Emilie Wapnick's Blog, page 6

Dear Puttylike: I Have Tons of Interests, But No Dreams

Welcome to Dear Puttylike, where our team of writers tackles your burning multipotentialite questions! Submissions are edited for length and clarity.

Hi Puttylike! Help!

I feel like I have no hobbies or dreams! This may be the opposite of many multipotentialites.

I put all of my eggs in one basket, dropped out of college and became a flight attendant because I thought that was my dream. I did it for a while and realized that it… wasn’t for me. The problem is, I had no “Dream B”. So, I feel lost… When people ask me what I want to do with my life, I don’t know what to tell them.

I don’t really have hobbies or big talents, and I don’t have a dream job anymore. It’s really cool that I fulfilled that dream, but what happens after you fulfill your dream?

What do I do now?!

Thank you,
Raine

Dear Raine,

I can absolutely understand why your experience has left you feeling like you need help figuring out what to do next! What you experienced has some similarities to what I went through when I realized that finding a dream job (or even a collection of dream jobs) did not end up being a dream come true for me. 

It might feel like a grieving process to come to terms with a dream not providing the fulfillment that you always imagined – or at least hoped – it would. Realizing that dreams can shift and change without our consent can tempt us to react with fear and constriction about the future. After being burned (out) by our dream job, we might think that the way to live from that point on is to keep our dreams small—to avoid being disappointed again. But, as author Marcus Buckingham says in this podcast, “You don’t have to be afraid of life.” Instead, when it comes to finding what we love to do for work, Buckingham says that, “there is love to be found everywhere.”

What you and I might have in common is a tendency to be single-minded in the pursuit of what we believe is a worthy goal, especially when it comes to a career. But what you and I also have in common is identifying as multipotentialites.

When we give ourselves the freedom to bring a multipotentialite lens to the way we design our lives, we can diversify our thinking about what happens next. We can shake off some of that societal pressure to focus on one job as the source of all the things that bring us love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment. Then, the question changes from: “What happens after I fulfill my dream?” to “What happens after I fulfill just one of my many dreams?”

So, let’s do some dreaming together

First, you say that you “feel like” you have no hobbies or dreams. Since you wrote to Dear Puttylike, I assume that you still consider yourself to be a multipotentialite in some way. I would love to know more about this. But since we can’t sit down for coffee together, let me ask some questions that I encourage you to answer as you consider your next steps. Take out your journal, and see what comes up.

1. Which of my qualities make me (still) identify as a multipotentialite?

When you make that list, pay attention to whether those qualities relate to your interests or your skills.

Naming your multipotentialite interests

Can you remember a time, before you put all of your eggs in the flight attendant basket, when you allowed yourself to have multiple interests and creative pursuits? What were they, and what happened to them? Take some time to use all of your senses to recall what that was like. 

You say that you “don’t really have hobbies or big talents.” I wonder where those went. Did you find yourself sacrificing your hobbies to focus on your career as a flight attendant? Now that you’ve moved on, this new time in your life has the potential to give you some of those other dreams back again.  

Maybe you don’t have “big talents,” but what about small or medium-sized talents? What happens when you mindfully explore what you enjoy pursuing without the judgment of needing to be particularly good at them, or without the restriction of trying to figure out how you can monetize those interests? 

Doodle or free-write about this before going to the next step.

Exploring your multipotentialite skills

In How To Be Everything, Emilie names five multipotentialite superpowers:

Idea synthesisRapid learningAdaptabilityBig-picture thinkingRelating and translating

Which ones ring true for you? Write down some examples where you’ve demonstrated any of these skills. Pay attention to what you were doing and why you felt energized when you leaned into your multipotentialite superpowers. 

Now that you are starting to dream again about what you (used to) truly enjoy and what you’re (still!) good at, it’s time to make some notes about the next question:

2. How would I like to design my life as a multipotentialite?

Let’s use Emilie’s approach to compare a few different models of career design as a multipotentialite. 

In How To Be Everything, Emilie writes that most happy multipotentialites use one of the following four work models: The Group Hug Approach, The Slash Approach, The Einstein Approach, and The Phoenix Approach.

It sounds like you chose The Group Hug Approach because at the time, being a flight attendant was a job that “allow[ed] you to wear many hats and shift between several domains at work.” (p. 57) Before I wrote for Puttylike, I probably would have made a choice like yours, Raine, and there is a possibility that your next career might also take a Group Hug Approach. However, since you are in a time of transition and exploration, there are at least three other approaches to consider this time around. Take a look at this article for an introduction to these approaches, and use the reflection questions in Emilie’s book to help you figure out what could work well for you.   

Can you draw a picture of what your life could look like?

Perfection is the enemy of progress

It’s important to remember that, just for the moment, we are consciously choosing a different way to dream about our next steps. Therefore, this is not the time to get it perfectly clear or exactly right. Start your drawing—or your checklist—and see what comes up.

If you start to slip into single-minded thinking again, consider this: In this podcast, Marcus Buckingham says that research into the most engaged and resilient people at work found that only about 20% of our daily activities at work need to be things that we absolutely love or that put us into what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”. Boy, is that great news! It means that you don’t have to limit yourself to jobs that are composed of all enjoyable tasks, or even ones that never challenge you. Instead, Buckingham proposes, “you can find work in which what you’re being paid to do every day has chunks of it that are expressions of the best of you.”

When we give ourselves the freedom to bring a multipotentialite lens to the way we design our lives, we can diversify our thinking about what happens next. We can shake off some of that societal pressure to focus on one job as the source of all the things that bring us love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment.

A multipotentialite life means multiple expressions of your best

So Raine, this is your chance to explore what the best of you looks like when it’s no longer tethered to just one dream job. My hope for you is that, in true multipotentialite fashion, you can expand your thinking to a big-picture view of what you want to do with your life. The beauty of being a multipotentialite is that we never have to answer that question once and for all. We can let our life unfold and never, ever again just choose one thing.

Your turn

Have you ever had to come up with a Plan B? Have you ever been absolutely certain about something, only to realize that life had other plans? Share your experiences of having the courage to dream again after a setback with Raine and other members of the community in the comments!

Is there something that’s getting in the way of you living your best multipotentialite life? Got a puzzling productivity challenge or career quandary? Is there a particular family member who won’t accept your many facets? Or maybe you have a more general question about multipotentialites and how we move through the world? Send your “Dear Puttylike” questions to advice@puttylike.com

The post Dear Puttylike: I Have Tons of Interests, But No Dreams appeared first on Puttylike.

Giving Up Control Can Make You Smarter and More Creative

I tend to be a very scheduled, task list-oriented, dotted-Is and crossed-Ts flavor of Multipotentialite. It may not be surprising that I’m also a Virgo. So, when I had a dream where I gave up all control over my circumstances, it was a little unnerving.

It was also fascinating and thrilling for the same reason.

In the dream, I was walking in my neighborhood when I heard a whirring sound approaching from behind. As I turned, I saw a small electric scooter moving down the street. Nothing too unusual about that, except that the scooter had no rider. The scooter passed me up and turned a corner, rolling out of sight.

Soon, I passed a house where a boy was standing outside holding a large remote control device. As he looked up the street, the scooter drove up and circled around him, then slowly moved down the block.

“You can take a ride if you want,” he said. “I’m not sure where it’s going next, because I put it on autopilot. But jump on if you want.”

I declined and continued my walk. After a couple more blocks, I saw the scooter gliding beside me. I thought, Maybe this is my chance to do something different, and I hopped on. As I held on to the handlebars, it picked up a little speed, and quickly I was out of my neighborhood and onto the main street.

I rode along for a while, taking in the sights around me and marveling at the fact that I was letting someone (or something?) else literally take the wheel and direct me into something new. Eventually, I decided I was getting a little too far away to comfortably walk home again, so I jumped off.

