How to Find Myself as a Generalist: A Practical Guide to Self-Discovery

How do you find yourself when you're not one thing? It's a question I've asked myself many times, and that I hear clients talk about often. What I've learned over the years is that it's the real question behind self-discovery for a generalist, and it's not a question you answer once and then know for sure for the rest of your life. For most people I coach, and for me, it's a question that resurfaces, usually right when a lot is already changing. A business changes direction. A relationship falls apart. A role you built your whole career around suddenly isn't there anymore. And underneath the practical scramble, a question shows up: "Wait, who actually am I, once this thing I was doing no longer works for me?"

I'm Murielle Marie, career and business coach, entrepreneur, and creative generalist. I've built and rebuilt several ventures over the years (my coaching practice, Coachmila, Nuumani, and a few others), and every single time something big shifted, I had to go looking for myself again beneath whatever had just changed. If you're in that place right now, sitting with the "who am I really" question because your life looks different than it did a year ago, this one's for you.

What Self-Discovery Actually Means (It's Not a Personality Quiz)

Self-discovery means getting honest with yourself (I know!). It means gathering truthful, and often unconscious, information about who you are, what you value, and what you actually want, rather than operating on inherited assumptions or an outdated version of yourself. It's not a sixteen-question quiz that hands you a four-letter type and calls it done. As a side note, if you want a real starting point instead of a quiz, naming your actual values is a better first move, which is exactly what my Identify Your Five Core Values guide walks you through.

A recent Psychology Today piece on identity makes a point I wish more people heard early: you don't have to choose just one version of yourself, and trying to collapse a complex, multi-sided identity into a single tidy label is often where the anxiety comes from in the first place, not from having "too many" sides. Self-discovery isn't about finding the one true you. It's about gaining insight into all the "yous" that are already there.

For multi-passionate people specifically, this gets complicated fast. You're not discovering one self, you're managing several: the coach-you, the founder-you, the person who still wants to learn genealogy or tap dancing on a random Tuesday night. Self-discovery, for us, is less "find yourself" and more "check in with all the selves you're running at once and see if they're still telling the truth." If you've ever looked for a word for this and landed on multipotentialite (or creative generalist, as I like to say), this is exactly the kind of complexity that word is trying to describe.

Why It Feels Harder When You Have Ten Interests Instead of One

If self-discovery already sounds hard, multiply it by however many things currently have your attention. Research on multiple identity construction, including a 2026 study in Personnel Psychology, looks at how people build and hold several identities at once, at work and outside it, and how those identities interact rather than sitting in separate boxes. That's the reality for a lot of us: the coach identity, the founder identity, and the "person who makes her own soil from kitchen scraps" identity aren't separate; they're all in the same person, at the same time, sometimes (read: often) pulling in different directions.

A single-focus person (or specialist) can ask "who am I" and get one answer that mostly holds true. A multi-passionate person asks the same question and gets a small crowd talking back. That's not a flaw in how you're built. It's just a different way of being in the world.

I have that conversation with myself very often, and with clients on a daily basis, especially when something changes. Coachmila reaches a new stage, or a client relationship shifts, or I finish a big chunk of work and suddenly have room again, and there it is: the same old question, back for another round. It stopped surprising me a long time ago. I know it’s part of how I’m put together. What changed is how I handle it when it shows up.

The Practice That Actually Helps Me (Not a Framework, but a Ritual)

When I need to find myself again underneath everything pulling at me, I visualize myself lying in a grass field on a mountain in the Alps. Warm summer air, a breeze moving through, a valley stretched out in the distance (maybe I’m called Heidi in that scene, who knows 😄). I lie down on the grass and breathe. Then I ask myself three things: “Who am I?” “What do I need in this moment?” “If all there is is this, who is it that I want to be?”

There's a reason this works better than just thinking the question at my desk. Visualizing natural scenes - that is, simply imagining a natural environment, even without physically being there - has a measurable stress-reducing effect. Your body doesn't fully distinguish between an imagined mountainside and a real one; it downshifts either way. Stripping away the noise of whatever role I'm currently performing, even just in my head, allows the answer to surface instead.

