O, The Places You'll Go
need a MAP
May 2023
Graduating this month? Then you might be one of hundreds of thousands of grads who’ll be gifted with Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (It typically sells around 800,000 copies each year.)
This Dr. Seuss favorite is a rollicking rhyme of the lovely places you could go as a newly-minted grad. But it’s balanced with sobering words about places you won’t want to go – the Bang-ups, the Hang-ups, the Not-So-Good Street, the Lurch, the Slump, and Streets that aren’t marked.
Sounds like you’ll need some maps, New Grads, to find your way through these lands!
The One MAP You Need
But let’s focus on just one essential map – actually called a “MAP.” MAP stands for “Motivated Abilities Pattern,” a summary of your characteristic way of facing challenges, staying motivated, and engaging in relationships. It’s typically created with a lengthy and probing interview by a trained MAP professional. But recently I discovered an on-line tool that provides an efficient, inexpensive MAP version. (More about that at the end of the post.)
What can a MAP do for you? It can provide greater clarity about which college majors you should consider (and avoid), future jobs that could bring you joy (or frustration), and the way you function in relationships at work, home and play.
First formulated in the 1960’s by Arthur Miller, Jr., MAP has been used by countless organizations, from NASA to corporations to churches. Each of us has a MAP that begins to manifest as early as infancy. Our Motivated Abilities are not something that we learn – it’s part of our personality, emerging already as children.
One Person's MAP is not Another's
You can observe one person’s emerging MAP in a recent op-ed by New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik. Gopnik describes teaching himself how to play guitar when 12. He withdrew to his room and persisted in practice, going over chord charts and a book of Beatle songs he bought himself. He describes the “nirvana” he felt as he learned these songs: “the sense of happiness I felt that week — genuine happiness, rooted in absorption in something outside myself — has stayed with me.”[1]
That joyful absorption is a tell-tale clue to one’s MAP. Gopnik tapped into his natural modus operandi – withdrawing to his room, practicing for hours, imitating artists he revered without the say-so of authority figures. No wonder, then, that Gopnik is a successful writer. A writer must withdraw to his room and write for hours alone, learn style by first imitating others. And the best writers are independent thinkers, researching and forming conclusions, uncoerced by what others think.
Gopnik’s MAP will be different from yours. You may need a group to keep you focused and learning; you may aspire to tradition and the acceptance of authority figures; you may need the motivation of public performance to learn new material or a skill.
Your MAP, Your Major
But, back to our opening puzzle: O What Places Should You Go? What college majors should you consider, as you think ahead to fall?
Some majors are just more friendly to certain MAPS. A pre-med student must memorize and retain a mountain of visual, anatomical facts. A literature major must enjoy spending hours in critical reading of texts. A computer science major must thrive in Comp-Sci’s crowded classrooms and love detailed, sequential problem-solving. A foreign language major must be game for long months abroad, dealing with strangers in a second language, with misunderstandings guaranteed.
So, what if your heart’s set on a major that seems to work against your type? Are you destined for Dr. Seuss’s Bang-ups, Hang-ups, Slumps and Bad Streets?
Don’t give up! Your MAP can also uncover more subtle strengths that can help you compensate. Don’t like studying alone for hours? Your MAP may suggest you have strong group skills: you’re the one to organize study groups. Not sure you can memorize anatomy? Your MAP may suggest artistic ability: you’ll be sketching those organs and bones, locking them into your memory.
Let's MAP
You probably already understand some features of your MAP. But there are many more subtle dimensions to your MAP that can be uncovered with testing and analysis.
Are you ready to discover your MAP? Let’s administer a short assessment that will help uncover your MAP. Be in touch!
“You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!"
[1] Adam Gopnik, What We Lose When We Push Our Kids to ‘Achieve’ (May 15, 2023, The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/opinion/youth-achievement-happiness.html
(#highschoolgraduation,#motivatedabilities,#teenskills,#aptitudetest,#collegemajor)