That one true calling
My mom is a writer, my father is a civil engineer. What do you get out of such a combination?
In my case, a creative analyst. An analytical artist.
Choosing what I should do in life kept me awake at nights for a considerable part of my life. I felt like I had two parallel identities. I studied economics alongside fashion design. I made jewellery when procrastinating on programming an assignment in C++. I wrote poetry next to half-solved calculus exercises.
It wasn’t until I heard the term “multipotentialite” in Emilie Wapnick’s TED Talk that I realised that it had a name. I couldn’t believe how revealing such a simple message was: we are usually told that we have to pick one field and stick to it for the rest of our careers. While such a specialisation is perfectly normal for many, others struggle to accept it... They are just not built for that!
Multipotentialites/multipassionates/scanner personalities/generalists have several, often not related interests and can’t imagine doing just one thing. Their power lies in being fast, curious learners, seeing the big picture and connecting ideas from different fields.
I felt like someone finally named something pretty obvious in my case, but still never validated as something that I could just accept.
Instead of trying to find that one true calling (and over my lifetime I tried to specialise in: chemistry, economics, fashion design, business intelligence and life coaching) I could be several things!
At the moment I’m working half-time as a business intelligence analyst and half-time as a life coach.
I love both jobs, they give me very different things. My life now looks just like that poetry-calculus notebook I had as a student. Half of the week I’m guiding my clients to feel their emotions and connect with their hearts, and during the other half my analytical mind cracks data analytics problems. Who said that notebooks should serve only one purpose?
Naturally, I often attract coaching clients with similar traits. They come to coaching to discover what they could do in life. In some cases, coaching helps them identify a career on the intersection of their interests. In other cases, it helps them embrace the whole spectrum of their talents and become comfortable with a new, multi-passionate label.
☂️ Sometimes it is an umbrella label: instead of deciding between photography, dance and painting they can start proudly calling themselves "an artist".
🖇 And sometimes it is an "and" or a "slash" label. Programmer/composer.
I’m a life coach AND a business intelligence analyst.
And no, I don’t have to choose one 😊