I don't get a different answer every time, and that's the point. Some days the answer is small (I need rest, I need quiet, I need to close my laptop). Other days it's bigger (I need to let go of a version of this business I've been forcing). Either way, the practice isn't about landing on one permanent Answer with a capital A. It's a reset button I can press whenever the noise from all my different roles gets loud enough to drown out the person underneath them, aka moi.

This visualization is an important part of how I stay true to myself and uncover who I am becoming as I keep moving through the world. Here are a few others: morning journaling, working with my own coaches, meditation for the occasional intuitive hit, plain old writing, therapy when I need it, a little bit of Gaulish and Celtic divination here and there. Self-discovery isn't a single technique done perfectly; it's a handful of ordinary practices used together, revisited whenever life changes again.

Self-Discovery Is a Practice, Not a Destination

If you're waiting to arrive at a finished, permanent answer to "who am I," I want to save you some time: that's not how this works, especially for multi-passionate people. The goal isn't a fixed identity you find once. It's a reliable way to check back in with yourself whenever you need it.

Understanding the difference matters because it changes what "success" looks like for this. Success isn't "I finally figured out who I am and now I'm done." Success is "I have a practice I trust, and I use it whenever things shift." One is a finish line that keeps moving further away every time you get close (frustrating, believe me, I know). The other is a skill you actually get better at with use (much more useful, wouldn’t you say?).

A Simple Self-Discovery Check-In You Can Borrow

You don't need the Alps. You need somewhere quiet enough to hear yourself think, and about five real honest minutes. Try this:

1. Pick a place, real or imagined, where you feel completely at ease. It doesn't have to be a mountain, a beach, your childhood bedroom; even a specific chair will work.

2. Put yourself there fully. What do you see, hear, feel on your skin?

3. Breathe slowly, for longer than feels necessary.

4. Ask: who am I, underneath what I'm currently doing?

5. Ask: what do I actually need right now?

6. Ask: if all there is is this moment, who is it that I want to be?

7. Don't rush to answer. Let whatever comes up, come up, even if it's smaller or messier than you expected.

Do this whenever something shifts - a new chapter, a loss, a success that somehow still leaves you unsettled - and you'll build the same kind of practice I lean on. It gets easier and more deeply honest each time you use it.

---

Common Questions About How to Find Yourself

How do I find myself when I'm a generalist with too many interests?

Start by dropping the assumption that finding yourself means narrowing down to one label. As a generalist, you're not discovering one self; you're checking in with several active ones at once: your coaching self, your creative self, your caretaking self, and so on, and noticing which one needs attention or has quietly gone stale. A repeatable grounding practice (see the check-in above) works better here than a single big realization.

What is self-discovery?

Self-discovery is the ongoing process of learning who you actually are, what you value, and what you want, based on current, honest reflection rather than old assumptions, inherited roles, or a label you picked up once and never revisited. For multi-passionate people, it usually means checking in with several active identities at once rather than settling on a single one.

What does self-discovery mean for someone with a lot of different interests?

It means the process is less about narrowing down to one "true self" and more about staying current with all the different parts of you that are genuinely active at the same time, your coaching self, your creative self, your caretaking self, and so on, and noticing when one of them needs attention or has quietly gone stale.

How do you go on a self-discovery journey?

Start with a repeatable practice rather than a single big insight. A grounding ritual (a visualization, a journaling habit, a regular check-in question) that you return to whenever life shifts works better than waiting for one dramatic realization to sort everything out permanently. Revisit it every time something changes - a new venture, a loss, a role ending - rather than treating self-discovery as something you finish.

Is self-discovery the same as finding your purpose?

Related, but not identical. Purpose is usually about what you do; self-discovery is about who you are underneath what you do. You can be clear on purpose and still lose touch with yourself in it, which is often exactly when the "who am I" question resurfaces most strongly.

