Well, ‘curse’ is a bit strong but it can make some things more difficult although it really is a blessing to multiple passions. You always have something interesting going on and you always have something new to explore.

A multi-passionate person might also be described as a Scanner, Multi-potentialite (Multipod), Polymath, Renaissance Man/Woman. Then there are the more negative words like Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

My passions

• Painting (watercolour, acrylics, gouache)
• Drawing (pencil, coloured pencil, fine liner, ink)
• Photography (digital and 35mm
• Historical crafts (nalbinding, tablet weaving, Tunisian and Bosnian crochet, spinning)
• Fibrecrafts (knitting, crochet, braiding, weaving)
• Leatherworking (from keychains to shoes)
• Writing (blogs, books)
• Sewing (from plushies to clothing)
• Soap making
• Herbs
• Witchcraft
• Graphic design (vector and bitmap)
• Illustration
• Web design
• Video
• Historical reenactment
• Mythology and folklore

Other things I’ve tried

And those are only the ones I could remember right now. There are more. I try pretty much anything once that my body can handle. I.e. not forging 🙂

“A multipassionate person is like a puzzle maker without a box.”

~ Violeta Nedkova

The benefits of being multi-passionate

• You’re interesting
• You’re curious
• You have lots of conversation topics
• You’re a creative thinker and you always have new ideas
• You have lots of choices
• There’s always something new to learn
• You have lots of fun things to do
• You gain a lot of different skills
• You’re able to do most things yourself or learn how to
• You can combine talents to create something new
• You can have a job that’s actually fun for you

“Everyone has unique gifts and talents. What you love is what you’re gifted at. To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled life, you have to do what you love.”

~ Barbara Sher

The disadvantages

• There’s never enough time for everything you want to do
• Housework sucks 🙂
• A ‘regular’ job feels boring
• It might be hard to get things finished because you move on to the next project
• You tend to try to do everything yourself
• Other tasks don’t always get done
• You easily get bored when you have to do something mundane
• If you have to have a singular focus over time, you get miserable
• People may think you’re indecisive or flaky
• If you have a business, it might be hard to make it succeed
• You might spread yourself too thin, trying to do everything
• It may be very hard to prioritize what you want the most
• The question “So what do you do?” is very hard to answer in one sentence.

Some successful multi-passionates

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Benjamin Franklin
• Maya Angelou
• Oprah Winfrey
• Marie Forleo
• Barbara Sher
• Emilie Wapnik
• Liz Gilbert

How to make the most of your multiple passions

Embrace that you are a multi-passionate

You are the only you there is and you need to accept yourself for who you truly are to have a good life

Divide your time into blocks

Calendar blocking helps you get the other things done too

Take notes

Write down ideas and projects where you can find them so you can go back to them later.

Don’t let others put you down

Don’t listen to negativity from people who don’t understand what it means to be a multi-passionate. You’re not indecisive, confused, scatterbrained, lazy or shallow. There’s nothing wrong with you and you don’t need to be fixed.

Don’t let yourself put you down either

Make a list of everything your inner critic says about you and find ways to counter it.

Dare to live outside the box!

You are not alone. There are lots of us out there. Let’s band together an support each other 🙂

“A multipotentialite is a person who has many different interests and creative pursuits in life.

Multipotentialites have no “one true calling” the way specialists do. Being a multipotentialite is our destiny. We have many paths and we pursue all of them, either sequentially or simultaneously (or both).”

Emilie Wapnik