The next day I couldn’t forget the dream. Nor could I shake the idea that it was telling me something important. I think the dream was meant to teach me that it’s okay to not be in control of everything as much as I’m accustomed to. The fact that I enjoyed being taken for a ride — in a good way — suggested that maybe I should try this in my awake times as well as in dreamland.

Without local kids possessing autopilot scooters that I could hop on, I would need to take a more intentional approach. As I wracked my brain trying to think of something, it dawned on me that I had already done this before, and it had helped me immensely. It was when my wife decided to teach me a skill I’d never have pursued on my own.

Knitting my way out of a rut

At the time, I was deep into learning to code PHP. I was starting to struggle a bit and losing enthusiasm, although I’d originally had a lot of passion for the project. In short, I was stuck.

I must have been complaining a little too much to my wife, because she suddenly decided it was time I learned to knit. I didn’t see how knitting related to my coding problem, but I let her steer me into crafting a scarf. Surprisingly, I became obsessed with clicking those needles every evening. Knit one, purl one, over and over, until soon I had a long purple rectangle draped over my legs.

Knitting was an enjoyable distraction, and repeating the pattern helped relax my noggin. It also helped me think about writing code in a new way that made learning more accessible. I made an unexpected connection between the patterns I was stitching and the PHP I needed to write.

Allowing my wife to introduce me to something new helped me understand how to get unstuck in a different area of my life. Amazing. I wouldn’t have chosen knitting myself, or made the connection alone.

So, could this phenomenon be replicated in other situations? What if someone else chose a new food for you to try that awakened your senses enough that it affected other areas of your life? Or, if you’re used to driving your car to work every day, what if you decided to try taking public transportation? Instead of shopping at a big box supermarket, what if you looked for produce at a local Korean market? If your local Korean market is your usual spot, why not try the tienda Mexicana down the street? What might you discover? What might it stimulate in you?

The more I thought about those times when I was either encouraged or forced by happenstance to try something out of my ordinary, the more I thought how fun it could be to make a game out of it.

Would you like to play a game?

Here’s the concept: Let someone else choose an interest to pursue or a new thing to try. Maybe it will help you think differently about something you’re involved in currently, or give you a new perspective that generates something creatively unique.

If you want to participate in this game, follow these steps:

Find a trusted partner to play with you.Let them choose a new activity or thing to try that’s very different from your norm. This could be tasting a new cuisine, trying your hand at an art or craft you haven’t attempted before, visiting an unfamiliar neighborhood, learning a new sport…there are endless possibilities.Try it! Like many new experiences, it may be a tad uncomfortable at first. It’s perfectly okay to acknowledge that discomfort, but try to give it a chance. If you end up not liking it, you don’t have to do it forever—but you might just find out that you love it.Choose something for your partner to try. Even better if you go along and it’s also a new experience for you!

There are no points or achievement levels here. If the thing you try doesn’t give you a new insight, it doesn’t mean you lose. In this game, trying is winning. It’s a bit of a multipotentialite buffet, because you can pursue as many new things as you want without committing to an outcome.

Single player mode

It’s hard to police ourselves, which is why having a partner can be helpful for this game. However, if you don’t have or don’t want a partner to help you, you can still play. Here’s how:

Create a few broad categories—for example, foods, places and activities.Write down at least three ideas for experiences in each category. Obviously, these should be things you’ve never tried before. Search engines can be your friend here!Pick one at random.Commit to trying it, and put it on your calendar. Or head out right away! Just see what happens.You always have veto power

Playing this game should not put you in danger physically or mentally. And, while the object is to experience something completely new, you should feel empowered to refuse an activity or suggestion. For example, if you’re a strict vegan, you absolutely do not need to try steak tartare. If you live in a sketchy neighborhood, taking a walk alone at 2:00 AM may not be a safe choice. You have full veto power, but if an activity or experience is not dangerous or against your values, then try to be open to exploring how it feels to leave your comfort zone.

Your turn

Have you ever tried something out of the ordinary, just for the heck of it? Did it shift your perspective in any way? Share with the community in the comments. And, if you try this game, we would love to hear how it goes for you!

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 Giving Up Control Can Make You Smarter and More Creative appeared first on Puttylike.

Stop Playing Hide & Seek with Your True Self

Are you an undercover multipotentialite? I used to be. 

Growing up, I felt that I had to hide my multipotentialite identity. The fact that I was interested in, good at, and engaged with more than one thing at a time seemed to genuinely confuse people—or cause them visible distress—so I learned to show only one part of myself at a time. 

During high school, I was the student taking all the advanced math and science classes during the day. After hours, I escaped the lab to sing in choirs and play multiple instruments in bands, when I wasn’t competing in solo classical piano competitions. I pursued science again in university, where dance classes took their place in my nightly extra-curricular activity roster. Every summer, I applied to work at a different summer camp to teach the performing arts in the great outdoors. My parents hoped I would choose a career in medicine, while my dance friends expected me to open a dance studio. I wanted neither.

Hiding

Because I couldn’t articulate exactly what I did want, I felt that I couldn’t say exactly who I was. I wanted so badly to attach my identity to what I did, but it was too much of a jumbled mouthful. So, I learned not to say anything. When catching up on life with someone I hadn’t seen in a few years, I learned to expect the moment where they would pause, look at me in bewilderment, and say “but I thought you were…” before mentioning a hobby or interest that seemed so outdated to me it was embarrassing. I started to dread that pause, because I knew what came next. I learned to keep the conversation on them, or to talk about some other (boring) part of myself (like who I was dating) to avoid talking about what my true passions were at that moment. In other words, I learned to hide.

Seeking

I could only hide out for so long before I realized that I needed community to survive. So, I did what I thought was the next best thing to hiding. I sought out dancing friends, singing friends, summer camp friends, teacher friends, grad school friends…you get the picture. And that was good for a while! I found acceptance in each of these communities.

I learned to partition myself and my personality so that I would show up as authentically [insert interest here] in each of these spaces. Because I feared the taunt of “jack of all trades, master of none”—or missing out on opportunities because I appeared “uncommitted” or scattered—I worked really hard to appear skillful and devoted to each of these areas. While I secretly pursued breadth in multiple areas, I showed how hard I was working to achieve depth too, so that I wouldn’t be turned out of each community as a fraud. I didn’t think anyone would accept all of me, so I tried to sell myself as all-in on each of those things.

Choosing to be seen

But, lately, I don’t feel like doing that anymore. You see, multipotentialites are exactly the ones who can get us out of some of the biggest messes that we’ve made as a society. Don’t just take my word for it – researchers argue that “the disciplinary approach of specialization is ill-suited to solve our increasingly complex problems, and that polymathic thinking can be a crucial asset in this regard.” And, polymathy is defined as “the productive pursuit of multiple endeavors, simultaneously or serially, across a lifetime.” So, dear multipotentialite, these researchers are talking about you.

Naming multipotentiality as an asset

As I’ve started to allow people to know more of the diverse parts that make up who I am and what I love to do, I’ve noticed that reactions of confusion have given way to delightful surprise. What’s made the difference? 

First, privilege. There’s no point in being naïve about how my positionality allows me to be increasingly honest about the multiplicity of who I am. I’ve “proven” myself now. I’m no longer sitting in my guidance counselor’s office, wringing my hands about which major to choose. Now, I have too many degrees. I’m not trying to pad my resume to make myself look qualified and focused enough for a job I want—I have enough experience in each of the areas to get past the first round of applications. I’m not trying to go to the Olympics, or bust my way into something that’s totally and completely outside my past experiences and expertise. I’ve settled on variations of a few themes that I revisit and deepen every few years.

But there might be some other factors that come into play as well, and I want to share them with you. If you’re tired of hiding, too, here are four steps you can take to put your multipotentiality center stage without sacrificing potential opportunities.

