But it can be dangerous, too. 

Imposter syndrome has made me question where I belong, and what value I offer to the world. Has the fear of being found out ever spoiled the celebration of your multipotentialite journey?

Defeat Impostor Syndrome by accepting it

So one day, I just stopped trying not to be an imposter. I thought back to my early years, when being accused of being an imposter would not phase me because I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t realize it was something to be ashamed of.

I reflected on my high school days, when being an imposter was irrelevant. The truth was that I did not belong there, but it didn’t matter. I let other people carry the burden of “keeping the secret” of my imposter status while I just got to work.

When I consider my dance career, fearing being found out as an imposter had some benefits – I put in countless hours of practice to make up for the dance training I missed as a child – but also came at a steep cost to my mental health. I hated living in fear that someone, somewhere in my future would bring up the receipts of what I hadn’t done to deserve what I had now.

So I stopped trying to outrun my identity as an imposter. I learned to embrace it by detaching the imposter identity from my sense of self-worth. 

When someone tells me I don’t belong in a new multipotentialite pursuit, I agree! I also don’t leave. I’m too busy getting to know the lay of the land as a newcomer. When I begin to suspect that my contribution to a multipotentialite goal is smaller than I hoped, I laugh! This confirms that I am, in fact, still human, and need to stay in relationship with other humans if I ever hope to see my goals come to fruition.

So hello, my name is Mel and I am an imposter. Who are you?

Your turn

As a multipotentialite, have you struggled with imposter syndrome? Do you resist or embrace the label of imposter?

The post The Four Types of Imposter: Which One Are You? appeared first on Puttylike.

What Are the Multipotentialite Love Languages?

For the longest time, I assumed “love languages” were a made-up construct in meme-talk and didn’t exist outside of the internet pop-culture parlance. Recently, I acquainted myself with the actual concept. The five “love languages” describe the ways in which people typically express and experience love. They are:

Words of affirmationActs of serviceReceiving giftsPhysical touchQuality time

It almost felt like a light-bulb going off moment when I read the psychological reasoning behind these categories and how they help us forge intimacy with others. There was, after all, some logic behind why people show affection the way they do.

After my light-bulb moment, though, I felt even more confused. It dawned on me that I didn’t know my love language. I was lost trying to define how I choose to show my affection and what works for me when people express love back.  My main struggle was this: I didn’t understand how to confine myself and limit my idea of affection within five categories—especially five categories set by someone who doesn’t know anything about my life, or my identity as a multipotentialite.

This made me wonder: are there multipotentialite love languages? Less rigid categories that could allow us to express all of ourselves in our relationships? If being a multipotentialite means exploring ourselves beyond “just one thing,” should our ways of showing love and affection and accepting the love we think we deserve be limited? Can we have more than one, inter-connected way of expressing our love?  

After taking several rounds of the love language test and finding that my result changed each week, I went down a rabbit hole of introspection and came up with five broad categories for multipotentialite love languages. Most of these are derived from the existing love-language list. But, as a multipotentialite, I found value in reshaping this concept for myself. I hope this will help you, too, come closer to realizing how you love and accept love.

Validation instead of “Words of Affirmation”

As far back as my memory can trace, anyone who has validated my interests in life—across fields and years—has gotten my wholehearted love and affection in return. People close to multipotentialites can easily be overwhelmed witnessing our wide range of interests, hobbies, passions and callings. The ones who stick around and help us see the best in our passions are often those who validate these interests and ambitions for us.

The traditional love language, “Words of affirmation,” can be slightly limiting. There are times when we are of two minds about our decisions and life choices. In times of distress and duress, validating our fears and shortcomings can actually be helpful for us. It also helps us knowing you see through us, not just the good bits but all of it. I stick close to those who help me feel comfortable about living with varied passions and interests. Admittedly, I have a huge circle of friends, but my closest friends are those who are able to adjust to each of my many potentials instead of ridiculing me for them.

There are, however, people who can offer words of affirmation but extend no support to fuel our passions and aid our curiosities. These people tend to lack insight into how multipotentialites function. While they can offer words of affirmation, it’s not nearly as effective as validating our way of being in the world. ourselves in a limited way.

Enabling Curiosities instead of “Acts of Service”

All your life, you’ve steered clear of sports. Until one morning. You wake up and decide you want to understand at least “one sport” —to be able to make conversation, if for no other reason! You like the idea of learning about Formula One, but you don’t know how to go about learning more. Now what?

Some of my closest relationships and friendships were forged on the basis of people enabling me to know, understand or learn something new. Passion sharing is infectious. Enabling someone’s passion is one of the greatest forms of love. In doing this, you are not only introduced to their interest but also see their enthusiasm towards their subject. And, you get to know something new together.

That is also how I was introduced to Formula One, when I had steered clear from sports for over two decades. It took one phone call with a friend and there has been no looking back since. Nobody who knows me would believe this story, since I am labelled one of the biggest Formula One fans in my circle of friends, but this is truly how the journey started for me.

Participation instead of “Receiving Gifts”

The idea of gifts as a way of expressing affection is slightly transactional. Gifts tend to point towards material goodies and surprises. While I am a big fan of those, no gift is better than a friend or partner’s participation in one of my many areas of engagement. It could be something as simple as making a TikTok or an Instagram reel on a subject that is close to me, or watching a TV series together.

Participation, as a giver or a receiver, is an important way to show love. Whether it’s helping your friend navigate through a tricky break up by listening to them talk or sending them a pizza to fill the love shaped hole in their heart, being there for someone is a welcome way of showing and knowing love.

Engaging instead of “Quality Time”

Defining “quality time” together is a difficult task these days, given lockdown limitations and our shifting lifestyles. When you consider the concept of quality time, spatiality and physicality stand out as key components. If you can consider a Zoom call as an idea of spending quality time together, what prevents us from including a “like” or a share of our passion projects on our loved one’s Instagram story as a form of spending quality time together? After all, they are engaging with our interests, be it actively and passively.

