Finding your Element - Ken Robinson

Finding your Element

Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson in the wonderful book ‘Finding Your Element’ offers a practical guide to discovering your passions and natural aptitudes. It explains all the tools, techniques and resources needed to discover the depth of your abilities and unlock your potential. Among the questions it answers are:

• How do I find out what my talents and passions are?

• What if I love something I'm not good at - or I'm good at something I don't love?

• What if I can't make a living from my Element?

No matter what you do, or where you are in life, if you're searching for your Element, this book will help you find it.

The main ideas expressed in the books are:

·       Appreciate your uniqueness: you are the first person to ever have your exact genes and experiences.

You are special not only because of your unique thoughts but also because of your biology and your environment.

First of all, you are the first person ever to be born with your exact genetic makeup. This makes you unique biologically, but also psychologically, because the makeup of your brain is also completely new and unique.

A second factor that makes you unique is the environment you grew up in. You were born into a certain time period (which will never be repeated), and you've been a part of several groups and communities that will never exist again quite as they were: the people in your neighborhood, your family, your school class, etc. Our environments shape us tremendously. The unique environment will never influence another person in exactly the same way again.

·       Forget long-term plans and accept the unpredictability of life: you'll find lots of new opportunities to achieve your goals.

Don't fear unpredictability – use it to your advantage. You may feel uncomfortable in situations where you don't know what's going to happen. You may have a plan, but you have no idea of what's actually going to happen.  

Rather than being scared of unpredictability, embrace it. Unknown situations may lead to something amazing. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. An amazing opportunity could be lurking anywhere. 

Use the unpredictability to your advantage.

When you accept that you can't predict or control the future, you'll discover many new opportunities. Don't be afraid of the unknown, because everything is unknown.

·       You have skills or inborn abilities you may not know about, so give yourself opportunities to discover them.

Human intelligence is extremely vast, and every one of us is born with aptitudes for different skills. The environment or culture may not give sufficient opportunities of discovering all of your aptitudes. If you've never been to the sea, you have no idea whether you have an aptitude for sailing.

Similarly, you might not have had the resources to uncover your aptitudes.

The social values of your culture may also prevent you from discovering your aptitudes. Examine your assumptions about what you've been told are “acceptable aptitudes” for you based on your gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Your cultural values might dictate that it’s inappropriate for women to be passionate about engineering or for men to be passionate about cooking.

Because you need opportunities to discover your aptitudes, try to create as many new opportunities for yourself as possible. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Take courses on subjects you're curious about but have never studied. You should travel more often to unfamiliar destinations to meet new people.

You have no idea what aptitudes you have that are undiscovered. The more new situations you expose yourself to, the more opportunities you have to discover unknown aptitudes.

·       Institutional education often discourages us: don't assume you're bad at something just because you got poor grades in that subject.

If you ask people what's the best way to determine someone's intelligence, most would probably suggest giving them an IQ test or asking about their grades from school. But these standardized tests only measure only one kind of human intelligence: logical reasoning. In fact, there are many other ways to be intelligent that most schools don't value.
If you were intelligent in these other ways, your school probably did not support you.

For example, schools give a very low priority to skills dependent on using your hands. If you showed promise as a mechanic, your school might have tried to redirect you to something they consider more “professional,” such as law or medicine (even though mechanics are very intelligent, just in a different way).

Moreover, schools cater to only a few learning styles. Schools generally make students learn through texts, but some people learn better in more abstract ways, such as through visual imagery. The famous composer Hans Zimmer did very poorly in school. It was only when he started to learn music by understanding it visually that he excelled. He understands music by visualizing it as repeated patterns, though no teachers ever taught it to him in this way.

Finally, schools discourage children from exploring challenging subjects by punishing their mistakes. For example, in a math quiz, points are deducted for mistakes. This leads students to try to steer away from the subject in question. What’s more, as we grow up, we are conditioned to avoid mistakes, and thus we become less creative.