Do your research. As polymathy research becomes more common, you can find articles that name the assets you bring to the table as a multipotentialite. If you don’t know where to start, look for research about the benefits of your three core strengths: innovation, rapid learning, and adaptability. Get comfortable naming them as your own.Name your strengths. If you dabble in perfectionism like me, you might be addicted to fixating on your weaknesses, but what are you actually good at? What does it look like when you’re at your best? How often do you show that side of you? Here’s an exercise from the Harvard Business Review to help you tell your story.Tell your story. One of the biggest mistakes I made in the past was allowing others to define who I was for me. There’s no need for that. Reclaim your story and rewrite your narrative into an empowering one that puts you in the center stage of your own life. Paint a picture for others about how you have brought together discrete bodies of knowledge or diverse people to make the magic happen. Your successes aren’t a fluke—be proud of how you contributed.Don’t apologize. (Even if you’re Canadian.) Ok, fine, apologize when you’re wrong, but don’t apologize when you’re right but different. No need to make yourself small when your big ideas and vast experiences are the key to our future. It’s time to stop playing hide and seek.Reaping the benefits of being seen

Ending the perpetual game of hide and seek has allowed me to start living a more authentic, joyful life. Articulating my multipotentiality as a strength has freed me from the shame I didn’t know I was carrying about having multiple passions that don’t line up with my day job. Accepting and celebrating my multipotentialite self has given me a powerful antidote against the fear of rejection when people find out that living a one-track life will never satisfy me. After all, I’m part of a community that is best equipped to change the world. As multipotentialites, we can choose to be part of a movement that has a much bigger potential impact than we ever could if we all stayed fragmented and hidden.  

So, dear reader, are you ready to come out of hiding?

Your turn

Are you still in hiding? What might give you the courage to step out and be known as your authentic multipotentialite self? Or have you graduated from undercover to out-and-proud multipotentialite? What changed in your life when you allowed yourself to be seen? Share your experience to inspire other multipotentialites to stop playing hide and seek.

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 Stop Playing Hide & Seek with Your True Self appeared first on Puttylike.

Is It Cool to Care Yet?

The first time I was ever invited to a party, I panicked. At least, I think I did. It’s hard to remember—I was only four years old.

I remember that I didn’t understand the invite, and that it sounded like something I wouldn’t like, so I made it go away… by putting it directly into the bin. Soon afterwards I discovered (for the first time of many) that simply ignoring things doesn’t make them go away. The truth came out after my mum was questioned about our lack of reply. I remember feeling ashamed. Why hadn’t I reacted like everybody else? They’d just liked the idea right away! From that point on I worried a lot more about fitting in.

Like most children, I quickly learned to at least try to like what everybody else liked—clothes, cartoons, whatever. But I soon learned an additional, surprising, lesson. It wasn’t only that I had to like the right things. I had to like them the right amount. It seemed that the very concept of liking things at all was a little suspicious.

As we aged, it had become uncool to demonstrate enthusiasm for anything. This was easy to comprehend for my nerdier interests (like maths!). But I was occasionally shocked when being TOO enthusiastic even about something that everybody agreed was cool marked me out as weird.

To defend myself, I gradually learned to dial down my enthusiasm for everything, at least in public. It became a habit to hide both the things I cared about and the extent to which I cared about them. I thought I’d outgrown this, but I’ve been reflecting on the deep roots it left after coming across this Twitter thread.

When I first watched OFMD, I remember making a passing joke about it to my therapist like "Gotta be careful or this show is gonna make me regress to my weird high school fandom lifestyle, haha", but she surprised me by basically saying "What's wrong with that?"

— Kat ??????? (@orangekatenergy) May 7, 2022

The author joked to her therapist about “regressing” into obsession with some new show she’d discovered, and her therapist surprised her by saying “what’s wrong with that?”

The author talks about the shame she felt as a teenager, for liking things too obsessively, and I couldn’t help relating. As a young multipotentialite, I went through phases of obsession with TV shows, books, films, games… I was often  frustrated that I couldn’t express those obsessions without standing out as weird.

I found a coping strategy, mentally tagging all of my interests as either “okay to publicly like–a little” and “too nerdy to publicly like at all” and behaved accordingly. But I can’t help wondering now if there could have been an alternative to policing my enthusiasm.

One possible alternative would be to have grown up in a different world, where passion and earnestness and difference are celebrated. Without a time machine, that’s not possible for me, but it does seem that our actual world has grown in this direction since my teenage days. It is now more widely understood that it’s okay to like things—even things that other people don’t like. Perhaps this is partly due to the rise of the internet, which makes it much easier to find your people. It’s certainly true that finding the Puttyverse as an adult helped me to embrace having so many diverse passions at once.

But the better alternative would have been to accept myself. I lacked confidence, so I struggled to be true to myself, and–worse–I participated in the policing of others who stepped out of line by expressing their individuality. At that point, it seemed easier to conform.

A self-confident person encourages others to express themselves, which creates freedom for self-expression too.

Reflecting back, I’m happy to see how far I’ve come. I no longer feel wrong for liking unpopular things. And because I accept myself I’m able to encourage others to explore their passions, too. I’ve learned that expressing myself is worth the discomfort it sometimes causes.

But I’m aware of ways in which I still hold myself back. For example, it’s rare that I’ll talk about something I like without also making a self-deprecating comment. I’ll say something like “I did an amazing Sudoku today… haha, I’m such a nerd!”

I find it difficult to imagine removing the joke, and saying, earnestly, “I did an amazing Sudoku today”. Even the thought makes me feel vulnerable.

It’s clear where this comes from. Years of being reflexively defensive have become a habit, and years of being more self-accepting haven’t completely undone it. 

This sort of self-deprecation remains widespread. Since I started thinking about this, I’ve noticed friends and coworkers constantly joking about “nerding out” and making similar comments whenever they enjoy something about their jobs or learn something new. As a multipod, I’ve been told many times that it’s weird to be super interested in things, but I suppose it’s nice to realize that I’m far from alone in this.

I no longer feel wrong for liking unpopular things. And because I accept myself I’m able to encourage others to explore their passions, too. I’ve learned that expressing myself is worth the discomfort it sometimes causes.

Self-deprecation can be useful… sometimes.

Is my self-deprecation a problem, though? Part of me imagines that it is, that I ought to live more freely, without ever feeling the need to qualify myself or to be preemptively defensive.

But I think this is only a problem when I’m policing my own feelings. In other words, there’s no purpose to self-deprecating just for the benefit of my inner critic. Sometimes I’m just being negative about myself because I’ve internalized past criticism, which reinforces the belief that I ought to feel bad about liking things.

In contrast, and perhaps surprisingly, I think it’s fine to self-deprecate for others. It’s called self-deprecating humor for a reason: it’s funny! After all, I first developed this defensive habit because I learned that people like me more when I self-deprecate. I still want people to like me, so I still self-deprecate from time to time! So, rather than labeling this as a problem, perhaps I can view it as a skill that I’ve learned that still can help me to fit in when required.

You could argue that this shouldn’t be necessary, that we ought to build a world where everybody can celebrate their own unique interests. And I agree – I’d love to live in that world. I do my best to encourage others to embrace and enjoy their own uniqueness. Perhaps my self-deprecating comments are acting as tiny brakes on that world, still hinting that it’s somehow wrong to like unpopular things.

But I think it’s okay to make the occasional self-deprecating joke in order to fit into an as-yet imperfect world, as long as the joke is built on a foundation of self-acceptance.

It’s clear I still have a ways to go with self-acceptance, but also that I’ve come a long way. Let’s have a party to celebrate. I promise not to bin the invitation.