Ready to Get Reacquainted With Yourself?

If the version of yourself you're currently performing doesn't quite match who's underneath anymore, you're not behind, and you're not the only one. This is one of the most common places multi-passionate people get stuck: not a lack of ambition, but a gap between the roles they're playing and the person they actually are inside them.

A single coaching conversation can help you close that gap faster than another solo journaling session ever will, someone reflecting back what's actually true, instead of what you've been assuming. Book a free session and let's find the real you underneath everything you're currently juggling.

Book your free session

What Is a Multipotentialite? (And Are You One?)

About ten years ago, I was at the World Domination Summit in Portland, one of my favorite gatherings of unconventional thinkers, when I met Emilie Wapnick, who was doing research for a book. We talked for a while. I didn't know it at the time, but that conversation would become one of the small but significant moments that helped me understand my own life differently.

Emilie was exploring an idea while I was coming to my own conclusion about the same thing: that some people don't have one true calling. That, for certain people, the relentless cultural pressure to "find your thing" and commit to it completely isn't just unhelpful. It's a misdiagnosis of how they're built. Her work eventually gave rise to the concept of the multipotentialite (what I call a creative generalist).

I had always been a generalist. I got interested in things, went deep, then moved on. I started things and didn't finish them, not because I was flaky, but because once I'd learned what I came to learn, the pull toward the next thing was real and strong. If you've ever felt this way and wondered what was wrong with you, keep reading. Because nothing is wrong with you.

What Is a Multipotentialite?

A multipotentialite is someone with many different interests, creative pursuits, and deep curiosities, and no single calling.

The term was popularised by Emilie, whose 2015 TED Talk "Why some of us don't have one true calling" has been viewed over 9 million times. It describes multipotentialites as people who thrive on variety, mastery across multiple domains, and (crucially) the connections they can make between seemingly unrelated fields.

You might also know the related terms: generalist, scanner (Barbara Sher's term from Refuse to Choose), polymath, renaissance person, multi-passionate. They all point at the same pattern: someone whose mind doesn't settle into one lane and stay there.

If you identify more with the term "generalist," you might want to take the generalist quiz here.

This is not a personality flaw. It is a personality type. And it comes with real strengths that the specialist model consistently undervalues.

Signs You Might Be a Multipotentialite

Not everyone with varied interests is a multipotentialite. The distinction is in the depth and the pattern.

You might be one if:

• You go deep, not just wide.

You don't dabble, you dive. You become skilled at things before moving on. The boredom sets in after the mastery begins, not before.

• You get restless once you've learned something.

The initial challenge is what lights you up. Once it becomes routine, the pull toward something new is almost physical. I know this feeling well. It used to make me feel like something was deeply wrong with me. Now I understand it as information.

• You make connections that other people miss.

You'll read something about psychology and immediately apply it to business. You'll see a pattern in one field that no one in another field is talking about yet. This is one of the multipotentialite's real superpowers.

• Your career history looks chaotic on paper, but it makes complete sense to you.

Each change was real. Each direction was real. It just doesn't fit on a linear CV. If this resonates, you might also recognize yourself in The Multi-Passionate Mind: When Quitting Means You're Done.

• You've been told, more than once, to just pick one thing.

And every time, it felt less like advice and more like being asked to amputate something.

• You've spent years wondering what was wrong with you.

If perfectionism and the inner critic are also part of your picture, that's not a coincidence. Many multipotentialites carry both.

The Generalist Underneath the Multipotentialite

I've always thought of myself as a generalist first. The word "multipotentialite" gave me a richer framework, but "generalist" is the older, simpler version of the same truth.

Generalists are people who move across domains, building broad knowledge, transferable skills, and the ability to synthesize across fields. In a world that increasingly rewards specialization, generalists are often told they need to narrow down. What they're rarely told is that their breadth is an asset, not a liability.

