The barriers to finding your Element

We have finally reached the halfway mark in The Element, Sir Ken Robinson's inspiring book on how finding your passion changes everything.  Today, we're looking at the barriers you might face when you're finding your Element.  Enjoy!

Rhonda & the Bridgeway Team

Sir Ken has led us through the ways we can find our Element.  But if you haven't found it yet, what's holding you back?  Sir Ken suggests three barriers - or "circles of constraint" - personal, social and cultural.

Personal
This section begins with a couple of inspiring stories of individuals who have overcome physical and psychological barriers to finding their Element.  Consider the example of Chuck Close.  He struggled in school because of dyslexia, and had physical problems that made participating in sports and games difficult.  He lost his father at 11 years old, his mother developed cancer at the same time, and the family lost their home because of overwhelming medical bills.  He survived these enormous difficulties because of his passion for art.  Over time, his passion for art, along with his talent, allowed him to become very well known with work displayed around the world.

But Chuck's story doesn't end there.  In 1988, he became a quadriplegic after a blood clot formed in his spinal cord.  He could no longer produce his art, but soon disocvered he could hold a paintbrush with his teeth and move it enough to create tiny images.  He continued to pursue his passion in a new way, and soon found his work being as well received as the art he had become famous for. 

Chuck Close could have given up on his passion many times, but he didn't.  As Sir Ken says, people with disabilities face, "problems arising from their own attitudes to their disability and from the effects on their feelings of other people's attitudes to their disabilities.  To overcome these physical and psychological barriers, people with disabilities of every sort must summon enormous reserves of self-belief and determination to do things that other people can do without a second thought."

(At Bridgeway, we know about the psychological barriers that can keep really smark, gifted people from finding their Element.  But we also know how freeing and empowering it can be when those barriers are overcome!)

Whether you're disabled or not, Sir Ken believes that, "issues of attitude are of paramount importance to finding your Element."  You need a strong will to be yourself.  Self-doubt and fear can be obstacles as easily as circustance and opportunity.

Social
The people closest to us have a lot of influence on us.  Sometimes, it's our own fear of disapproval that gets in the way.  Some people don't find their Element because, "they don't have the encouragement or the confidence to step outside their established circle of relationships."  In fact, you might have people in your life who actively discourage you from pursuing your passion, usually because they feel it's for your own goog.  (Check out the book for the story of Paolo Coelho and his parents who institutionalized him because he wanted to be a writer - yikes!)  But as Sir Ken says, "doing something 'for your own good' is rarely for your own good if it causes you to be less than who you really are." 

Sometime, reaching for your Element means pulling away from those closest to you, or at least not heeding their advice.  (Heard of Arianna Huffington?  Sir Ken tells her story in this chapter as well.  In a nutshell - young girl in Greece decides she wants to go to Cambridge and doesn't look back.)  The lesson here - don't let self-doubt and the disapproval of others keep you from your passion.

An even stronger influence on us than our families is our friends.  We choose our friends, and the pressure to conform to their standards and expectations can be intense.  We really see this in teens, where fitting in with friends is so important.  As Sir Ken says, "since breaking the rules is a sure way to find ourselves out of the group, we may deny our deepest passions to stay connected with our peers." 

The idea of groupthink is when the majority of the group rules - even when your instincts might suggest otherwise.  It's the type of thinking that keeps a teen from admitting they like physics because it isn't cool, or everyone in a group to agree to do something they might not want to because they don't want to be singled out (aka, the party-pooper).  Groups encourage conformity - the Element is about discovering yourself.  You can see how this might make things difficult.

Culture
There are attitudes and behaviours that are acceptable in different communities.  Those tend to guide what we do and don't do.  Sir Ken provides the amusing example of the middle aged man on a beach in California - wearing a leopard-print thong.  Acceptable in some parts of the world, but not on that beach. 

Our cultures affect a lot - our values and outlook, our language, the way we dress...  There are unwritten rules, which Sir Ken calls the "survival manual".  These guidelines help us thrive within the culture, but can also constrain us.  That happens when their passions are in conflict with their context.

The bottom line is that when seeking your Element, "you're likely to face or more of the three levels of constraint - personal, social and cultural.  Ultimately, it's about the price you're willing to pay.  As Sir Ken encourages, "the rewards of the Element are considerable, but reaping these rewards may mean pushing back against some stiff opposition."