For multipotentialites, spending quality time extends beyond hanging out together IRL. It’s in the engagement—regardless of the form—where I see love being shared between two people, whether they are friends or romantic partners. Two people can passively engage with a film over a distance or in person. Engaging together is a wider, more multipotentialite-friendly definition of spending quality time.

Collaborating instead of “Physical Touch”

It’s going to sound cheesy when I say this, but physical intimacy is a form of collaboration. Instead of limiting this expression of love to physical touch, as the traditional love languages do, my thoughts turn to all the ways in which we can make our partners or friends experience joy or pleasure through doing things together: collaboration.

You could be cooking together and brushing fingers or walking someone back home or you could be helping your partner with taking on their share of responsibilities when they are going through a tough time at work. While these may or may not directly translate to the idea of “physical touch,” collaboration is a way to distinguish “acts of service” from “physical touch”. In essence, collaboration means honoring your loved one with your presence.

Multipotentialites are fluid and fluent in love languages

Of course, the multipotentialite love languages listed above are fluid and inter-connected, and they may or may not look the same for you. The purpose of understanding your love language is to help you come one step closer to awareness about yourself and how you respond to your loved ones and vice versa. To me, it seems there is a multipotentialite urge to be equal parts fluid and fluent in our understanding of love language. What is your social and emotional response to the idea of love languages? Is the concept inflected with flexibility and self-reflection for you?

Your turn

Do you also score differently each time you take the love language test? Do you struggle to understand how to define your love language? Share with the community in the comments!

The post What Are the Multipotentialite Love Languages? appeared first on Puttylike.

Show Me About Yourself: Personal Branding for Multipotentialites

Most of us have heard creative writing teachers use the phrase “Show, don’t tell” when encouraging students to be more detailed and descriptive in their writing. When someone unexpectedly confronts you with the non-question question, Tell me about yourself, wouldn’t it be helpful to be able to show them who you are too? This is where personal branding comes in, and it can be an especially valuable tool to help multipotentialites confidently communicate about our complex selves.

What is personal branding, anyway?

A recent article by Viv Groskop sums up the idea of personal branding by splitting it into two components: reputation and visibility. You want your professional reputation to convey your experience, talents, and the quality of your work, and a strong reputation takes time and dedication to develop. Visibility involves how other people perceive you and your work. It also relates to how you connect with others or build an audience for your work. For multipotentialites, personal branding is about effectively representing yourself and your skills within a wide variety of professional or creative communities.

If you are just starting out on your multipotentialite career journey (like I am!), it can be transformative to finally find language and tools that authentically reflect different aspects of yourself. If you have been pursuing your diverse interests for years and have already established multiple professional identities, it can be refreshing to go back to the basics and rethink how you describe and represent yourself.

Acknowledging the limitations of personal branding

I discovered the importance of self-descriptive language soon after I realized I was a multipotentialite. When you have a wide range of talents, interests, and career experiences, summarizing who you are as a professional can seem like a daunting (or even impossible) task. For me, the idea of personal branding used to elicit the same reaction I would have to being asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and other multipotentialite favorites.

That is, as someone who grew up familiar with the topic of personal branding, I haven’t always viewed the idea in a positive way. Honestly, it was nauseating to think about being expected to market yourself like a commodity in order to find creative or professional success. I also knew that I’d never be able to commit to one consistent way of representing myself and my skills when I couldn’t even commit to an aesthetic for my Instagram page.

My view of personal branding began to shift after I graduated from college and made the decision to create distinct versions of my resume for the vastly different opportunities I was pursuing. It quickly became clear to me that an academic CV highlighting psychology research would look very different from the resume that I would use to apply for a part-time retail job, and neither of these resumes would effectively represent me as a musician. As I started to craft separate versions of my resume, I noticed that, while each of these documents illustrated just one category of my skills and experience, they would collectively offer a holistic view of my interests and abilities.

I realized that personal branding doesn’t need to revolve around one stagnant, constricting identity. Instead, personal branding involves authentically representing what makes you unique, meaning that your personal brand can (and should) evolve along with you.

It’s also helpful to remember that your personal brand (or brands!) is not an all-encompassing definition of who you are as an individual—it’s just a tool for representing yourself and what you have to offer to the world.

Personal branding as a creative process

Are you ready to delve into some personal branding of your own? If so, I hope that my experiences with personal branding as a multipotentialite will help guide you to approach this process with openness, honesty, and creativity!

While it can be tempting to jump right into making a niche social media account, reworking your website, or making new business cards, it will be valuable to spend some time reflecting on how you want to portray different aspects of yourself. It’s especially meaningful to think about your talents and passions holistically, rather than beginning with a narrow focus in order to fit the criteria for a specific opportunity you may already have in mind.

Tell you about yourself

First, get creative and honestly map out your skills, interests, and key experiences. Pay attention to how these different points might connect to one another. As Emilie describes in How to Be Everything, idea synthesis and big-picture thinking are multipotentialite superpowers, and this creative stage of deciding how to represent yourself is a great opportunity to put your powers to work! Think about where you might be able to blend your existing strengths into something brand new, or how some of your apparently unrelated talents might actually be linked.

Based on what you have written down, come up with a series of overarching titles that you might use to describe yourself as a professional in different contexts. Try to identify (or create) terms that can succinctly capture several of your skills and experiences, giving you quick but authentic ways of identifying yourself. This approach helped me to come up with ways of describing my coexisting career pursuits once I decided to experiment with the “slash” career model, which Neil described in a recent article.

For example, one of the titles I settled on, Multimedia Composer, can represent me as a songwriter, composer, and arranger for different genres, and as a grad student studying film scoring and audio production. Another term, Multi-Instrumentalist, encompasses my role as a woodwinds teacher and my background in music retail, while also opening up conversations to the instruments I play and my performance experience. The third main title I settled on, Freelance Writer, applies to my experiences as a writing tutor and editor, and the variety of content I currently write. All of these careers are part of my overall personal brand, but they can also exist on their own when I need them to.