So, don't assume you are bad at something because you performed poorly in that subject in school. Examine it again and ask yourself this: Are you certain you are bad at this subject? How do you know? These are areas you may want to explore.

·       Don't let your attitude prevent you from reaching your full potential.

Many things can hold us back from realizing our true potential. Often our environment prevents it, but sometimes we limit ourselves with our own attitude.

Avoid a pessimistic attitude about your abilities. You are constantly encouraged to compete with each other in schools and in our workplaces. You may abandon some talents because you feel you cannot compete with others. If you want to learn to play flute there is no need to compare yourself with Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia.

·       Fixed Mindset or a Growth Mindset

A fixed mindset means you believe your abilities are inborn and that therefore you can never improve on them.

A growth mindset means you believe you have the power to develop your abilities through practice.

Society often encourages us to have a fixed mindset by emphasizing concepts like IQ: we are made to believe that we are born with a certain IQ and that we are fated to have this IQ for the rest of our lives. In reality studying can very much improve our intellectual capabilities.

You need to strive to have a growth mindset, as it will allow you to develop and improve your abilities.

To understand yourself better, you may take some personality assessment tests. They might provide you with some new ideas you can use to reorient yourself and your goals. One common test people use is the Myers-Briggs test (MBTI), which can be taken online.

·       Find your passions: they are the key to your physical and mental well-being.

Having passions is an essential part of being human, and all people are passionate about something. If you feel like you don’t have any passions, it is probably because you haven’t discovered them yet.

When you're doing something that you feel passionate about, you should know it intuitively because you kind of “lose yourself” in it. This is why people often describe a change in their perception of time when they are doing something they are passionate about. Musicians often spend hours rehearsing or writing music without noticing the passing time. Ask yourself, what in your life makes you feel this way?

There is a deep connection between positive emotions and health. Experiencing positive emotions can reduce stress, chronic pain and addictions and improve sleep and concentration.

You should create opportunities to discover your passions. These opportunities will make you happier and healthier. Explore new physical and social environments, and research new fields for example, by taking classes, joining relevant book groups or finding online communities. Look into new physical activities like sports or learn a craft that requires skilled use of your hands. As you explore more unknown situations there are more chances to discover unknown passions.

·       Forget established preconceptions about happiness and find out what it means to you.

We are constantly told by society that there are two correct ways to achieve happiness: wealth and immediate gratification. However happiness is very personal affair. We can find a variety of  meaningful ways to be happy.

Happiness is not dependent on making more money. Depression rates are far higher in wealthier countries. If you feel unfulfilled in life, having more money is not going to help.

It is not necessary to turn your passions and talents into your profession. Learn to allow time for them. For example, if your passion is painting with watercolors, you don't have to refocus your whole career on this. Instead allow yourself time to paint, even if only for a few hours a week. This can make a big difference in your well-being.

People seek happiness only through short-term satisfaction. They seek distractions from their miserable jobs like nights out or vacations. Long-term satisfaction is much more meaningful. Invest your time in long-term projects you enjoy, such as creating or building things. Creating something like a novel or a piece of furniture will constantly provide new challenges and small successes. As the creative process will progress it will give deep satisfaction which would lead to lasting happiness.

The greatest happiness comes from helping others. Volunteering doesn't just benefit others – you may find it brings you a deeper kind of happiness too.

Find your Tribe

Finding a community of people who share your passions will help you realize your goals.

Let's say you're passionate about do-it-yourself electronics. You could benefit enormously by sharing ideas and working together with people from different areas of specialization within that field.

When you work in a community of like-minded people, you'll find new ideas. You can learn new skills. You can also share your knowledge and help them in return.

Sometimes working with others can be actually necessary. Some goals are so big that they can only be achieved in large groups.

The key message of this book is:

“Allowing yourself time for your natural talents, passions and creativity is the key to achieving inner happiness and satisfaction, so let yourself explore those things as much as possible.”

About the Author 

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation, and human potential. The videos of his famous TED talks of 2006 and 2010 have been watched by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries.

You can purchase the amazing book here