Your turn

Have you ever felt ashamed of being enthusiastic about something you like? How have you learned to deal with it? Share your stories and 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 build lives and careers around ALL our passions.

Learn more and join the Puttyverse community here:

The post Is It Cool to Care Yet? appeared first on Puttylike.

When Productivity Turns Toxic

I recently read an article about how some managers have taken to tracking remote workers’ productivity by their keyboard clicks. 

If you just shuddered, I feel you.

In our Almost-But-Not-Quite Post-Pandemic age, working at least part of the time remotely is still common. However, some managers still haven’t quite figured out how to keep tabs on employees they can’t see. Fortunately for them, the Wonderful World of Software has been eager to fill that gap.

If you aren’t an employee whose every movement is being tracked, count yourself lucky. I can only imagine that working this way is the equivalent of raising your hand to use the bathroom. At the core of this dystopian nightmare is a deep level of mistrust in one’s employees.

As depressing as this lack of trust is, let’s set aside the concept of trust for this article because I’d like to focus on productivity. Particularly, I want to talk about how the very idea of “perfect productivity” is a toxic myth. The interesting thing is that toxic productivity isn’t always something that is engendered by a lousy manager.

Often, we foster the perfect productivity myth ourselves.

Why we feel compelled to be productive

Many of us were raised in a society that shuns laziness. The fable of the ant and the grasshopper teaches us that when we work hard, we are rewarded with safety and security for the long winter. When we sit around and do nothing, we suffer in the end.

laziness [ley-zee-nis] noun
1. Having or showing an unwillingness to work

Let’s not confuse laziness with low productivity. The two concepts may be intrinsically linked in our minds, but I don’t believe they sync up. In fact, most people are not lazy at all. People want to contribute. They want to do something meaningful with their lives, even if it requires effort.

Consider multipotentialites, who often have scads of irons in oodles of fires. Not only is there necessary effort, but there is also a distinct need to be productive. The drive to be involved in multiple projects or activities is inescapable. It’s hardwired into our mulitpod DNA to be productive.            

That explains why we are inherently productive. But what’s wrong with being productive?

When productivity becomes toxic

Even those who haven’t endured military basic training usually imagine that it’s no day at the beach. In fact, basic training may be the epitome of a toxic work environment.

When I went through the six weeks of training in the U.S. Air Force, our unit was frequently assigned tasks that seemed pointless. One particularly frustrating job was to clean the showers, sinks, and toilets in our barracks. We would scrub until our hands were aching and blistered, every surface gleaming and thoroughly disinfected. Upon inspection, our T.I. (drill instructor) would glance briefly at the room and declare maniacally, “Not good enough.”

Back to work we went, cleaning invisible spots of dirt until our T.I. was satisfied enough with the day’s torture. At which point he would declare, “Y’all are taking too long. You can start again tomorrow.”

Fortunately, most people don’t ever suffer the indignities of military basic training. But you may catch a tiny glimpse of this type of senseless productivity in your own life.

Have you ever been forced to remain at your desk for a certain number of hours without actual tasks? Or maybe you’ve been given a vague assignment without a clearly directed outcome, so the only measure of productivity is that you are perceived to be “doing something.”

While it can definitely be bureaucratically mandated, you can also generate toxic productivity for yourself—no bad management required. For example, many freelancers can feel the need to put in a 60-hour week even when the amount of work doesn’t warrant that level of performance. For multipotentialites, the risk of this type of overachieving can be high. It starts with genuine excitement about doing something new, but can quickly descend into pernicious productivity when there aren’t clear boundaries for finishing.

When you combine unclear directives with a culturally-infused sense of diligence, you get low enthusiasm, depression, and burnout.

So how can we tell if we are being productive on any given day or at any hour? Unfortunately, there isn’t a scale that can measure true, positive productivity.

That’s because the definition of productivity is fluid. Which is why it’s never actually perfect.

Redefining productivity

If you think about it, the definition of productivity changes depending on the person and the activity. Measuring true productivity is all about circumstance.

In our earlier Orwellian example, we found a manager attempting to track their employees’ level of productiveness via keyboard clicks. But let’s reflect on this for a minute. How wrong is that, really? Suppose that an employee is hired to output strings of characters, no matter if they are meaningless gibberish or accidentally coherent. The task at hand is literally keystrokes. In this case — although it sounds like a mindless job that would drive most of us to distraction in five minutes — it’s in the job description, and one could expect to have their clicks tracked.

By contrast, if the job description is writing articles to inspire other humans, then there will be a lot of gaps between clicks—hour-long gaps, or even days. I speak from experience. Here, tracking keystrokes performed during a given period is not an accurate measurement of productivity. Turning in an article on time is more accurate, and more than likely appreciated.

But that’s all about a manager or an editor defining our level of productivity for us. What about when there’s no one around to track us at all? Does our productivity make a sound? In other words, how do we measure it?

Sometimes, there’s an easy metric. Let’s say that you have an art show coming up and you must complete ten paintings before the big day. Right now, you have… none. You have a certain amount of time to get ten paintings done. You also know that you have your full-time job and kids to take care of. There’s your metric. You define your level of productiveness by the number of paintings you need to complete daily. Maybe on busy workdays, that will be zero, and on weekend days where someone else handles the kiddos, it’s one.

What if there isn’t an easily chartable metric? I think about this with my running. I enjoy running for running’s sake (don’t hate me) but there’s no tangible output. Yes, I want to make sure that I make time for it. It’s important to me that I run and that I get better at it. But how can I tell if I had a productive running day? I could set myself a certain number of miles or minutes to achieve. But, unless I’m training for a marathon, those numbers are not really that important to me. So sometimes, a “productive running day” simply means that I put my shoes on and go around the block. Sometimes it’s even just a walk. I did it! That’s it.

A similar example is working on a choreographed dance. There are no widgets to point to or reports that provide easy metrics. So it could be that your level of productivity is measured by time, like, “rehearse for two hours.”

Especially for multipods, who might work on many varied things in a day, it’s essential to know what will make you feel productive in each area. You have a much better chance of feeling productive if you define what that means before you start. Then you know exactly when you can kick back and celebrate a job well-done.

Productivity is not life!

No one achieves perfect productivity. Even if you reach a useful metric set by yourself or someone else, there’s more to life—and work—than charts and graphs. What if you weren’t productive at all one day? That doesn’t define you as a person. In fact, it’s important to have unproductive time in your life.

Perfect productivity is a myth. And we don’t always get gold stars or paychecks, even when we achieve what some might consider super high levels of being productive. Being productive for productivity’s sake is a form of abuse, whether it’s done to us or we do it to ourselves. When you leave your office or studio and lay your head down at night, the only thing that really matters is that you existed. If you managed to do something good in your day, even if it was simply being a friendly face to someone else, you did good. Even if there was no software to track it.

Your turn

In what ways have you experienced toxic productivity, either from someone else or self-induced? Share your story in the comments!

The post When Productivity Turns Toxic appeared first on Puttylike.

Escaping the Shame Spiral as a Multipotentialite

Have you ever experienced a moment of shame? Did you recover quickly, or did you get caught up in a shame spiral? The latter happened to me this month. After writing an article about the folly of adding too many things to my plate, I dropped the plate.  Well, that’s not totally accurate—I dropped one particular entrée from the plate. But I made myself feel like I’d dropped the whole plate, then dived face-full into it in front of everyone. 

Annette Kämmerer writes that we feel shame when we have “transgressed a norm” that is meaningful to us. In my case, I have internalized the (unjust!) societal norm that Black women must always appear hyper-competent and unemotional, lest anyone use our behaviors or emotions against us. That means that daily, I contend with the pressure to work harder, smile bigger, and never, ever feel anything too deeply. When I slip up in any of those areas, I feel shame. 