Empower yourself through language

No matter where you are in your career, it can be valuable to think about your professional and creative identities from a fresh perspective. Experimenting with self-representation and personal branding can be a liberating exercise by allowing you to try on different titles and career ideas that you might not have considered for yourself in the past. Creating new ways of describing yourself can be incredibly empowering, illustrating your sense of direction and giving you greater confidence in representing yourself.

Do yourself justice

Striking a balance between presenting yourself as overly confident or minimizing your value and skills is an unavoidable challenge of personal branding. I would suspect that many multipotentialites are guilty of downplaying our capabilities, driven by a concern that enthusiastically discussing our diverse backgrounds and experiences will make us seem flaky or unfocused. But these challenges can be addressed if we use intentional language to represent ourselves. Focus on the transferable skills that make you unique, and be confident in your multipotentialite ability to adapt your talents to different situations.

Display your creative self

Everything you develop for personal branding should be reflective of your own style and personality. In other words, you should like it! Of course, some fields are more conducive to creative self-expression than others, but if you don’t like the way something looks, you won’t feel confident about using it to represent yourself.

If you decide to tailor your branding to your distinct career pursuits, create a consistent look for each one. For example, your business cards and website for your nail art business can use the same color scheme and aesthetic, even though they will look very different from your research CV for neuroscience.

Recognize (and embrace) room to grow

If you feel motivated to rethink and refine your personal branding due to a major shift in your career goals, you may confront some initial discouragement in realizing how little experience you have in an area that you now find yourself deeply motivated to pursue. But recognizing major gaps in your knowledge and experience is totally okay, and it’s actually the first step you need to take in growing toward your goals. Once you identify where you want to develop more expertise, you can make decisions about how to make progress that will be meaningful to you, now and in the future.

Your turn

How do you feel about the idea of personal branding within your own life? Have you had success when trying different approaches to represent yourself?

The post Show Me About Yourself: Personal Branding for Multipotentialites appeared first on Puttylike.

Is That Gut Feeling Your Intuition or a Distraction?

Intuition sits somewhere along the spectrum of woo and unflinching reality, and everyone has a different relationship with it.  Most hardcore academics won’t dismiss that a “gut feeling” exists, but some of us might dictate our every decision by an initial pulse of energetic guidance.  As multipotentialites, we can likely recognize the power and frequency of our intuition when landing upon a new project or passion.  But can we trust it? While the led-by-the-nose approach to life decisions can be exciting, it can also bring up challenges of logistics, timing, and practicality.  So how do you sort through when to follow your gut and when to ask it to pipe down?

Research around decision-making often divides strategies into the conscious and the unconscious, both of which have clear benefits.  Conscious decision-making, the analytical approach, can certainly yield positive outcomes: these decisions are likely well-reasoned, may be more financially viable, or they might just feel safer.  But while you’re busy hemming and hawing, an opportunity might flash by.  

The intuitive, unconscious response is a powerful one that often thrives on immediacy, so you’re less likely to miss a chance that only comes around once in a while. There’s also a real threat of analysis-paralysis when it comes to logical reasoning, leading to apprehension or procrastination, whereas intuition is largely associated with some level of confidence, even when you’re not quite sure why or where it came from. Personally, I’ve always felt drawn to intuitive practices in my approaches to various projects.  My poetry writing often relied on intuitive sounds and flow that I couldn’t quite explain through logic, and my teaching practice leaned heavily on intuiting a student’s personal learning style so I could adjust accordingly. 

 Institutions and economies often undervalue these more nuanced skills, so it can be daunting to proclaim your stellar idea as “just a feeling.”  Historically, intuition was often associated with luck and the feminine, mostly with negative connotations.  In a capitalist, rigidly rational world, it’s tough to find a place of pride for intuition.  But there’s also reams of research in its value, its evolutionary roots, and its associations to creativity and complex problem-solving.  All of these are hallmark multipotentialite attributes and skills.

Multipotentialites are wired for intuition

Multipotentialites might be especially poised to engage with intuition, since much of its power relies on recognition.  As a group, we tend to have a wide range of experiences and might be more familiar with the trial and error approach.  Also, we’re used to designing our lives outside the norm.  These two superpowers make us primed to have stronger intuitive responses based on experience.  Your brain stores the information you’ve gleaned throughout your life and guides your intuitive response, strengthening the gut impulse over time.

Often intuition is attributed to experts, or people who spend a lot of time in a given field, gathering many iterations of  these recognizable experiences over time.  But paradoxically, those who have a breadth of knowledge can apply their lessons to their cache of intuition more broadly, leading to a more automatic and potentially more learned intuitive choice.  Plus, the more access to learning your brain gets, the more experience it can draw from – a win for all of us who love to begin again and start something new!

To work with your intuition as a guiding force rather than a detouring distraction, you might consider a few tactics:

Check in with your body

Somatics is a compelling psychological theory that suggests that your body is your intuition and is also the most illustrative conduit to your subconscious.  Behavioral science suggests that even conscious, analyzed, and logical decision-making is influenced by emotions that arise as sensations in the body.  We might not always (or even ever) really notice these unless we’re paying attention, which can be a valuable way to work with your intuitive ideas.  Here’s what to look for:

When you slow down and think of a new project, does your body give you excitement signals?Does your heart speed up a little bit?Do you feel some butterflies in your stomach or maybe even goosebumps?Or does your heartbeat feel rapid because it’s anxious?Do you feel a little resistance in your belly or maybe a heaviness in your limbs?

This is tricky work!  Especially if you’re used to moving at a rapid pace, eager to get to work on your multitude of interests.  A tool to help you feel these clues from your body might be to explore meditation.  Maybe it’s as simple as just closing your eyes, minimizing distractions, and seeing if any feedback is coming up for you. 

