Get the key ideas from
Finding Your Element
How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life
Finding Your Element (2013) offers engaging advice on ways you might discover your true passions and talents, and then reorient your life to incorporate more time for them. Written with a keen sense of wit, Finding Your Element offers entertaining and inspiring wisdoms that will help you not only to be more productive but also to improve your overall happiness and quality of life.
- Anyone who would like to focus on their passions more
- Anyone who'd like advice on how to discover their passions
- Anyone interested in improving the quality of their life in general
Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is an internationally renowned writer, speaker and educationalist. He's best known for his books and TED talks on the value of human creativity, which he feels is the most important trait that schools should help foster. His work aims at encouraging people to get more in touch with their creative side, to improve not only their own lives but also society at large.
Go Premium and get the best of Blinkist
Upgrade to Premium now and get unlimited access to the Blinkist library. Read or listen to key insights from the world’s best nonfiction.
Upgrade to PremiumWhat is Blinkist?
The Blinkist app gives you the key ideas from a bestselling nonfiction book in just 15 minutes. Available in bitesize text and audio, the app makes it easier than ever to find time to read.
Start free trialDiscover
3,000+ top
nonfiction titles
Get unlimited access to the most important ideas in business, investing, marketing, psychology, politics, and more. Stay ahead of the curve with recommended reading lists curated by experts.
Start free trialJoin Blinkist to get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Get the key ideas from
Finding Your Element
How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life
- Read in 13 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 8 key ideas
Synopsis
Finding Your Element (2013) offers engaging advice on ways you might discover your true passions and talents, and then reorient your life to incorporate more time for them. Written with a keen sense of wit, Finding Your Element offers entertaining and inspiring wisdoms that will help you not only to be more productive but also to improve your overall happiness and quality of life.
Key idea 1 of 8
Forget long-term plans and accept the unpredictability of life: you'll find lots of new opportunities to achieve your goals.
Have you ever felt pressured to live your life in a certain way? Society often encourages us to follow a certain linear plan. We're supposed to graduate high school at 18, enter university, and then become a professional person, get married and have children. This narrative may work for some people, but for many of us it can be limiting and steer us away from opportunities in which we might excel.
We often have to commit to forming this plan at a very young age. Teenagers are expected to enter a specialization in university and then base their career off that decision. This means that many young people commit to a general plan of their entire career when they've only just finished their childhoods.
Planning our lives when we're so young certainly doesn't leave much room for unexpected opportunities, and yet life is full of the unexpected. You have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, but that isn't a bad thing. You might find something that will lead to an opportunity you never expected. Rather than fearing the unpredictability of the world, use it to your advantage. Unknown situations may lead to something amazing.
When you accept that you can't predict or control the future, you'll discover many new opportunities. Ken Robinson's own life illustrates this well. As a child he became interested in theatre and stage direction, then later in drama education, and through that, education reform. He only began to write and give speeches in his middle age. As a young adult, he never planned to make most of his career outside England or become known for his writing and speeches. His greatest work resulted from seizing opportunities even when he didn't know where they'd lead.
In short, don't be afraid of the unknown, because everything is unknown.
Key ideas in this title
- Forget long-term plans and accept the unpredictability of life: you'll find lots of new opportunities to achieve your goals.
- You have skills or inborn abilities you may not know about, so give yourself opportunities to discover them.
- Institutional education often discourages us: don't assume you're bad at something just because you got poor grades in that subject.
- Don't let your attitude prevent you from reaching your full potential.
- Find your passions: they are the key to your physical and mental well-being.
- Forget established preconceptions about happiness and find out what it means to you.
- Finding a community of people who share your passions will help you realize your goals.
- Final summary
