I was in a conversation this week with someone who talked about having many different interests. It prompted me to think about my own experience and the guidance I got – on the one hand, people talk about it being good to have lots of different skills. On the other hand, am I meant to be ‘settling down’ on one thing and becoming the best at that?
Like most things in life, the answer depends. It depends on you, and what you want to do.
I’ve had coaching conversations in the past of people regretting the fact they hadn’t focussed on one subject – they saw their peers progressing in the field that they had devoted most of their time into, whereas this person didn’t have a clear direction as they did a mix of writing, politics and other hobbies. It was only when I pointed out to them that they were not like their peers that the lightbulb kicked in: they wanted to be good at lots of stuff, so they would not have been satisfied with the idea of a one-track-career anyway.
Traditionally, the general mantra is that you should pick a career and dedicate your life towards building mastery. The theory is that you’ll only become the best athlete, manager or salesperson by buckling down and dedicating your life to constantly improving in that area.
I’ve seen plenty of happy people who broadly follow this mantra. They often find a pursuit that they really enjoy, even if at first they only fall into it by chance. The are then happy to buckle down and work to improve at it, slowly progressing the career ranks too. If you feel like this category fits for you, then great.
It is important to push yourself to continue learning, even if you’ve been in a job for decades. Time in a job does not equal being better at it, and many people stagnate. If you really want to get to the top of your game, keep on striving to learn more. Also, just because you are striving to be the best in one field, it does not mean that you cannot learn about other things, or pick up hobbies you care about. You’ll probably find that this will give you new perspectives and enhance your work. It will also make you a more rounded and interesting character.
What about people who don’t want to be type-cast into one box? You may feel that the system inherently dissuades us from doing different things – when it comes to job applications, it’s hard to show a dedicated interest in one field when you are doing several different activities. It can also be unclear as to what you really want to do, which is not necessarily the best when being interrogated about your future by family and friends.
The good thing is that if you want to do lots of different things, you are likely a curious person who is open to experimenting with a mix of ideas. You can benefit from learning from multiple different fields and pick up quite a variety of skills. Whilst it may take a while to settle on where you start, if you ever wanted to change it makes it a lot easier as you may have spent more time dabbling with other things to learn what really makes you tick. The people that have multiple pursuits can be some of the most interesting, and they are also willing to challenge the status quo as they have a wider set of experiences from different fields.
If you see yourself as a jack-of-all-trades, it can be tempting to constantly want to try new things. There is always some new cool career or hobby that people talk about. If not kept in balance it can mean constantly pursuing something new. If you find yourself in this space, you may find you get bored quickly with what you are doing, and are constantly looking for the next thing to conquer. This means that you might not actually be dedicating enough time to one thing to actually get good enough at it to qualify for you in a career. It’s like learning 5 languages at a basic level versus getting conversational fluency in two or three (with mastery being full fluency in one). You can’t do much with a basic level of understanding, no matter how many languages you start, but you can do quite a lot with an intermediate understanding.
I personally like doing lots of different things. I work in public policy, but I also write and coach. I started a podcast too, and have a few other whacky projects in the background, including my book which is hovering around 40,000 words. However, I found that if I wanted any of my projects to actually have meaning and impact, I had to focus. I’ve put a pause on the podcast for now, as I found myself stretching myself too thin. I also found that I needed to dedicate more time to my coaching if I wanted to get to a proficient level with it to genuinely help people. So for me that meant dedicating more time to honing my trade over the last six months, whilst also pushing back some of the other things I wanted to do.
Whatever way you see yourself, the important thing is to understand what you want. People are different, so one path might inherently appeal more to you than the other. There is no heirarchy – we need both types of people in the world. So don’t feel guilty if you want to become the best at a niche field in a family of entrepreneurs, nor if you want to start a few different projects in a family of specialist doctors.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do for yourself and the world is to realise what you want to do. Then, it’s about being as good as you can be in the path you’ve chosen.
Which path are you on, one towards mastery, or a jack-of-all-trades? Comment in the messages below!