Or, if you want more structure, try visualizing yourself starting that project.  Fill out the details as much as possible:

How would it feel to start the work?What about while you’re in the thick of it? Make it a rich image to soak in.With your eyes closed, how does your body respond?Does it tense up? Relax? Feel giddy?

Any information can help reinforce those initial gut reactions and guide you.

Another helpful process I love to use is journaling, although the more time you spend in narrative, the more you might begin to sway yourself towards more analytical approaches.  Doodling or free-writing can be useful tools to get myself out of being too logical or self-conscious, allowing freedom for my subconscious to flow.

Check in with your surroundings

One of intuition’s pitfalls is the experience-based model that can bias you towards decisions that are similar to ones you’ve made in the past, based on the context of your life and history.  This tendency can be infiltrated and influenced pretty easily by external forces, especially with the sheer volume of information we’re all consuming most days. Social media in particular can be a double-edged sword for a multipotentialite – so many possibilities! 

If you’re like me, you can easily feel a swoop of interest when you see someone designing mushroom-appliqued apparel, tackling homemade ferments as a booming side-gig, or producing a TV show with a theme you definitely have thought of before. If you’re spending a lot of time consuming other people’s content, it might be tricky to sort out those initial pings of intuition.  We’re easily stimulated by beautiful photos and our bodies can respond to this with real, intuitive longing.  But it’s always a good idea to take a media break to check in on whether or not something is a for-you fantasy or if just something you’re being repetitively exposed to.

Check in with your people

Maybe you’re someone who struggles with communicating your myriad interests, or maybe you jump at the chance to tell friends or family about every wild idea that passes through, brimming with excitement.  Either way, if you have a spark of intuition, but you’re not 100% sure, it’s always good to have a second opinion.  The key to this strategy, however, is to really feel secure with those allies.  If your sister is always lamenting your “lack of direction,” she’s probably not the best resource.  But the Puttyverse community is usually a slam dunk in terms of open-mindedness and receptivity, and other friends who support your multiplicity can be super helpful in the quest to interrogate a nebulous gut instinct.

Just try it!

As with most projects or potential directions, a trial period of following your impulse is likely the most effective way to know it’s right for you.  If you can swing it, start enacting some of the steps that seem most exciting about your idea.  Repeat the check points above to get a feel for how your body and environment is responding.  You can always pull back or apply some more analytics to see whether the idea’s really viable.  And of course, as you navigate multiple channels at once, conscious reasoning is going to be pretty important to put that intuitive idea to good work within your schedule. 

Intuition is a tricky subject to nail down since we all experience it in a unique and individual way. But developing tools to help you get your arms around a gut feeling will inevitably help with any decision-making challenge you face.

Your turn

What about you?  How does intuition show up in your multipotentialite projects?  Does it show up in your body, your mind, or both? Share with the community in the comments.

The post Is That Gut Feeling Your Intuition or a Distraction? appeared first on Puttylike.

Does a Multipotentialite Life Have to Mean Chaos?

Overwhelmed. Underwater. Weighed down.

A few months ago, that was me. On top of my regular work, I was involved in a plethora of projects. I was also trying to learn Spanish. Again. While I loved my work and was endeared by the many projects I had, things started to get chaotic. My Spanish wasn’t improving much, either.

As a multipotentialite, I understand that I need to organize my life differently than others. I usually stay on top of things with a system of tools that serves me well. But somehow, my system was bending under pressure. I could see little fissures forming that foretold a disaster to come.

Eventually, the fissures turned into cracks, and before I knew it, the cracks split. Before long, I was a mess organizationally and emotionally. I was starting to miss deadlines, and the work was piling up behind me. I felt incredible guilt for stopping work in the evening, even though I was physically and mentally spent. My family knew I was stressed and could feel the tension even when I wasn’t working. It was becoming impossible for me to focus on creating a plan that made sense. I finally forced myself to take a break by putting some non-essential projects aside and decided to see what breathing felt like for a while.

After taking that breathing time, I looked back and assessed the damage that Hurricane Me had wrought. I would recover, but I realized that my system needed tweaking if I wanted to get back to doing all the things I love. It was time for a change.

Life isn’t static, and neither is being a multipotentialite.

Reflecting on my recent descent into chaos, I realized I’ll spend a lifetime adapting to new circumstances. New relationships, births, deaths, changes in work, and even my favorite bakery closing down could affect how I operate. I know that I’ll likely need to change how I organize my life more than once.

Sometimes you discover the sweet spot of organization only to find a few months later that it’s not working anymore. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed at adulting. It’s merely an echo of something that has changed in your life. Maybe you got a promotion, and now you have new responsibilities that can’t be handled in your usual way. Or, the aforementioned bakery closed down, and you now have to go five miles out of your way to get your poppy seed bagels.

The situation will be different for everyone, and for every stage of life. But, whenever you wonder what happened to your previously working system, look for some kind of change in your life. It may be time for a new framework.

It’s also helpful to notice that everyone responds to organizational structures differently. One person’s harmony is another person’s disaster. When I think about the disparity in people’s systems, I think about my friend Chuck.

The best way to be organized is your way.

Years ago, I worked at a company that supplied tech services during courtroom trials. My coworkers were amazingly skilled. They could set up complicated video and audio systems in a courtroom in less than an hour. The job took an extremely well-organized mind. That was my friend Chuck.

Occasionally, Chuck would need someone from the office to bring him a piece of equipment because he couldn’t leave the courthouse. One day, he called and asked us to get him a specific video cable from “right on top of his desk.” We went to his office, took one look at his desk, and gazed at it for several seconds in shock.

The desk was piled high with twisted cables, manuals, hard drives, and assorted bits of tech. There may have been someone living inside the pile—I’m still not sure. Either way, we had to tell him we couldn’t find it. Later that day, when Chuck returned to the office, he went to his desk, stuck his hand inside the tangled mess, and instantly produced the cable. “It was right here!” he exclaimed, exasperated with our collective inability to see what was “right in front of us.”

