An individual without a purpose is like a ship without a sail.
They’ll float through life, drifting wherever the currents take them, leaving it to everyone but themselves to decide which island they’ll end up washing ashore onto.
And when they arrive they could find treasure, pirates or nothing at all. But, they’ll never truly know because they’ll be too worried about what could’ve been if they spent their precious life just a little more intentionally.
It’s this “going with the flow” that will eventually lead to a life of regret. One “what if” after another until you’re so far lost in a path that isn’t yours, prioritising the validation of others over your own happiness.
Do everything you can to take control of your life.
For you either choose a path or you are assigned one.
Don’t let a stranger decide yours.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Your Infinite Interests
If you’re a multipotentialite like the rest of us here you’ll thrive in exploring every inch of the infinite areas of life. You’ll be drawn across the entire spectrum of existence, one day wanting to drop it all to travel South East Asia and the next obsessing over all the finer details of human intelligence.
The many times over you’ve already reinvented yourself will leave you questioning who you even are. For someone who can transcend labels has no limitations. They are free to become whoever and whatever they like. But, they also lack the words to express their identity, leaving them without a coherent story to describe both the past behind and the future ahead.
And it’s in this unquenchable quest for knowledge that the multipotentialite feels they are left with only indecision. Questioning why they quit their opportunities at greatness to pursue their next learning journey. Often envying those who were always destined for one life path, knowing their strengths and interests from a young age. It’s the multipotentialite who struggles the most with defining a purpose that is broad enough to encompass everything that interests them, but is narrow enough to allow them to identify what is merely distraction.
Deciding on a direction doesn’t need to mean letting go. It’s all about understanding why certain activities invigorate you on a deeper level and how you can shape the causes that you care about.
Find Your Themes
What do your many interests have in common?
Think beyond the activity itself. It’s not about whether you spent 100s of hours reading, writing or running. It’s about WHY you do it. And which experiences keep you coming back.
It’s not reading each word of a book that enthrals you. It’s the storytelling that takes you on a journey across the multiverse. It’s the narrative that leaves you fired up to share everything you’ve learnt. And it’s the morally grey characters that leave you questioning what it means to be human. Find your version by diving into the activities you enjoy.
Then use what you find to ask yourself:
What cause do you deeply care for?
What impact do you want to have on the world?
What are you unwilling to compromise on in pursuit of your goals?
What will be different about the world when you succeed?
To make things a little easier, here are my examples:
Creating sustainable & purposeful experiences of work.
To redesign organisations to enable, rather than limit human flourishing.
My physical potential, meaningful relationships & learning opportunities.
Work will be a means of achieving our purpose first and a source of financial gain second. Individuals will be treated as humans, not commodities. They will participate in a portfolio of projects at once, dictating how, when and where they work.
If you’re still unsure, that’s okay.
Give it a try. Discover the options ahead. Accept that you’re in a place of learning. Then start exploring where each opportunity leads.
Define Your Proposition
Right, the themes are sorted. Or at least explored. And now it’s over to you to turn them into a unique value proposition to explain what makes you you.
To do this breakdown who you are into…
WHY - What is your cause or reason for being?
HOW - What is the unique way you achieve your cause?
WHAT - What is the result of your why? What do you actually do?
Which you can then combine together to create a complete story of where you’re at right now and where you’re going in the future.
Here’s my example…
WHY - To empower individuals to create organisations of the future.
HOW - Through equipping decision makers with mental models of work that enable human flourishing.
WHAT - By leading future of work consulting projects, coaching agency owners on how to scale and building a community of multipotentialites.
To empower individuals to create organisations of the future through equipping decision makers with mental models of work that enable human flourishing by leading future of work consulting projects, coaching agency owners on how to scale and building a community of multipotentialites.
Can this change? 100% it can. And it will. But, the beauty of defining your proposition means you can navigate life’s many WHATs, accepting only those that align with your WHY and deepen your knowledge of your HOW.
Express Your Identity
Now you’ve articulated where you’re going, it’s time to turn them into an identity you can use to answer the dreaded “So, what do you do?”.
Hold your horses. You don’t need to automatically answer with your main source of income. There’s more to you than your job. Reframe your answer by starting from an entirely new frame of mind with:
I help…
I’m interested in…
I’m learning about…
I’m discovering…
I love…
Here’s my answer… “I’m exploring the intersection of the future of work and the future of careers. So, I do a few things… I lead consulting projects to design organisations for the future. I coach agency owners on how to scale their businesses. And I’m building a community of multipotentialites - people like me who when you ask ‘What do you do?’ they say several things”.
Try out each of the framing and find what works for you. You’ll soon realise how quickly your introductions change whenever you meet new people. The life in their eyes will light up as you break the norm of simplifying who you are, bringing a fuller expression of your humanity to the conversation.
In Conclusion
Going through these exercises isn’t a one time fix.
You’re not now going to know how every second of the next 20 years of your life will turn out, making only perfect decisions along the way. That’s just not how life works. And that’s probably actually a good thing.
You’ll change. You’ll grow. You’ll learn. And most importantly you’ll evolve. The purpose that invigorated your 20 year old self will likely not be the same one that still gets you fired up at 30, let alone 40, 50 or 60.
But, that doesn’t mean this is time wasted. It’s not. Each time you come back to refine your purpose you’re aligning your path forward with your true self, enabling you to always take the best next action.
Because it’s one step at a time. Day after day until we die.
Just make sure you’re walking in the right direction.
In person, I used to lead with "I do a lo of things" now next time someone asks it'll be "I make things on the internet" and follow from there.
Thanks Charlie!