Personal Development
Should we be a multipotentialite? Here’s what I like and don’t like about it
Some people use this term on their Instagram bio, but what is it really? Does it matter to become a multipotentialite?
Copying the definition from Wikipedia, multipotentialite is an educational and psychological term referring to the ability and preference of a person, particularly one of strong intellectual or artistic curiousity, to excel in two or more different fields.
Despite the positive appraisal from people around me, I realise that I kinda hate it. I hate how I’m struggling to keep finding a new path while everybody around me is comfortable sticking to one path and get away with it.
This multipotentialite journey began when I was still a university student, I realised that I hate my major in law, I ended up trying to explore other skills outside law school. I tried so many things I ended up loving all of them and I keep finding new skills to put in my bucket list.
It’s like an addiction. Addiction to excel in something new.
So let me start with what not so great about it:
It is overwhelming to spare a lot of time commitment to “raise” each and every interest/skill.
Whenever I feel like digging one thing, the other things grow weaker and I don’t want that so I have to make time for each of interest/skill to grow. I ended up tired “raising” each of it and finally leave one of them unimproved.
I feel bad whenever I use my time to relax
Since I use most of my time to grow each skill, whenever I don’t maximise my time very well by chilling and doing nothing, I end up replacing my actual resting hour like in the nighttime for doing a productive task. A prolong act of this mindset can lead to a toxic productivity.
I cannot stand to stick with one skill and make myself an expert out of it
I’m not talking about my design skill, because this is the only skill that I keep developing tirelessly for the sake of my career as a designer. What I meant is the other skills unrelated to the career that I hoped to excel in since the first time I chose to pursue it. Multipotentialite is known as the ‘Jack-Of-All-Trades, Master-of-None’ since it is realistically impossible to nail every single skill that someone is pursuing.
Yet multipotentialite can have a good side too, like:
I become a fast learner and always ready for a change
Since I’m used to learning new things, I don’t find it hard to adjust to a change. I’m pretty enthusiastic about anything new and although it can be challenging at the beginning, it won’t take so long for me to get familiar with it.
I have interest in many topics and this open a chance to make a new friend
As an INFJ, I’m not so good at hanging out with a large group of people but trust me I like to make friends as long as it’s in a small circle. Since making friends can be quite difficult if I don’t have a good topic to talk about, I call myself lucky cause I have many topics in my brain library to share with people. Being a multipotentialite allows me to have a range of knowledge in many things and this help me to strike a conversation.
I like to ideate so much, this makes me hard to sleep at night
Well… this can be a good and also a bad thing. I generate ideas most of the time, it’s kinda hard to fall asleep when my brain is working at full capacity 🙃. The point is, that being a multipotentialite gives me the opportunity to be at many intersections and it helps me to compile or mix the ideas from the combination of knowledge that I’ve gained.
Since I came up with a question like “does it matter to become a multipotentialite?”, I’m going to leave the answer as “NO, it doesn’t matter”. You can stick with one path and just do it all along as long as it makes you happy and you grow to the right direction that you’ve been aiming for so long.
To be honest, as a multipotentialite myself, I often get confused by so many options and interests that I’m hoping to grasp all and end up overwhelmed. I realise that it is nearly impossible to master them all, unless I’m such a gifted individual like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin who are polymaths.
So if you think it’s a must to be a multipotentialite, it’s not. It’s just a preference, just like other preferences exist in the world like “I prefer 9–5 job than being an entrepreneur” kind of preference.
Are you a multipotentialite? Leave a comment and let me know what you like/don’t like about it 🧐