The best organizational system for any of us is created from our unique needs, the resources we have access to, and the lifestyle we are currently living. It’s very personal. Your system may be perfect for you, but others may find it topsy-turvy and lawless. Conversely, you may find methods that work for others but not for you. That doesn’t mean you’re flawed, or wrong, or not doing it right. It only means that it doesn’t work for you.

Three ways to get (re)organized

While I firmly believe everyone needs their own personal style of handling their life, developing a system in a vacuum is hard. So I appreciate learning about new ways of managing my time, even though I might adapt them to suit me.

Here are some resources I’ve discovered that have helped me do my life without melting into a puddle of disorganization.

Bullet Journal

Several years ago, Ryder Carroll developed a system of journaling that not only helped him stay on top of tasks. It also functioned as a diary and a way to keep track of new ideas. Bullet Journaling is an intentional method of organizing everything you used to write on Post-Its, napkins, and crumpled pieces of paper floating around your purse.

My personal bullet journal system has evolved over time. That’s one reason I love using it; I can adapt the format when I feel like my organizational system is no longer working.

Hot tip: you don’t have to buy all the branded stuff. I DIY my BuJo with cheap notebooks from a local craft store.

Obsidian

If you like a digital solution to handling all your project ideas, Obsidian is a great choice. It’s free, and it works on all operating systems. It’s a note-taking system that helps you create linked connections between ideas. This can help you avoid feeling scattered when managing a multitude of ventures at once. You can get thoughts out of your head, clearing your mind to focus on what’s in front of you.

Obsidian describes it like this:

“The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same.”

My multipotentialite brain related to that in a flash.

Cork or dry erase board

This one sounds a little obvious, and maybe slightly antiquated, but I’ve found that pinning or writing notes in an ample space where I can see everything at once can help me more easily sort things out. For example, if I can see all my projects from a so-called bird’s eye view, I can better assess their importance and urgency.

It’s super simple, which is helpful when you’re feeling muddled.

Working with a team

Those are just three resources to think about, designed for organizing solo. What happens when you work on a team? For example, what if everyone uses Notion to manage projects, and you’ve been working in Slack?

There will be times when you need to adapt, especially if you’re new to the group. But especially as a multipotentialite, it’s possible that you can bring something new to the party. Your unique way of managing data within the established system could work just as well for others. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas. Even if only one person gains insight from your contribution, you both benefit.

Our multipotentialite brains are inclined to adapt to new systems. We are wired to be excellent translators, interpreting the differences and similarities between systems that others may have trouble seeing. Because we’re used to switching things up, helping others see those connections might teach us something, too.

Chaos happens

Becoming disordered and jumbled happens to all of us at one time or another. No matter how well-structured your current system of organization is, life changes can quickly make it obsolete. Congratulate yourself for recognizing that you need a change, then start designing your new method. It might even be fun.

Your turn

How do you stay organized as a busy multipotentialite? Share your personal system(s) in the comments!

The post Does a Multipotentialite Life Have to Mean Chaos? appeared first on Puttylike.

Can You Do More by Narrowing Your Focus?

One of the most common symptoms of being a multipotentialite is surely a chronic lack of time. I don’t think I’ve ever ended a day with the thought “I got it all done today!”

You might think I would have grown accustomed to my ongoing failure to progress on everything at once, but I’ve been especially frustrated by this lately. Even on productive days, I can’t avoid guiltily remembering some task that I’ve not even touched for weeks.

My usual strategy is to self-criticize, as if that could inspire me to do everything-PLUS-that-other-thing the next day. But this never works.

And recently I’ve realized why: doing everything every day is impossible.

Prioritization is inevitable

The problem is that every day I have to prioritize my time. This means choosing a handful of activities from a list that looks something like this:

My actual day jobChores / life admin.ExerciseA social lifePersonal projects (naturally there are likely many of these!)Rest

Unfortunately, some of these items are non-optional, so the “choice” is partly an illusion. In particular, I have to do my job and I have to do chores (a broad category in which I’m including eating and sleeping and cleaning and taxes and shopping and so on).

By the time I’m done with those two, I’ve maybe got time and energy to squeeze in one of the other categories. And since some of those are more attractive than others—it’s easier to see friends than to exercise, and it’s easier to rest than either of those—many plans get neglected for months at a time. 

I don’t normally think of this process in such stark terms. Until now, I think part of me has genuinely believed I have more freedom to choose what I’m doing than I do. But breaking it down in this way reveals a potential insight: realistically, I can only choose about one optional category every day. So what if I accepted that fact? What if I planned for it?

And so, I began an experiment.

Doing just one (optional) thing

First, I picked some activities that have been easy to neglect lately. To keep it simple, I went with ‘exercise’, ‘social’, ‘rest’ and a single personal project, ‘writing’. 

Next, I bought a bunch of stickers.

The plan is that every day for the next three-and-a-bit weeks I am going to ensure I make progress on one of these four optional areas.

The Experiment: Day 0

The hope—and right now it is just a hope—is that I will balance out the time I spend on these four nonessential activities over the course of a few weeks. Ideally, noticing that I’ve neglected one will encourage me to refocus, to keep the sticker counts in equilibrium.

(I suppose I’m also secretly hoping that I’ll be inspired to earn more than one sticker on some days. However, I’m planning to count that as a bonus, if it happens. The target is simply to make progress on one thing every day.)

Let’s see how it goes.

The Experiment: Day 5

Here’s my sticker board so far:

Please excuse the lack of artistic flair. When I made my board, I didn’t plan to take photos!

The results so far don’t surprise me. I’ve started out with some enthusiasm, and I was prioritising exercise even before this experiment began so I’m in the habit already.