Fellow multipotentialite, have you ever felt the need to cover up the struggle? Maybe you are known for being gifted in many ways, but there’s a part of you that struggles more than anyone realizes. Your multipotentialite résumé might be incredibly impressive, but do you ever have an impulse to conceal the embarrassing periods of struggle or outright failure that are not listed? 

Failure is common for multipotentialites for many reasons, but there’s more than one way to respond to it.

Guilt is feeling bad about what you did (or didn’t do)

Here’s what happened to me this month, as I had finished writing an article about reaching a balance of pursuing multipotentialite interests that filled my cup without draining my soul. I declared my life to be a very good life. And it was! Then, almost immediately, my cup started to overflow. 

I got sick, so I started to fall behind with my commitments. Some busy periods in my life seem to have happened by accident or circumstance, but this time I had happily chosen all of the gigs I was juggling. Therefore, I saw it as my responsibility not to fail any of the people who were counting on me—including you, dear reader. That’s when I added guilt to my plate, which Brené Brown defines as feeling “self-conscious discomfort in response to our own actions, thoughts, or circumstances.” 

I started to feel very uncomfortable with my triumphant declaration that I had found “the good life”. How could that have been the case yesterday, when today I wanted to escape all the responsibilities of that same life? What business did I have writing on a blog for multipotentialites when I couldn’t manage my own multipotentialite life? As an emergency measure, I negotiated an extended deadline for one of my part-time jobs. But, when I failed to meet that extended deadline, I leapt headfirst into the pit of shame.

Shame is feeling bad about who you are

Kämmerer writes that when we feel shame, we feel “exposed and small and are unable to look another person straight in the eye. We want to sink into the ground and disappear. Shame makes us direct our focus inward and view our entire self in a negative light.” That’s exactly what happened to me. When we feel shame, Brené Brown says that we respond in at least one of three ways to try to protect ourselves. As defined by Linda Hartling and colleagues, these are moving against, moving away, or moving toward. Let me explain. 

Moving against is exactly what you’re picturing. It’s when you try to gain power over another person by being aggressive, or by shaming someone else before they can shame you. As I’ve explained, I’m finely attuned to the negative consequences of appearing aggressive in any setting as a Black woman. So I don’t use this strategy, but I have definitely seen it at work.

Moving away is also what you’re picturing. It is hiding away, silencing yourself, or keeping the object of your shame a secret in hopes that it doesn’t cause any further damage. This is my go-to strategy, and I’m not proud of it. Growing up, I learned that the “safest” thing to do was to remove myself, make myself silent and small, and to never share what I was struggling with, lest it be used against me. While this is a strategy that can help marginalized folks survive, it does not allow us to thrive, so I’ve been intentionally trying to unlearn it.

Lately I’ve found myself using the counterintuitive third strategy: Moving toward. That’s when we try to appease or please others, not to apologize for our behavior, but to escape feeling any more shame. For me, this meant that I made myself extra-good at every commitment I did manage to fulfill—as if it could make up for the shame I felt for letting another person down.

What’s your go-to reaction to shame? Does it change based on the context, or which multipotentialite project you’re tackling? Thinking about this is uncomfortable but helpful, because it’s a key ingredient in the antidote to shame: self-compassion.

Self-compassion is the antidote to shame

Dear reader, what I’ve written so far kind of sounds…what’s the technical term? Icky. And not at all uplifting. But I think it’s important to talk about, so that you know you’re not alone if you’ve ever felt this way. Now that I’ve taken you through my shame spiral, let me tell you about how I escaped it: I exercised self-compassion through mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness.  

I practiced mindfulness by noticing – kindly and without (more) judgment! – what happened when I zoomed way past guilt into shame territory. While it made sense to feel bad about what I did (failed to meet an obligation that was important to me), what made me spiral was what I told myself about who I was (I felt like a failure, and—in an even worse transgression for my value system—a hypocrite). I did the hard work of truly listening to the nasty, critical words I was feeding myself to supposedly motivate me to do better, and I allowed myself to feel the heavy emotions—including the fear that I was some kind of emperor with no clothes—that came with them.  

Kristen Neff says that “self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to ‘me’ alone.” She calls this shared human experience “common humanity”. Once I let myself observe how wretched I was feeling, I knew that it wasn’t healthy or productive to stay hidden or armored up against further shame. Moving away was not going to serve me in healing from shame. I reached out to a fellow writer, who let me know that they too occasionally experience similar feelings. Instantly, I felt so much less alone in the struggle. Reaching out is an antidote to shame because it “challenges the belief there is something wrong with us.” (Kindful Body, 2018)

The third ingredient to my shame first-aid was self-kindness, which Kristen Neff defines as “being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” For me, this involved recognizing (or remembering?) that I am an imperfect person who makes mistakes…just like everyone else. I could not get closer to joy by continuing down the path of shame. I knew, in that moment, I had to care for myself until I was ready to begin again. And when I did, I was ready to respond to failure in a kinder, more useful way.

Growth is learning through failure

When I don’t let myself run on empty, I’m able to see failure as a form of learning. The other day, I met someone who truly embodied this idea. When I asked her an important question that she didn’t know the answer to, she took so much joy in not knowing the right answer. Because, as she explained it, I had given her the opportunity to learn something new! Failing to know the answer didn’t phase her, because it didn’t mean that she was a failure. She didn’t claim failure as part of her identity. Instead, it represented an opportunity to learn—and she loved learning!

Falling into a shame spiral this month gave me the opportunity to learn about how I react when I violate one of my core values, and what I need to recover from that. It taught me that living a more authentic life as a multipotentialite doesn’t just mean finding the perfect mix of activities and commitments. It also includes radical acceptance that even the most “perfect” mix will inevitably also include difficult moments, because we are all imperfect people. (Well, at least I am.) I’ve learned to honor my humanity in these moments by  tuning into – instead of turning away from – my body and my mind, and responding to what each part needs. That’s how I’ll help myself find a way out of the next shame spiral.

Your turn

Have you ever experienced failure or shame? What emerged when you came out the other side? What can I learn from you about escaping the shame spiral as a multipotentialite? Share with me 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 Escaping the Shame Spiral as a Multipotentialite appeared first on Puttylike.

Feeling Unappreciated? Here’s Why.

Obviously, the best thing about primary school was nap-time.

But after that, the next best thing for a budding multipod like me was having a single teacher throughout the entire school year. This meant the same person would teach maths, music, geography and French, so I was praised for being moderately competent in most subjects.

I can compare this to my less idyllic high school years. My art teacher mysteriously didn’t seem to care that I was good at physics and refused to massage my ego appropriately when I handed in my feeble attempts at drawing.

Of course, I’ve long since grown beyond such a childish need for approval…

… haven’t I?!

It’s not just ego

Apologies. I’m being a little facetious. It’s not childish to want our achievements—whether big or small, personal or international—to be recognized. In fact, very few people can live without acknowledgement, whether it’s a simple “thanks for cleaning the sink,” or a full-on welcome parade and a Nobel prize.

But I’ve rarely consciously grappled with my own need for recognition or how it might be met. I often wonder about passion. I regularly discuss money. But recognition? As a motivation it feels as if I haven’t… well… recognized it enough. 

And the more I thought about how the need for recognition plays out in my life, the deeper I realised it goes.

My mental model of the process of “receiving recognition” goes something like this:

We do something: either something big, or lots of small things.People notice our accumulated accomplishments.They tell us so.It feels nice.

Initially, it seems as if one of these two paths is harder for multipotentialites, who are naturally more likely to have a long list of unrelated achievements than one noteworthy masterpiece. Who—except for primary school teachers, parents and partners— even notices our accumulated accomplishments?!

Different people pay attention to any given thing that we do. Which leaves us with only the other option to meet our need for recognition, which entails achieving something very impressive. Yikes! Are multipotentialites doomed by their nature to be starved of approval unless we’re able to be outstanding in a specific field?!

