There are many words for this phenomenon: scanner, multipotentialite, Renaissance Soul, polymath… Scanner is a term that American Life Coach, author and of course scanner, Barbara Sher came up with decades ago when she noticed a peculiar behaviour in a lot of her clients. They didn’t know what to do because they had too many interests to choose from!
Does that sound familiar? Here are some more common traits that scanners experience:
- Intense curiosity – you fall in love with a subject and devote 100% of your energy into it, you are obsessed.
- Love of learning – you are very good and fast at learning.
- Changing interests – you change your interests every 6 months to every few years
- Low threshold for boredom – you get bored very easily especially when you have to do repetitive tasks. And boredom feels like torture to scanners.
- Overwhelm – you have loads of different things going on at the same time and don’t know where to start getting them all done.
- Time panic – you think you have to do everything NOW and forget that you can do one after the other and fit them all into your life.
Did you recognise yourself? Congratulations, you are an amazing human being and there is nothing wrong with you. Your brain is just wired differently. I know what a relief it was for me when I finally realised that I was a scanner. It took away the pressure of having to find the ONE thing I was supposed to do with my life. Now I have multiple interests and I know that they might be changing again over the years.
Here are Barbara Sher and Emily Wapnick telling you more about what it is like to be a scanner or multipotentialite. Barbara Sher’s scanner bible “Refuse to Choose” is also a very good place to start learning about your amazing brain and how to handle it. Or you can schedule a FREE discovery call with me to start getting to know your many talents and how to do it all. If you want to meet other scanners here in Ireland, please join us at Scanners Ireland on Facebook. Alternatively, Barbara Sher and her fans have started many other Facebook groups on various aspects of being a scanner.
Was this helpful? I would love to hear from you especially if you just figured out that you might be a scanner. Leave a comment or join me on Facebook at Scanners Ireland.
Disclaimer: I only mention Barbara Sher and her book here because it is in my opinion the best introduction to scanners. I don’t receive any revenue or other benefits for mentioning it.