The ‘zero’ against writing was also predictable. I always knew I would neglect it. After all, I have been procrastinating on this project for a long time. But instead of wrestling against the growing guilt, I have the simpler challenge of putting one—just one!—sticker on a page.

Perhaps I can even do that tomorrow?

The Experiment: Day 6

Nope. I did not.

This is my first zero-sticker day. But that’s okay. This is an experiment, not a stick to beat myself with.

The Experiment: Day 10

Finally—a WRITING sticker! 

That’s correct, I managed to sit down and write on a personal project. That’s a thousand words that I definitely would have avoided creating if not for this experiment!

The Experiment: Day 16

I keep forgetting to take photos, but the current count is:

EXERCISE 3.5

REST 5

SOCIAL 6

WRITING 1.5

I’m genuinely amazed I’ve kept this going for so long, even once my initial enthusiasm died away. And with only one day without any progress!

You may be wondering about the half-stickers. There was one day where I felt sore halfway through a workout so I stopped. There are no rules about what constitutes a full sticker so I could have counted it, but I decided to use the excuse to write a few words and split the sticker. (Sure, it could have been two stickers, but it was fun to rip one up and stick it, so why deny myself that mild enjoyment?!)

Surprising results

I had assumed that the exercise column would be full of stickers, and that I’d struggle to find social stickers. Perhaps my post-covid social life isn’t as moribund as I’d thought.

But perhaps the most encouraging discovery so far is that I have resisted the temptation to use ‘rest’ as a cynical excuse to be lazy. When I first added it as an option, I wondered if it would become a default freebie. It’s easy to cynically imagine my future self gleefully choosing ‘rest’ every day while pretending that represented real progress.

Instead, I’ve actually used ‘rest’ days to allow myself to switch off without worrying about being unproductive. There’s something about putting a sticker on the page that removes the usual guilt!

However, it is becoming clear that my initial aim to keep the counts balanced isn’t really happening. Again, I’m not beating myself up about this. Most of these stickers represent progress I wouldn’t have made otherwise.

The End: Day 24

Here’s the final tally:

EXERCISE 4.5
REST 7
SOCIAL 9
WRITING 1.5

I’m immediately going to draw two conclusions:

First, this was a surprisingly good idea. I thought I’d hate it, but it was fun and it inspired me to make some progress I otherwise wouldn’t have managed.

Second, as most experiments do, this one surfaced an unforeseen problem. When I did achieve something—like, say, doing a workout or organizing a social event—I mentally blocked off the day as “done,” which actively prevented me from doing more. This meant that being invited out basically stopped me from exercising or writing on that day, which wasn’t really the initial intention.

However, I think now that I’m aware of this pitfall I would be more conscious about my approach if I tried this again. 

I found this so useful that right after I hit submit on this article I’m going to blank out that sheet of paper and go again, with a more conscious decision about what counts as earning a sticker. In particular, I wouldn’t count “freebies,” like a spontaneous invitation to a party. Or, if I did choose to count one, I’d aim to push myself to earn a second sticker on those days.

These tweaks aside, I’m so pleased that I overcame my lengthy writer’s block. This experiment is a huge success in my mind.

So, if you also feel stuck, like you’re making the same choices every day, or if you have some neglected projects gathering dust, perhaps it could help to quit attempting to do everything and instead aim to just do one thing… for a short time. If you do try, please let me know how it goes so I can learn from your experience too.

Only one question remains: do I get a sticker for writing this article?

(The answer is no. I suppose I’d better find my gym bag…)

Your turn

Do you have any techniques for spreading your focus around differently every day? Share your stories and ideas with the community in the comments.

Doing/being/exploring ALL THE THINGS is easier with a community!

Did you know we have a private community of hundreds of multipotentialites from around the world? We support each other, share advice and cheer each other on as we building lives and career around ALL our passions.

Learn more about the Puttyverse and get notified next time we open the doors:

The post Can You Do More by Narrowing Your Focus? appeared first on Puttylike.

Mindful Self-Care is More Than One Thing—Just Like You

When I say “self-care”, what’s your first reaction? Most of us have heard of it, many of us hate something about it, some of us misunderstand it, and all of us need to practice it anyway. 

I write a lot about the good life as a multipotentialite, but a multipotentialite life can also be draining when we pursue it at the expense of our basic needs. That’s where mindful self-care comes in. Researchers Catherine Cook-Cottone and Wendy Guyker define mindful self-care as “an iterative process that involves (a) mindful awareness and assessment of one’s internal needs and external demands and (b) intentional engagement in specific practices of self-care to address needs and demands in a manner that serves one’s well-being and personal effectiveness.” (2018)

They name six domains of mindful self-care:

mindful relaxationphysical careself-compassion and purposesupportive relationshipssupportive structuremindful awareness

When you look at that list of six domains, are you surprised to see any of them on that list? When I first started teaching about mindful self-care, I felt very smug that I was aceing self-care until I realized that self-compassion and supportive relationships were also on the list. Then I realized I had more to learn. 

You can read more and download the Mindful Self-Care Scale on Dr. Cook-Cottone’s website, where she describes herself as an educator, author, yoga teacher, and psychologist…is it just me, or does she sound like a multipotentialite to you, too? The scale gives you all sorts of ideas about the practices you can try to take a multipod-style approach to self-care in your life, where mindful self-care is as multi-dimensional as you are. 

Now that I’ve given you the academic introduction to mindful self-care, let’s break down some of that jargon, and explore why this approach to self-care might be a great match for a multipotentialite like you.

Mindful self-care is iterative

In order to stay well, we need to return to self-care over and over. That’s why I call it a “practice.” It’s not a one-and-done kind of deal. Each time we practice self-care, we are changed by it, which influences the impact that self-care has on us the next time. 