The problem I ran into, and that most generalists and multipotentialites eventually run into, is the cultural myth that choosing one thing is the mature, serious, adult version of a life. That is, until you specialize, you haven't really decided anything.

I spent years trying to fit that mold. Trying to choose one lane and stay in it. It never worked, and eventually I stopped trying. That decision, to stop apologizing for how my mind works and start designing my life around it instead, was one of the most important pivots I've made.

The Multipotentialite and Business: A Different Model

Here's something I want to say directly, because it changed how I think about my work: with the tools available now (especially AI), you can start and run multiple businesses. You don't have to choose one thing professionally any more than you have to choose one interest personally.

But, and this matters, you do have to focus on one at a time, in any given moment. Multipotentialites often confuse "I can do multiple things" with "I should do multiple things simultaneously." They're not the same.

The clearest version of this insight I've ever articulated: if you're a coach who wants three completely different types of clients, you don't have one coaching business. You have three businesses, each with its own ideal client. Understanding that distinction is powerful because it stops you from trying to market to everyone and confusing yourself and your audience in the process.

Niching down isn't about abandoning your multidimensionality. It's about being clear, in each business, about who you're serving.

How to Succeed as a Multipotentialite

The conventional career advice (specialize, niche down, pick a lane) works well for people who are built that way. For multipotentialites, following it tends to produce a life that fits like someone else's clothes. Functional, technically. Chronically uncomfortable.

Here's what tends to work better:

• Design a portfolio career.

A portfolio career means having multiple income streams, roles, or projects that together constitute your professional life. It's how many multipotentialites make their varied interests sustainable, not by choosing between them, but by building a structure that holds them all. 15 Dream Jobs for Creative Generalists is a good place to start if you're figuring out what that could look like for you.

• Let your learning agility be the asset.

You don't have to master one subject forever. You can master the process of mastering things, the ability to learn fast, synthesize across fields, and bring a fresh perspective to any room you enter. That is rare and valuable.

• Stop explaining yourself to specialists.

Most friction multipotentialites experience comes from trying to justify their path to people who don't share their wiring. You don't need their approval. You need a framework that fits you, and permission to build one.

Am I a Multipotentialite? (Quick Self-Check)

Three clearest signs:

1. You've been deeply interested in at least five different areas in your life, not variations on a theme, but actually different things.

2. Each time you followed one, it was real. You weren't avoiding commitment. You were fully in (yet, perhaps, already missing something else).

3. You've wondered, more than once, whether something is wrong with you because you can't commit to just one thing, even though you're clearly capable, driven, and passionate.

If those resonate, you're not broken. You're probably a multipotentialite.

And if you're ready to start building a career structure that fits how you're actually wired, the Portfolio Career Starter Kit is where to begin.

---

Common Questions About Multipotentialites

What is a multipotentialite?

A multipotentialite is someone with many genuine interests, passions, and creative pursuits, and no single calling. The term was popularised by Emilie Wapnick and describes people who thrive through variety, cross-domain thinking, and mastery across multiple fields.

Am I a multipotentialite?

You might be if you go deep into multiple actually different interests, feel restless after mastering something, make unexpected connections across fields, and have been told to "just pick one thing" more times than you can count.

What is the difference between a multipotentialite and a generalist?

They overlap significantly. "Generalist" describes someone who builds broad knowledge across domains rather than deep expertise in one. "Multipotentialite" adds the dimension of multiple genuine callings, not just broad knowledge, but multiple real passions. Most multipotentialites are generalists, but not all generalists identify with having multiple callings.

How to succeed as a multipotentialite?

Build a portfolio career with multiple streams, roles, or projects that hold your varied interests. Let your ability to learn quickly and synthesize across fields be your core professional asset. And be clear, in each venture, about who specifically you're serving.

Is being a multipotentialite a real thing?

Yes, as a well-documented cognitive and motivational pattern. It's not a clinical diagnosis, but it describes a recognizable group of people who learn across domains, find single-track careers deeply unsatisfying, and produce their best work at the intersection of multiple fields.