Hey there rebel!
Remember when you were little and doing all the puzzles?
Your parents would buy you the really cute ones, and it would be a breeze to complete them, but every once in a while, they'd get you a really tough one, and you'd have no choice but to constantly peek at the box...
Now imagine you're an adult, completing your life puzzle, and you don't have a box to look at when things get tough.
Imagine that none of the pieces seem to fit together.
OUCH.
Welcome to the life of a multipassionate.
Every day you're doing your thing, but it feels like you're taking one step forward and three steps back. You feel lost, all over the place, like you're wasting your life wandering about while everyone else knows where they're going. You look around and see people who have a focus, a "one true calling," that unattainable thing that you're always trying to catch but is always outside your grasp.
Painting by Elle Luna, from Your Story is Your Power.
And while everyone else's life looks like a straight arrow, your life looks like a maze...
...and that's because everyone else has their puzzle box tucked under their arm and they can "cheat" off it anytime they want.
What you have is a slight inkling that you're maybe going the right way.
Maybe.
“Everyone else has their puzzle box tucked under their arm and they can “cheat” off it anytime they want.”
The people with the boxes are the specialists. It's inconceivable to them not to know where they're going in life. They probably knew when they were 6 years old, or when they were in high school, or they chose it when they went to college, and then they stuck to their choice and made a career out of it.
But because you don't have a box with the end-result picture, you feel like you're wandering aimlessly while everyone else is moving forward.
And your friends and family are scratching their heads, trying to be helpful and suggesting all kinds of ways to "choose something" and "find your thing," but all they end up doing is making you feel bad, like there's something intrinsically wrong with you. And you carry that feeling everywhere you go.
Let's be honest, this SUCKS.
You have a choice to make.
You can either keep trying to find that focus, that one true calling, and failing, OR you can finally accept that you're not meant to have one.
Period.
And that's not a bad thing, it's just the way you work.
It's just the way we work. :)
This TED talk by Emilie Wapnick opened the eyes of a lot of "multipotentialites" and gave us reason to be confident and believe in our own paths.
Watch it whenever you're feeling down about being multipassionate, and if someone gives you grief, play it to them until they get it. Until they understand that they're one type of person and you're another type of person, and you each have your own unique path. And that's OK.
Thing is, you were born the way you are for a good reason. If we only had specialists in the world, we wouldn't have out-of-the-box thinking or innovation. We wouldn't have interdisciplinary projects... we wouldn't have rebels!
So what if you don't have a box to cheat from?
You get to collect all kinds of exciting pieces and figure out how they fit later. This is the stuff you live off of. The stuff we all live off.
Truth is, you don't feel bad because being multipassionate sucks...
“You feel bad because other people are guilting you out by imposing their own views and rules on you. ”
Even Liz Gilbert stood on a stage and said she was wrong about advising people to follow their one true passion. She admitted that there are a lot of people for whom this advice could be detrimental. She calls us "hummingbirds."
The world is divided into two groups of people:
Jackhammers and Hummingbirds.
The jackhammers are people who, you put a passion in their hands, and we just go, no looking up, not getting distracted. We're focused on that until the end of time.
Hummingbirds spend their life doing it very differently. They move from tree to tree, flower to flower, field to field, trying this, trying that, and two things happen: 1) They create incredibly rich, complex lives for themselves and 2) they end up cross-pollinating the world.
We might not know where we're going, but our guts are telling us we're on the right track, and if we trust it, all will be right in the end.
If we let other people's puzzle boxes change the work we do, we lose.
We have to forget about the end result altogether, and focus on our brilliant, surprising puzzle, and then one day surely, we're going to win.
On our own terms, not theirs.
“Don’t let other people impose their rules on you. Don’t let them guilt you out just because your puzzle looks different and because they have their boxes and you don’t. ”
If you want to be happy, you gotta come to terms with who you are and how you do things naturally... which actually most people have to do, whatever their personality or methods or age. You gotta accept that:
Being multipassionate means that you're building your puzzle as you go and you don't have a box to cheat from when it gets tough.
Being multipassionate means that you have to believe it's going to make sense in the end because right now it looks like a hot mess.
Being multipassionate means that you have to hold on tight to your own vision and process while everyone else thinks you're crazy.
Source: Quotlr.com.
It's like Tolkien says...
Not all those who wander are lost.
I've always felt like it was a quote made for me because I live my life in circles, forth, then back, then all around, feeling like such a loser, but actually, Tolkien knew the truth:
It doesn't matter what your path looks like, but what it feels like and whether you end up where you want to be.
You definitely have fun along the way, so the only thing left is to trust, to let go, to surrender yourself to your path/puzzle, so that it may bring you to where you need to be. :)
In the end, being multipassionate just means that:
“You create the picture of your life as you go and it can be as winding as it needs to be, as long as it feels right. ”
I really do believe that if you keep going and keep collecting those puzzle pieces, you will create something amazing and original and yours in the end.
Conclusion.
A few things to keep in mind:
Stop looking at other people's puzzle boxes and comparing your journey to theirs. Okay? Okay.
Find other multi-passionates who are making their puzzles from scratch with no idea of the end result, and go along this journey together. Everybody needs the support of people who understand.
And always renew your faith and patience. Do whatever it takes to keep those full, because they'll be the fuel that keeps you going.
And if you ever need help, let me know. I love helping fellow multipassionates bring their interests together into the ultimate path. Check out The Multipassionate Puzzle and my coaching page.
Keep collecting those pieces and-
Do you have too many passions?
Do you feel scattered and lost and unable to focus on any one thing? Don’t worry, The Multipassinate Puzzle course will show you how to effectively integrate your passions into ONE brand or business. You’ll love it.
Are you ready to integrate your passions?