As a multipotentialite, you’re probably quite familiar with iteration. For example, I might be working on an anti-racism presentation one day, then get called away to (or distracted by) a different project, for example an article about mental health literacy. Then, something I discover or remember about mental health literacy causes me to see my anti-racism work differently. I might build on my presentation by integrating some content about mental health (for example, racial mindfulness). Or it might cause me to start all over again. (For example, I realized that I needed to teach about dealing with difficult emotions—including guilt and shame—before I could teach about complicity with racism).

To me, that’s the very best part about the process of iteration—it always makes the product better, but I can never predict it in advance. The same is true for self-care. You can’t predict how each self-care practice will make you feel until you just do it. And sometimes a particular practice will hit the spot because of what is going on in your life in that moment, and then the next time you’ll find that you need something completely different. Or you’ll get comfortable doing the same kind of self-care over and over (e.g., going for a run) until you realize that something is off because there are other parts of self-care that you have consistently neglected (e.g., kindly acknowledging your own challenges or allowing yourself to cry—yes, that is on the psychometrically evaluated scale!)

Mindful self-care keeps you aware of what’s going on inside and outside

Judging by the letters we receive in our Dear Puttylike inbox, multipotentialites can struggle with tunnel vision. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not (just) talking about hyperfocusing on one project while letting other projects slide for a while. I’m also talking about multipotentialites who are managing to balance multiple projects but are also wondering why their physical and/or mental health is taking a nosedive. (This also includes folks who think they are just fine, but have others in their life who strongly disagree.)

Taking a mindful approach—or paying attention to the present moment without judgment—gives you space to notice things in your life that need some TLC. That’s why self-compassion is a key component of mindful self-care: It is allowing ourselves to notice what’s up, and giving ourselves permission to do something (kind) about it.

Mindful self-care is what you do for yourself, but not (always) by yourself

Many people object to self-care because they’ve always heard it described as a solo activity. If you’re an introvert like me (I love people but they drain me), you see no problem with this. However, if you are an extrovert—someone who recharges by being around other people—or if you are willingly part of a collectivist culture, this makes no sense to you.

When I am feeling depressed, I remember the words of S. Kelley Harrell: “We don’t heal in isolation, but in community.” Mindful self-care takes this into account. In Cook-Cottone & Guyker’s model, self-care is incomplete without supportive relationships. Supportive relationships are still considered self-care because they benefit you, but this is one type of self-care that you simply cannot practice alone.

Mindful self-care starts—but doesn’t end—with you

If you’re like me, you may have been taught that giving any attention—never mind care—to yourself is “selfish.” Take a look at what Restorative Counselling Chicago has to say about that:

“Being selfish means there’s a desire to take from others, often to their detriment. However, self-care is about replenishing your resources without depleting someone else’s.” 

They also quote Parker Palmer: “Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.” In fact, the act of intentionally seeking out experiences that are meaningful or allow you to live your purpose is also a key component of mindful self-care. What a dream come true for us multipotentialites!

So, dear multipotentialite, what were you put on earth to offer to others? What gifts have you been given? (I say “gifts” because as a multipotentialite, I know you have more than one.) Mindful self-care is taking good care of those gifts, especially if you are used to caring for everyone else but yourself. That’s because mindful self-care interrupts the tendency to let yourself give everything away until you run on empty. If you’ve ever experienced the feeling of being drained, you know that it takes double the effort and energy to recover from that and be useful to anyone—including yourself—again.

Mindful self-care is more than one thing—just like you

In sum, being mindful about practicing self-care is so much more than taking a bubble bath once in a while. (But if a bubble bath is what you need tonight, that’s exactly what you should do.) Self-care is not selfish, and it’s not self-indulgent either. While self-indulgence is giving yourself short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term harm (I learned this from Kristin Neff), self-care is about promoting your well-being by choosing to tend to your physiological and psychological needs. Even the most independent among us have more than one need, so it’s time to consider more than one way to get those needs met.

Your turn

What are some myths that you used to believe about self-care? As multipotentialites, we’re used to thinking expansively and creatively. What happens when you take this approach to the way you practice self-care?

Doing/being/exploring ALL THE THINGS is easier with a community!

Did you know we have a private community of hundreds of multipotentialites from around the world? We support each other, share advice and cheer each other on as we building lives and career around ALL our passions.

Learn more about the Puttyverse and get notified next time we open the doors:

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3 Things I Lacked in My Portfolio Career (and How to Get Them)

Sometimes placing two words together completely changes their meaning in surprising ways. Add the grimness of rain to the, uh, curviness of bow, and we get a beautiful rainbow. A charging bull plus a sleepy dozer makes a relentless pushing machine.

And, the violence of slash plus the tedium of career makes for a fascinating way to live your life. But don’t worry—a slash career isn’t about serial killing. It’s about mixing interests into a unique profession of your own, as in “I’m a teacher slash juggler slash personal trainer.” Similar in concept to a “portfolio career,” this is a popular career model among multipotentialites.

I discovered this idea over a decade ago, as I sat in a coffee shop and dreamt of how my life might look if I made the scary decision to quit my full-time job. I vividly remember realizing with some surprise that my next step didn’t actually have to be another full-time job. I dared to ask myself—for the first time ever—if I could work part-time while writing books and teaching and giving talks and experimenting with other projects and…

It took some years, but I was eventually able to live my slash career dream. And, at times, it really was a dream. I loved always being able to choose how to spend my energy.

But it was also hard. Not only did I have to contend with the difficulties common to everybody—namely, there was never enough money, time, or energy—I also had troubles particular to the slash career. After about seven years, I was ready to make another big change, and last year I—gulp—returned to full-time work.

Happily, this wasn’t a complete retreat from my dreams. I was merely switching to another multipotentialite work model, the Einstein model. I now have a traditional job which is full of variety, and which gives me the freedom to dabble in occasional fun projects on the side.

Now that I’m firmly into this new Einstein chapter, I’ve been reflecting on my slash career experience. I’ve realized there are several things I consistently lacked during those years, and I wish I’d known about them in advance. If you’re in a slash career of your own, maybe you’ll recognize some of these too?