Well… no. After a little thought, I believe this might be how life works for everybody. The only people who pay attention to all of our activities are close friends and family—and often, even they don’t know everything. Which is fair enough–they have busy lives too!

I strongly suspect that this results in a world where everybody feels underappreciated. This is a big problem. It’s not only nice to feel appreciated, it’s motivational too. I don’t need a lot of praise, but I do need a regular supply to keep my levels of inspiration topped up.

So what can we do about this recognition deficit? Logically, there are only two possible solutions: get more recognition, or need less of it.

Unfortunately, recognition isn’t easy to come by.

Recognition is unlike other rewards

Recognition is a noun, putting it in the same grammatical class as money, friends and apples. However, it’s an abstract noun, putting it in the same class as emotion, energy and disappointment. 

Since it’s abstract, we can’t point to recognition. We can’t store it up, and we can’t transfer it. It exists purely in transit. And both the source of recognition and the reason for it matter almost as much as the recognition itself.

For recognition to matter, it must be freely given.

We can’t just find any old recognition lying around on the street and bring it home. It must be granted to us by somebody else. And it must be granted freely—forcing our friends and family to applaud us feels hollow after a while.

Similarly, recognition must be earned. Receiving praise can have the opposite effect if we don’t deserve it. It feels actively bad to be praised for something we never did, didn’t actually do very well, or for something we contributed very little to. (You may also be familiar with the opposite problem, of refusing legitimate praise because we wrongly feel we don’t deserve it. Being human is complex, isn’t it?!)

Recognition must come from the right source.

Recognition from experts isn’t the same as recognition from friends and family. And recognition from random strangers is different again. The exact same praise can land completely differently from a professor than from a parent.

Of course, it’s possible—and important—to give ourselves recognition. It’s healthy to celebrate our wins. But a little external validation goes a long way, and everything we’ve discussed means that we’re not in control of what recognition we receive. In fact, we can never be in control of it. 

Most of us learn as children that forcing somebody to give us a compliment actually has the opposite effect on our self-esteem. Growing older, we may start to believe that if we just do good enough work—or even just enough work—then people will recognize us. But good work can be taken for granted, abused, stolen, or simply ignored.

Regardless of the quality of our work, we can never guarantee that anybody will even notice, let alone take time to acknowledge us

This is as true for friends and family as it is for colleagues, mentors, heroes and strangers. I often imagine that people are actively withholding compliments, or that they think everything I do sucks, but there are plenty of reasons that people don’t publicly recognize things we do. Perhaps they’ve just never thought about it. Or they don’t want to embarrass us with attention. Even more often, they haven’t even noticed what we’ve been doing.

All this means there’s only one way to gain more recognition which is within our control. And it’s the scariest of all: We have to ask for it.

Nobody is psychic, no matter how much they love you

I know, I know, I said earlier that we can’t force people to give us recognition, and that asking for compliments can feel hollow. But that doesn’t mean that asking for recognition is always a bad idea.

The key is our own evaluation of our achievements. If we’re wanting recognition, it’s because we feel we’ve done something worthy of it, and we’d like others to validate that feeling.

For example, sometimes I find myself wishing people would notice one particular thing I’m doing. It might be a big thing. Or it might just be that I’ve stopped leaving my laundry on the floor lately.

But somehow, no matter how hard I privately think to myself that it would be nice if somebody commented, nobody does. It’s almost as if nobody else can hear my thoughts and I need to speak them out loud if I want people to react to them.

Secretly wishing for acknowledgement isn’t enough. Instead, we need to find an appropriate way to say “Hey, it would mean a lot to me if you acknowledged this” (or checked out this bit of work, or just gave me a Good job!).

In short, it’s normal to need recognition, and it’s okay to tell people what kind of recognition you need! It still counts if they give it afterwards. And asking for acknowledgement might even be the only way to let people in your life know they need to give it.

Your turn

How do you find recognition as a multipotentialite? How do you feel about voicing your need for it? Share 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 Feeling Unappreciated? Here’s Why. appeared first on Puttylike.

A Virtual Summer Camp for Gifted & HSP Multipods!

Are you a multipotentialite who identifies as highly sensitive and/or gifted?

If so, you’ll want to read on…

This summer, Puttyverse member Atlas is hosting a series of virtual events for the G/HSP multipods in our community!

The lineup of events kind of blows my mind. There will be game nights, movie nights, book clubs, campfire stories & songs, meditation and even a healing art club!

Virtual summer camp events—and the rest of our more than 30 monthly events—are open to all members of the Puttyverse, so if you aren’t a puttypeep yet, now’s your chance to sign up.

Throughout this virtual summer camp, participants will be exploring some key questions about multipotentialite community and thriving as G/HSP folks in the world:

What happens when we just hang out?What happens when we laugh, move, meditate, sing, eat together, etc?What happens when we create space to bond over what it means to be human?

This is a really special event that might never run again, so if you’re even the slightest bit curious, sign up for the Puttyverse community now.

Want to learn more?

I sat down with Atlas to talk about the G/HSP Virtual Summer Camp and find out more about what they have planned. I think you’ll really enjoy our conversation:

The doors close in 2 days…

The Puttyverse doors close on Friday, June 17 at 11am EDT or until 75 new members sign up – whichever comes first.

At that point, you will no longer be able to become a member and you’ll have to wait a whole month to get in (meaning you’ll miss out on a month of virtual summer camp multipod magic)!

What is the Puttyverse?

Established in 2012, the Puttyverse is the longest running community for multipotentilites.

It’s a space for multipods of all ages, cultures, locations, and levels of accomplishment. We brainstorm, help each other with our many projects, collaborate, co-work, and learn from one another. It’s a really warm place, where everyone understands “what you’re up to” when you have a dozen projects or jump from passion to passion. We’re a truly global community of over 600 multipotentialites and we’d love for you to join us!

If there’s ever a time to try out the Puttyverse, it’s now. Come meet your people…

Join the Puttyverse Community

I’ll see you in there!

xo Emilie

The post A Virtual Summer Camp for Gifted & HSP Multipods! appeared first on Puttylike.

Living The Good Life as a Multipotentialite With ADHD

Distracted. Impulsive. Hyperactive. How can that be a good thing? 

Well, for many of us multipotentialites with ADHD, these traits are key factors in our success. Not every multipotentialite has ADHD, but those who have it and know how to use it can turn it into a superpower. If you have ADHD, this article is a love letter to you. But if you don’t have ADHD, this article is for you, too—it’s about how we can enjoy living a little bit more when we zoom out from a persistent challenge in our lives to see what strengths have also been developing along the way.  

Before we dive in, let me answer two questions that you may be wondering about.

If I identify as a multipotentialite, does that mean I have ADHD? 

Absolutely not. Not all multipods have ADHD. For example, I’m the only Puttylike regular contributor who has it. Some multipods with ADHD have leveraged their unique brain chemistry to produce their multipotentialite superpowers. But other multipods may not struggle with distractedness, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity to the point where it has significantly and consistently interfered with their daily functioning. Their multipotentialite superpowers have different origin stories. 

I am not a clinician, so if you suspect that you might have a neurodevelopmental disorder like ADHD, the best thing to do is to talk to your primary care provider. That person should refer you to a professional who specializes in working with people like you. If you’re wondering what ADHD is, here’s a helpful overview from The Centre for ADHD Awareness Canada (CADDAC).

If I have ADHD, does that mean I am a multipotentialite ?

Only you can decide if the term multipotentialite is a good fit for the way you see your strengths, values, and contributions to the world. Multipotentialites have many interests and creative pursuits, and are known for their ability to innovate, learn rapidly, and adapt. Does this sound like you? If so, you and I might share some common childhood experiences.

