If you have already worked for fifteen separate companies and have held ten or more completely different jobs, then instead of thinking you are unstable, ask yourself whether you are a multipotentialist.
The idea of building a professional career may have always seemed absurd to you. You may have been annoyed by the question: What do you want to do when you grow up? So, you are outside the box and it’s for our pleasure.
We are taught from a very young age to think about what we want to become as adults, as if a necessity beyond us pushes us to embrace a single career and to spend our lives specializing in an area in which we are supposed to become experts. We are closed to all kinds of curiosity and desire to learn, and we limit ourselves obeying the law of professional career.
Some people have a functioning that intensely resists this dominant social pattern; they are multipotentialists or multipotentialites.
But what is a multipotentialist?
The word multipotentialist, although unknown to many of us, is very studied and used in the world of educational psychology and more specifically in research on the orientation difficulties of certain adolescents. The psychologists Fredrickson and Rothney estimated in their research of 1972 that some teenagers do not manage to choose an orientation, not because they are not interested, but on the contrary because everything interests them and they find it difficult to say that they will devote their whole life to a single domain. Frederickson and Rothney defined multipotentiality as: “… the abilithety to select and develop any number of career options (Frederickson and Rothney, 1972)”.
Multipotentiality is not related to intelligence or IQ; it is a way of functioning based on curiosity, greed for knowledge, need for novelty and want for the scrolling of things and time.
.......... A multipotentialist is an octopus ..........
But is the multipotentialist only a person interested in various subjects?
There are certainly as much definitions of multipotentiality as number of multipotentialists. Even the names grouping the same concept are diverse: we then speak about multipotential, Multi-potentialist, multipotentialist, or multipotentialite.
No matter the name; the multipotentialist is this bubbling being, this racing car with a brain constantly spinning like a computer server, this person curious and willing to learn everything, and finding that it is a mess not to have the opportunity to be at the same time an architect, a carpenter, writer, peasant, lawyer, and an eternal student, and that at least for a moment, because there is not enough time in a life and there is so much to discover.
But a multipotentialist is also someone who gets bored quickly not for lack of motivation, but as a permanent need to transfer his mind to a more interesting subject. He needs this transfer at a time when he feels like he has done the trick of the previous subject in which he was nonetheless very invested.
We understood it; the multipotentialist has a great desire to experiment new fields. Further, he is pretty good at everything. But he is almost never an expert in a field because, for him, no need to excel in a domain. What make him vibrate are the discovery and the curiosity about a totally new subject. Thus, the multipotentialist is good to grasp things quickly from a globalized and holistic point of view; details and meticulous precision are not essential to him. So the multipotentialist never has the patience to become an expert, and because of this he can be seen as someone volatile, unstable and indecisive.
The picture of a multipotentialist seems suddenly dark to the extent that we could think that if there were many affirmed multipotentialists, our societal balance would be shaken.
Are there many multipotentialists on earth?
We like to cite brilliant exceptions like Leonard De Vinci, Descartes, and Newton as multipotentialists, but are we all like these geniuses?
Some Internet users who have made of multipotentiality their favorite subject, like Emilie Wapnick, think that 20% to 30% of the population is multipotentialist. However for psychologists Fredrickson and Rothney the estimation is much more optimistic, or pessimistic, depending on the point of view. They consider that we are almost all multipotentialists and that society curbs us in our curiosity:
“Most if not all individuals are multipotential, meaning that there are probably a wide number of career choices which could be made with any one of them as an appropriate choice. There is not one choice which is best for the individual. (Frederickson and Rothney, 1972)”.
So, do you think you are a multipotentialist?
Well, this post is only a small sketch of the vast subject of multipotentiality, and if you are curious to know more, do not hesitate to read the recommendations below.
A link to the quiz of the multipotentialist is also joined.
If you do the test, we would be happy if you leave us your comment to tell us whether you are a multipotentialist.
Fredrickson, R.H. and Rothney, J.W.M. (eds). Recognizing and Assisting Multipotential Youth, Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merrill, 1972.
Emilie Wapnick. https://puttylike.com/
Hello my name is Kika
Written by Malika BELHIS-TURPAIN
Hi!
It is an interesting article. I did not know the multipotentialists. Thank you for this post!
Dear Kevin,
Yes, you are a multipotentialist; there is no doubt :-). We generally feel lost when we are a multipotentialist, because our society has forgotten to provide us some means to deal with our big interest for everything. So, I think the only means we have to help us is to be aware of our multipotentiality, and even if it isn't especially useful in finding our vocation, it can help us not to feel guilty about hesitating or changing fields all the time. I hope you will live in peace with your multipotentiality Kevin.
Take care.
Malika
Hi Malika, I really liked that article, partly because I had a hard way through orientation. at school, Starting in the Scientist way, then I take my way in literature for the final year. After that, hesitating and studying Biology at university, then nurse care, before to come back to litterature. And today I still see interest in art-history, history, economy, biology and so much other things ... I use part of my study time for learning things in these domains this year, so I think we can bet I am a multipotentialist ^^ I thing at the end, what decide me to come here was'nt the matter itself, but the way we study, just with the mind, and with…
Hello Malika,
I was looking forward to your text and I must say I'm not disappointed. For those of you who can read between the lines (but you still have to take the trouble to read them) I think you talk a little about yourself and your personal experience. And that's very good. It's also an interesting theme for distance students who often have a heterogeneous background and eclectic desires for knowledge that are sometimes misunderstood.
Your topic is well presented, so as to captivate the reader and make him want to go deeper into the subject through the links you provide. It is therefore a good blog subject that you approach with talent in knowledge and modesty in its…
Very interesting article and subjet! For a mere mortal like me 'multipotentiality' is just a big word to define a trait that helped our ancestors survive... Anything else seems to be just a social construct.
I personally like refer to myself as a Jack of all trades, it sums it up pretty well: "Jack of all trades, master of none, oftentimes better than master of one"