Starting a Project without an Endgame – A Multipotentialite Challenge

Starting a new project or business can often feel overwhelming for a multipotentialite, or even someone with a lot of ideas.

If you’re a multipotentialite, or multipod for short, you will:

• Not wanting to do one thing forever, even if you love it.

• Have an array of interests that constantly drift to and from the forefront of your attention, leading to plenty of idea generation.

• Want to pursue most of your interests avidly (and probably all at the same time!), some may drop away (even the ones you initially showed a strong enthusiasm towards) to be replaced by entirely new ones and/or re-emerge later down the line.

With many interests come many ideas. An amazing multipod superpower is opportunity mindset, we can almost always find some form of inspiration in anything that is presented to us, generating a multitude of ideas to apply to our own projects and/or help others – it’s all very exciting! For many seasoned multipotentialites this toing and froing between ideas is like riding a bike, you learn something, you lose interest, you learn the next thing, and so on, it’s all part of the lifestyle. It’s for the love of exploring and the outcome is often unknown.

For others however, it can become a little (or a lot) overwhelming, for instance if you’re new to the concept, or have followed a set path in life. In my case this was 18 years in the educational system resulting in a fixed and known outcome, a dental degree.

Here’s an analogy. It can feel like you’re standing on an everchanging road. One minute you’re certain of the path ahead, it’s as clear as day, maybe not to the endpoint but you know it’s a path you wish to tread. Not far along the road you hit a fork, or multiple forks, inspiration has struck, and another idea (or 2 or 3) has come along the way. You then ponder a while… hm, perhaps that is the way I should go… and suddenly the previous idea doesn’t seem quite right anymore, you wonder why you were ever so passionate about it. The seasoned professional will take another route, and so on, but the novice will continue to ponder, taking an unhelpful internal downward spiralling path.

All that being said, it’s understandable to feel trepidation to embark on something so dynamic, with unknown outcomes.

Here are some questions that you may be ruminating on, keeping you stuck:

• How do I pivot, knowing full well at some point, probably in the not-so-distant future, I will want to pivot again? How would I build anything of value?

• How would I pull this off without a solid idea?

• Who on Earth would ever follow along with someone who is constantly chopping and changing what they do?

Personal Check In

Let’s pause for you to check in with yourself. What is coming up for you so far? Feel free to take a few moments to contemplate or journal before continuing…

Do you feel:

Validated? – “yes this is me!” – in which case, welcome home! I get you, and hope my perspective will continue to be of use.

Shame? – I did, I labelled myself as the person who could never finish anything, who would never find their passion.

Resistance, sadness or anger? – “so I basically have to change who I am in order to get ahead in life?”

Confused? – “there are people who survive doing multiple things all at once?” – yes!

Something else? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or send an email to docflint@theexcursivemovement.com

It seems like there’s so much evidence in the world to suggest that pursuing a traditional route towards a specific specialism is the only way to go.

You’ve probably encountered something similar in your profession, but I was always taught to “begin with the end in mind”, these words would constantly be repeated.

In dentistry it’s sound advice. When designing a smile, it’s crucial to consider what the patient may want to do in the future, even if they don’t do it today, for whatever reason. Conversely, what they want to achieve right now may not fit their future needs – it’d be unwise to place some intricate restorations that are hard to keep clean in someone who might not have the ability to maintain them. Even when treating a single tooth, it’s useful to think about what effect your choice of Streatment will have in the long run.

Same goes for building a house, the first thing you get permission for is what it’s going to look like at street level, you wouldn’t start digging foundations without a clear plan of what was sitting on top.

As someone who is doing both the above, I know firsthand how it can feel like having a clear vision is the only way to set about a project and guarantee a successful outcome.

But do we always need to know where we are heading to start something? And how much of that must we see? Do we need to know at all??

Many will advocate steamrolling ahead – “pick an idea and just do it already!” It’s with good intention but, no fault to them, it can leave you feeling dejected because we know deep down, they’re not wrong – everyone must start somewhere. When this happens try to remember that most people who suggest this are not multipotentialites, and so they’re advising from their perspective of trialling one idea until success or failure. They don’t necessarily generate ideas at the same rate, and subsequently endure that FOMO feeling when picking a path. Their idea may diversify over time, but they would be equally happy forever following that straight-line trajectory, which is perfect for them. So, give yourself the grace that it really is more difficult to take this advice if you’re a multipod.

That being said, look back at the questions before the personal check in. Can you feel how loaded these are? When facing doubt, it’s so easy to place all our energy from what we want to do in the moment, into the realm of unknowns and non-existent make-believe, that is the future. If we’re constantly out in the ether speculating on what will be a success and what won’t, what we’ll grasp hold of and what will slip away, is it any wonder that we stay stuck? By the time we’ve spiralled around the ifs, buts and maybes we’ve completely lost touch with what it was we wanted in the first place.

Let’s say we do make some progress, if all our energy is on foreshadowing, agonising over how it will be received and constant conjecture, then what’s left to bring to the task at hand? How can we approach it from the authenticity of its original intent, and ultimately feel fulfilled?

You don’t need a vision to start something new, even if that’s all you have known, but as intelligent professionals who want to take a different path in life, we don’t half have a knack of discrediting ourselves! Yes, we attained that goal we could clearly see from the start, but every penny made thereafter was down to us, not to mention it was extremely hard! If you want to pivot careers, it doesn’t mean you suddenly lose the drive and skills that you built along the way to earn that first pay cheque. You’re still that amazing person who did all that, and you’ll do it again!

I’m not saying that if we forever stick to what is true for us, we’ll never have to course correct as we go, but we discredit the power of starting something simply because we feel it’s something we want to try. We deprive ourselves the chance to explore, iterate and play!

In summary…

Let’s summarise how, as a multipotentialite, or someone stuck between many ideas, you can get started on your next project:

1. Ask yourself what it is that you want? – What is currently piquing your interest?

2. Remove the judgement – Bring an awareness to the fact that this may change more frequently than it would for others and that is okay!

3. Avoid bringing in future thinking – don’t sweat the small stuff for the moment.

4. Explore and have fun! – If you want to Take your project further trust in the fact that you are capable, you’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again!

Hopefully by following these steps you can get moving and embark on your next project with a little more ease.

I would love to hear what you’re working on and if you found this helpful you can comment below or send me a message via the contact form.