Living as a child with ADHD

For me, growing up with ADHD felt lively and exhausting, sometimes simultaneously. I seemed to find myself talking when I was supposed to be quiet, but quiet and happily in my own world when I was expected to talk. I felt everything around me—and the energy of everyone around me—too deeply, and I didn’t see anything good about it. I was constantly trying to outrun my reputation of being “too spacey, too chatty, overly sensitive and ‘smart but won’t go far if they can’t get their act together’.” That description comes from CADDAC, but it also could have been a transcript of every one of my elementary school parent-teacher interviews.   

As a young child, I tested into the ‘gifted’ program at school…and also entered a crowded subway with shoes and exited without them. I noticed a hundred different things on that subway journey but, until someone pointed it out to me, my lack of shoes was not one of them. I also could not keep my room or desk tidy, no matter the humiliating consequences of my actions—or inaction.

Have you ever felt like you wanted to escape an unwanted reputation, but lacked the tools to do, be, or feel better? I’ve been there.

Living as an adult with ADHD

When girls with ADHD grow up, they can become women who “often feel scattered, disorganized, overwhelmed, forgetful and struggle to be on time.” (CADDAC, 2021) Yep, still me. I work very hard to present myself as a professional who is always conscientious and impeccably organized, but it is very hard work. And even though I know I shouldn’t, I take it personally every time I fail at it. 

But I’m not just a person who lives with ADHD. I’m also a mental health educator and strengths coach who is currently living a pretty good life, all things considered. And the traits that I sometimes get embarrassed about are also some of the things that my friends and coworkers love most about me. 

For example, as a kid I wasn’t allowed sugar because my parents were convinced it made me more hyperactive—and they saw that as a negative. Now, my abundance of energy makes me a captivating speaker and performer who can light up the room (or a  Zoom screen).

I have channeled what used to be unhelpful impulsiveness into being what CliftonStrengths calls an Activator, where I am valued as the team member who helps the group move out of “analysis paralysis” and into action. Everyone always leaves my meetings knowing exactly what they need to do to move the project forward. 

My extreme attunement to vast amounts of data in my environment can distract me, yes, but I can also tap into it to provide insights that others miss. Last week, I was in a Zoom meeting with a colleague and I noticed something about her face change. I ran over to her office to ask if she was ok, and she said that she felt perfectly normal and hadn’t noticed any change. Then she tested her blood sugar, which it turns out had dropped dramatically during our meeting.

As a multipotentialite, have you experienced a time when someone dismissed your cornucopia of interests and activities…until they found themselves needing your unique perspective? How did you manage to help without saying I told you so! too loudly?

Allowing yourself to be seen

Despite the fact that many of the traits that are part of my ADHD also serve as superpowers in my life, writing this article was unexpectedly scary for me. Am I ready for the world to know about what I still struggle with? Is revealing more about myself worth the negative consequences I might face?  Luckily, I have already gone down this road with my PhD research. There, I investigated how to use education and stories of lived experience to decrease the stigma of mental illness. As I thought through how to share my own story, I wondered if anyone in the Puttyverse had stories they wanted to share too. I asked: What did ADHD teach you about living a great multipotentialite life?

First, getting diagnosed with ADHD can be very freeing. It might be the first time we are seen and believed instead of dismissed and punished. For me, a formal diagnosis opened the door to getting the support I needed instead of spinning my wheels alone. But as someone who has a misguided history of valuing other people’s opinions above my own, I‘ve begun to realize that it isn’t very freeing at all to feel like I am constantly at war with myself.

Puttyverse member Rita said that her old strategy of believing “there was something wrong” with her and that she “needed to be fixed” just wasn’t working. Instead, she began to embrace who she was and work with—instead of against—the natural design of her “body, nervous systems, psyche, etc.” which made her better at fulfilling all of the multipotentialite roles in her life.

How about you, multipotentialite friend? Has there been a person in your life (even yourself!) who told you that you were broken or needed to be fixed? Did it cause you to abandon yourself for a time, or did you have an inkling that there was a way to respond to self-sabotaging behaviours without having to completely replace your authentic self?

Learning from the research

While I am your biggest cheerleader for living a more authentic life, I am not a clinician, so it’s time for a professional opinion. 

Sari Solden and Michelle Frank are the authors of A Radical Guide for Women With ADHD, and they are both clinicians who also live with ADHD. They “have found that colluding with the desire to fundamentally fix yourself, your life, and your brain is incredibly harmful to the process of ultimately finding the peace and joy you most desire. In fact, the goal of ‘repair and replace’ can completely sabotage your attempts to better manage your ADHD symptoms.” (p. 8)

So if we’re allowed to drop the goal of repairing and replacing our true selves, should we stop trying to find ways to not lose our keys every morning? No! Setting aside “repair and replace” means that we can stop telling ourselves that we would be better if we were someone different. As a multipotentialite, I’ve felt the pain of this kind of self-talk many times.

Growing up, I received the message that wanting to pursue multiple passions was a sign of immaturity, lack of focus, and even selfishness.

How naive to believe you can be a professor who sings and dances! (I am.)

You’ll never amount to anything if you spread yourself across so many disciplines! (I did.)

How selfish of you to take up your spare time investing in your hobbies when you’ll never make money doing it! (It’s not.)

Before discovering my multipotentiality, I was embarrassed by my resume. It was too long and made me look too scattered. I felt so much joy and balance by singing, dancing, playing, teaching, leading, and doing science all in one week, but I also felt guilty for needing to do it. I wondered if this sense of constant inner restlessness would lead to balance or burnout. I felt ashamed for the many things I felt compelled to do, and for the “normal” things I couldn’t do at all.

Shift your mindset from lack to abundance

For example, not a week goes by that I do not stand up to go do something and forget why I did that. I continuously use all sorts of tricks to keep me on time for social functions. I was still late submitting this article. Packing is my kryptonite. It can bring me to the very depths of angsty despair because I become lost in figuring out how to select, retrieve, and pack things—and then in recalling whether I have packed them. Yes, I have tried that app you want to recommend. Like another member of the Puttyverse, Cristy, these behaviors earned me the family moniker of Absent-Minded Professor.

Cristy is a former clinical research operations leader and current team performance engineer, yoga teacher, and coach. She is also a multipotentialite who lives with ADHD. She says that her ADHD “used to be a source of shame and frustration,” but “once I received treatment from good therapy, focus meds, and great coaching, my life transformed. Today it is a source of awareness and sensitivity that allows me to use my intuition and natural empathy to help my clients (and also a lot of former employers). A former boss once told me: ‘You’re like the glue that holds the team together!’ and I still love that compliment.”

So how did she make the switch? Like Rita, Cristy had to undergo a shift from thinking about what she lacked to understanding what she had in abundance. In her case, it was the very first word in ADHD: attention. 

Cristy explained that the way ADHD is named is misleading. Reading Edward M. Hallowell’s book ADHD 2.0, Cristy realized that it may be more accurate to call ADHD “a surplus of attention—not a deficit. We have attention to all kinds of things that [other] people don’t notice,” so what we need help with is “managing and directing that attention and that focus.” Cristy found that “Not all of your ideas are worth pursuing. Some are fun to imagine, and harder to execute.” She recommends keeping  “an overall ‘front burner’ and ‘back burner’ awareness so you remember to pay your rent before being consumed with your new project.”

In your life as a multipotentialite, I think it’s safe to assume that many things can grab your attention. How have you learned  to direct your attention so that you have the focus you need to pursue a  multipotentialite path with joy?

Stay aligned with your mission by saying No first

Cristy says to start…by stopping. When presented with a new opportunity or invitation, “remember to say No before you say Yes. Since yes is your default response, give yourself time to check your calendar and to list what other responsibilities you have. If it’s a good fit and is aligned with your overall mission and direction, say yes but be specific about what portion you can do, and what your limits are.”

