What does having multiple interests mean for building ones career? In one of his videos, Adam Thomas gives a number of tips regarding this questions. Here’s a loose summary:
- Learn to not compare your career trajectory with that of other people, especially those specialising on one thing.
- Look at the specific combination of your interests and how they overlap, they are what makes you unique.
- Build future-proof “meta skills” because they can be easily transfered between different domains (he gives emotional intelligence, systems thinking and storytelling as an example).
- Look for specific types of work environments and roles that reward being interested and skilled in multiple areas.
- Find a balance between safe bets and more risky and experimental projects (“Find some work especially if you’re in the early stage of your career that really gives you a stable platform and then experiment around the edges”).
- Think in seasons! Focus at one thing at a time, other the context-switching will exhaust you too much. But also avoid giving to much space to a single project at any given time. Block time for recovery.
- Dive into a new topic quickly, but allow yourself to abandon it again.
- Look at patterns and what the topics that repeatedly spark your curiosity (or your resistance) can teach you.
- Keep your perfectionism in check. Having fun with a project or hobby is reason enough to pursue it, there’s no need to publish it or make an income out of it.