1. Lack of mentors & colleagues

The closest thing I had to colleagues during those years was the Puttyverse community. But even with their friendship, it was lonely being the world’s only custard-based mental health comedian/programmer. My fellow multipods understood the difficulty of juggling disparate disciplines, but few understood the specific mix of things I was dealing with. 

I also found it impossible to find mentors within any particular area. Advice from other comedians was rarely helpful because our problems were so different. I wasn’t trying to build up my comedy reputation, get bigger gigs, or get onto tv. For me, comedy was about having fun while doing sporadic paid gigs. Similarly, the advice I often got from other writers and software developers was to be more dedicated and to write/code more. This was great advice in their context, but it only served to make me feel guilty—I was inevitably always neglecting something.

As a result, I struggled to find anybody who could reliably tell me when I should be shifting my focus, and I was left to rely on my own imperfect guesses about what to prioritize.

I never found the perfect answer to this problem, but two things did help. First, even though multipods were juggling different sets of activities, talking to them was always useful. They shared my problems of loneliness and difficulty choosing where to focus, and it was helpful to have both a sounding board and a place to vent. 

Secondly, I found it invaluable to mentor others—both multipods and people within each of my areas. Not only does mentoring benefit the overall community by solving my original problem of “too few mentors,” but focusing on others’ difficulties often helped to shed new light on my own problems. I’m sure you’ve also had the experience of giving somebody else advice only to realize the same advice would be helpful to you? Mentoring gives you the opportunity to learn from your own advice on a regular basis!

2. Lack of safety net

What counts as a “safety net” varies massively depending on the culture you live in and the circumstances of your life. But prior to adopting a slash career, I was accustomed to many of the trappings of “proper jobs” in my country: nearly two months of paid leave every year and automatic pension contributions, for example. 

On leaving my full-time job, I was suddenly responsible for my own long-term savings. Worse, time off meant less money, so I was constantly either stressed, or guilty… or both.

Clearly, this isn’t easy to solve, either at the community level or individually. If I could have single-handedly instituted Universal Basic Income in my country to unlock the potential of these sorts of careers, I promise I would have. Unfortunately, all non-systemic solutions involve unrealistic levels of luck or generational wealth, like a medium-sized lottery win or surprise inheritances from distant relatives.

Assuming societal change isn’t within our immediate power, all we can do as individuals is make rational choices given our circumstances. I was lucky, in that some pillars of my slash career were capable of supporting the others. In particular, writing software was able to support writing books. I was able to dial up and down those two aspects according to my needs at the time. And later, as my speaking career took off, I developed two aspects that could support the others.

In short, the lesson here was that it was crucial to ensure my slash career always included at least one aspect that reliably brought in income. This may sound obvious, but its inherent tradeoffs make it less so. Generally, these income-generating pillars are the ones we are trying to move away from—often because they’re difficult, unpleasant, tiring, tedious or uncreative. It feels counterintuitive to rely on these aspects when we may be trying to escape them.

Money is always a thorny issue for multipotentialites (see this article on the different challenges faced in each of the multipotentialite career models) but these choices are all about tradeoffs, which means we need to be aware of their inherent dynamics.

3. Lack of growth

The nature of juggling disparate careers is that you’re only ever growing in one at a time. Months spent writing a novel would cause my programming skills to fall behind. Months on a large programming project would atrophy my public speaking skills. Worse, it was common that my most reliable income was highly repeatable, so I spent a lot of time churning out similar work for different clients, and I struggled to grow in that arena too.

Paradoxically, I have also written about how multipods can juggle many skills without falling behind. It’s easy to say now, but looking back I wish I’d been more conscious about pushing myself to grow in each skill, and been more creative in smooshing skills together.

What to do when you’re struggling with a slash career

All of these disadvantages may sound grim, or even fatal to our dreams. Certainly, years of living with any kind of significant deficit can leave us jaded. At times, I got pretty disillusioned and I often wondered if I’d made the right choice.

This is okay, and it’s normal. To be fulfilling, any career model has to be an intentional choice—and we have to keep choosing it, disadvantages and all. If our career style isn’t fulfilling any more then maybe that’s a sign that it’s time to take stock and consider other options.

These options are, briefly:

Be positive

It’s worth remembering that we get into these slash careers for a reason. To steal a nice quote, we choose this lifestyle not because it is easy, but (partly) because it is hard. 

And also because it’s super interesting and fun! Sometimes I had to remind myself of how great my lifestyle really was, even in the midst of disillusionment.

Identify the problem(s)

Looking back, I often lacked clarity about what was sapping my morale. The problems above seem obvious to me in retrospect but weren’t always visible at the time. For example, figuring out that I was lacking mentors might have helped motivate me to go out and find some!

Accept the situation as-is

Tradeoffs are inescapable, and sometimes the benefits are worth it.

Experiment

Slash careers almost always require revision and evolution to make them work. It takes time to find the right combination of part-time revenue streams to get enough money, meaning and variety. Switching one slash for another can provide a much-needed boost of motivation—and hopefully success too.

Switch models

Eventually, something came along for me which fit better with my goals and circumstances, and I’m loving my Einstein model right now.

Whether you’re deep in a slash career of your own, contemplating a switch, or are simply interested in how multipods live their lives, I hope these reflections on my own slash career experience are helpful.

Your turn

Do you have a slash career? Are there particular things you’ve found it lacking? If so, how have you solved them?! Share your stories with the community in the comments.

Doing/being/exploring ALL THE THINGS is easier with a community!

Did you know we have a private community of hundreds of multipotentialites from around the world? We support each other, share advice and cheer each other on as we build lives and careers around ALL our passions.

Learn more and join the Puttyverse community here:

The post 3 Things I Lacked in My Portfolio Career (and How to Get Them) appeared first on Puttylike.