Enhancing Capacities Program Session 1 Continues

Getting to Know Your Interests.

What is interest, and why does it matter? It might help to first think of possible ways to categorize naturally occurring human interests. What do you think as useful categories to distinguish between interests?

<(Facilitated discussion for 5 to 10 minutes.)>

Practical, Worldly-Oriented Interest Categories.

Here are some concepts that might serve as a starting point to think about your interests in a practical, choice- and action-supporting way.

We live in a certain era, a time in history, and we must take that into account when considering our options to pursue our passions meaningfully and also optimally.

The Experiential Learning Cycle is one map to locate where we are inclined to spend our time learning and performing. So, for example, I am inclined to spend hours on this “categories” question thinking abstractly and analyzing the minutia and details. Someone else might prefer to take on tasks and try them out, experimenting until finding something interesting they can pursue further.

Another map might be the mental functions of sensing, feeling, thinking, and acting. Each of these mental functions is dominant in one of the directions of the learning cycle. For example, acting is clearly dominant in concrete experience, sensing and making sense of the concrete experience is dominant in reflective observation, thinking is dominant in abstract conceptualization, and feeling (as an evaluative function) is dominant in active experimentation.

Of course, all four mental functions are always active at each step of the learning cycle. Still, one is in the foreground while the others are in the background. Again, on a momentary basis, any of the mental functions can become a figure while the dominant one falls back to the ground; for example, you might become highly judgmental (which is the feeling function) while acting on a task, etc.

Here, we are formulating a complex, organic process as a neatly defined, linear sequence, which is a reduction for practical purposes only, not a truth statement about reality.

So, my inclination is to go on and on and on without ever closing the deal, which is ok for me but not optimal and balanced for a world that wants results.

I invite you to draw your own map that you can use to deepen your insight into your interests.

We might look at how higher education institutions are departmentalized. For example, we have the humanities and the natural sciences, widget engineerings, virtual engineerings, earth-based subjects, living-breathing beings sciences or their culturing, applied interventions for correcting individual ills, applied interventions for correcting communal ills, bodily expressive arts, visual-spacial expressive arts of form, musical arts of temporality, literal creativity, literal performance, productive crafts, commercial endeavors, organizing and managing, law and order, yielding power, influencing, entertaining, healing, protecting, nurturing and caring, etc.

Other places to look might be the 21. Century Skills advocated for student learning, skills and competence frameworks proposed by various institutes, etc.

Variations on this theme are many, and it makes sense to experiment and find out what works for you. For example, you might look up Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.

What is interest, and why does it matter?

Interest is clearly linked to need satisfaction.

Need theories in the last hundred years have had different orientations, sometimes trying to produce exhaustive lists of what makes up the person and sometimes focusing on narrower domains or using a parsimonious lens.

Self-Determination Theory is well-grounded and researched and provides a good framework for understanding human motivation. The three psychological needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness, with an additional wellbeing resource of autonomy support.

Any genuine interest must satisfy autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs and thrive on autonomy support to generate wellbeing. Any “pseudo-interest” that excludes or even harms one of these aspects can be considered a product of “false consciousness” and should be re-examined to create a “whole” new version of it (for example, by including a part that brings in the excluded need aspect’s satisfaction) or discarded if necessary.

What then is interest? It is an internal trigger that opens up a kind of energy channel.

What does interest do? It inclines our attention toward something, provides an object for our attention, objectifies something out of the infinite chaos of everything, and creates the dynamic figure and ground relationships of our awareness fabric. Seen in this way, of course, we have ten thousand interests. But in the context of developing grit, passion, and perseverance, we are interested in “interests serving long-term, meaningful goals.” These are not fulfilled by eating a cake, or these won’t rest by waiting for the itch to pass; they won’t deflate when obstacles arise and you retreat to wait for another easier opportunity.

So, we are talking about an internal propensity to consciously, voluntarily turn toward an activity that we prefer to other activities; a choosing and prioritizing of that activity even under difficult or unfavorable circumstances, accompanied by joy and vigorous desire to continue the activity, without boredom and exhaustion. {Joy and vigorous desire is a good descriptor for passion. As with all emotional experiences, passion can vary along a spectrum, a scale, between individuals and for one individual. We operate at different emotional arousal levels, some people more on the upper end, some on the lower end; sometimes we swing around a lot, and sometimes we are more stable.}

So, then, what activities come to mind when you hear this; what are some activities you feel this way, and what might be the interest fueling them? Let’s take three minutes and write five, six, or seven activity-interest pairs. We will share in three minutes.

<(Sharing for several minutes.)>

Considering what we discussed about having a map for interest categories, what would you say is the benefit of such a map? Where do your preferred activities reside on the map? Does it make sense to add activities in areas less visited? Might balancing activities on the map deepen your interests?

Knowing what you know about your interests, how does this influence when you select and prioritize daily activities or plan activities on a broader time scale?

What would you say is the effect on your wellbeing and happiness of selecting activities supporting your interests or not supporting your interests? Would you notice any change in your happiness level after activities one way or the other? How long would you expect the impact to last?

So, take this as an exercise for a week and observe how your energy and happiness levels vary when you engage in something. Also, notice what activities serve your interests and how they are related. Take two or three interests and focus on them for a week.

Also, note how consistently you perform when an activity feeds an interest compared to an activity less grounded in your interest.

Third, see if you can discern the long-term larger goal when you engage in interest (serving) activities, and hold this goal maybe in the back of your awareness after you complete the activity; see if you experience some continued joy and accomplishment and for how long this lasts. Does the meaningfulness extend beyond the moment, growing in your resource backpack?

Finally, to use this exercise as an opportunity to enhance your hope and optimism: can you link the generated positive feelings to your future best self vision; feel how you are empowering your present self and future self to live purposefully and meaningfully.

Continuing to Know and Deepen Your Interests.

What interests do I value? What is the most important interest for me? What interest am I mostly spending time vigorously?

There is no single interest we could normally single out as the one and only; there are always many interests drifting in and out from the priority line. Moreover, inner and outer demands vary over a day, a week, a season, a year, a decade, and a lifetime.

Your interests will change, and that’s fine. We are not here to promote any one of your interests. Instead, we want you to learn how to make the best of your capacities in service of your wellbeing and your engagement with others’ wellbeing. So, this is a personal, professional, and social development project.

Person-job fit is important for your wellbeing and performance. It is immediately, directly beneficial for your organization and, by extension, your community and the larger social world. As you turn toward your interests and toward work that you enjoy, your engagement deepens, you experience flow and satisfaction, purpose and meaning reveal their valuable contribution to your life, and your curiosity to deepen and inquire into your strengths fuels your development and positive growth. As a result, you build the foundations of a well-lived life stronger and stronger.