If you’ve followed my previous writing about living a more authentic multipotentialite life, chances are that you already have the tools to name your overall mission and direction. If not, you can use your surplus of attention to lean into your intuition. Cristy suggests you “double down on your intuition about people and enter collaborations that have mutual benefit. This is where you shine. Others with different gifts can take on projects that drain you (and don’t assume it will drain them if they get to use their strengths).”

To live the good life, be you

Contrary to what you might have heard, if you live with ADHD or you have multipotentialite ways that others around you don’t understand, you don’t have to be anyone different than who you already are to live the good life. Like Edward Hallowell says, what you might need help with is learning how to master the power of your turbo-charged mind while avoiding its pitfalls. After all, you can’t stop a Ferrari with bicycle brakes.

More and more people, especially women, are being diagnosed with ADHD later in life, as we learn that it doesn’t appear to be something that most people “grow out of” after childhood. It’s never too late to get the support you need to enjoy more of the good life.

Your turn

If you have been diagnosed with ADHD and have learned a thing or two about how that translates into your life as a multipotentialite, share it with us in the comments!

The post Living The Good Life as a Multipotentialite With ADHD appeared first on Puttylike.

My Multipotentialite Tour of Woo

My partner does not believe in astrology. If someone starts a conversation with, “I’m a Gemini rising. What’s your ascendant?,” he’ll tune out, or roll his eyes and find any excuse to walk away. Deeply logical, woo-woo things, confound him. Like, Why does this grown person still believe in tooth fairies?

Me, on the other hand? When someone reveals to me that, along with their board certified psychotherapist, they also consult a Reiki practitioner, a tarot reader, an astrologist, a psychic, or a sound healer, I know I’m in good company.

With the exception of sound therapy and popular psychology, I’m not literate in any of these modalities. I remain curious, however, and ready to entertain.

Why woo?

The way my multipotentiality manifests itself, I’m constantly in dialogue with my desire to do all the things and the feeling of having finite resources in focus, time, energy, and moolah. When these clashes of desire vs reserves meet, I often seek advice from traditional mental health experts, but more and more I find myself drawn to intuitive guides. In these alternative spaces, I feel, there is less judgment about the way my peculiar multipod brain works.

Recently, I noticed that my cup was full and running over. My life either required a larger glass or I needed to drink faster or it was time to turn off the tap. What was most frustrating was that this situation was not new to me, it’s a pattern and a puzzle I often find myself trying to solve. I didn’t need help with this newest challenge alone. I needed to look more closely at my entire life to understand why I keep arriving at familiar crossroads. What are my life’s motifs? How are my thoughts and beliefs orchestrated? How am I designed?

To help me sort this all out, I consulted an astrologist-in-training as well as an applied mythology coach.

What is astrology?

Astrology is a language that seeks to interpret human patterns, purpose, and direction through understanding and observing the movements of planets, stars, the sun, and the moon. People from all over the world have practiced various forms of astrology and it dates back to at least the 2nd millennium BCE. Western astrology is organized according to the zodiac, a belt-like region of the sky divided into twelve signs.

Like many of us, I’ve known my sun sign “Cancer the Crab” since before I could remember. But I hadn’t had my natal chart explained to me until I sat down with an old friend who had just entered astrology school—yes, astrology schools are a thing! 

The natal chart is basically a map of where the planets sit at the time of your birth. These coordinates, astrologers believe, influence how you’re likely to operate in the world.

I explained to my buddy, before the reading, that while I am not a believer, I do find myself regularly looking up my horoscope—a paradox I’m now willing to confront.

My natal chart, like everyone else’s, is round and divided into twelve houses. It contained a bunch of lines, shapes, and planetary symbols that my friend needed to explain a few times, before I got it, sort of. It’s complicated, which is why astrology schools exist.

The meaning in the stars

What I walked away with is that my seventh house that rules intimate relationships is solid. My friend explains, “Jupiter is the most beneficial planet, especially in the day chart, it brings joy and abundance and expansion and good fortune to wherever you find it. Jupiter is in your House of Committed Partnerships so this means good things for your love life!”

I used to feel guilty whenever I looked at my horoscope, because I only ever paid attention to the career reading, never my love reading. Now, I know that was only because it wasn’t necessary. My love life has been pretty solid. My professional life, on the other hand…

Like a good multipod, I’ve tangoed with a number of careers. For me, but not for every multipotentialite, this has meant that my finances have suffered. My chart also revealed something interesting. Uranus is in my Second House, the house associated with wealth and resources. Uranus is about “innovation, surprises, and doing things differently” according to my reader friend. Because Uranus “squares” Mercury: the planet that rules my career, this creates a challenging relationship between my career and my financial life. I discovered that my unique way of handling business may be jarring to others. Since work-life habits have an impact on income, this is an area that my friend says will get easier for me over time, but could require extra effort throughout my entire life—yikes!

What is applied mythology?

This modality looks at primordial narratives, those old stories that are foundational to human existence. Applied mythology demonstrates how these myths relate to contemporary life. 

I’m a visual storyteller, so looking into how my personal biography might tie back to and be influenced by archetypal characters and their exploits, piqued my interest. Plus, I’ve noticed that wherever I travel, I arrive in spaces where goddesses held a lot of prestige, during those pre-patriarchal days of old. I often wondered what these figures wanted to say. 

Cue, Wade Gasque, a writer, filmmaker, and thespian who offers an intuitive service he named “Heeding the Call”. Here’s how he describes it:

“When we look at our life’s journey through a mythopoeic lens, we begin to notice patterns, symbols and synchronicities pointing to a singular something or other within each of us – a kind of story we’ve been playing out (consciously or unconsciously) since day one.

The Greeks called this our daimon. The Romans, our genius.

Soul’s purpose, highest potential, whatever the name, it is our calling. It is that which we were born to do. And whether we’re in touch with it or not, it’s always there, trying to make itself known, trying to be expressed through us.”

Wade encourages creatives to tap into applied mythology, especially when they’re at a crossroads—a place I find my multipotentialite self often.

Meeting my ancestral goddesses

I met with Wade over two, three-hour sessions. 

Each meeting began with a grounding ritual—a candle lit, a guided meditation inviting full presence and participation. I was surprised by how seriously Wade took our time together. It forced me to regard my own life’s lore with more gravitas and pay attention to what my greater guides needed me to know.

During the first session, I was very candid about past traumas. Incidents I hadn’t brought up to anyone, in decades, came tumbling out of my mouth. Like the childhood game Operation, all of the major chapters of my life, to the present date, were laid out on the table. If there was an area that needed further examination, I was given homework, between the two sessions, to delve a little deeper, and advised to “remain receptive”, try to avoid leaping into any action or falling into self-criticism.

Through these applied mythology sessions, I was able to name, out loud, the things that make this human journey enjoyable for me. And watch those things show up to accept or reject. 

I was able to see how important it is to remember, acknowledge, and honor my ancestral goddesses and heed the lessons their stories still evoke, even in these modern times.

Wade gave me so much to dig into, I’ll be returning to his notes and wise counsel again.

So many modalities, so little time…

I love how there are so many approaches to deeply exploring a life. These self-examinations also help me with my main gig, which involves understanding human behavior and motivations in order to create storied characters, so I’ll keep diving in. Human Design is my next planned foray. I don’t think I’ll get on the 9-month waiting list for the most popular psychic in the city where I live, but I might undergo hypnosis to try Past Life Regression therapy. Every time I opt into a new-woo-thang, I become more of a believer. Why not?

Your turn

Have you ever visited a psychic? Or had someone interpret tarot? Have you had a look into your natal chart? Or tapped into your own mythologies? If so, what did you discover about your multipotential? Let me know in the comments.

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