Why You Need Multiple Maps to Navigate Life

Before the internet age, if you wanted to drive somewhere unfamiliar you 3 options:

• consult a big paper map and plot your route;
• get directions from someone who knew the way; or
• leave it to chance and explore on your own, relying on road signs to guide you.

Reading a map was a skill that could help you be self-reliant; like other forms of literacy, knowing how to read a map was a ticket to freedom.

Today, the skill might feel less essential, but still important and necessary.

You Can’t Have Too Many Maps

I have Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze on my phone; I regularly use all three depending on where I’m going. Sometimes one map gives you landmarks or points of reference that another doesn’t include. The way they depict what lane to be in or upcoming highway exits differs.

This is a perfect example of the adage “the map is not the territory.” The maps may be different, but the territory is the same.

Knowing how to read a map and navigate a territory are two different skills; both are important, and one can help with the other.

The more maps you have, the better you can learn the territory, and the more ease you’ll have in navigating that territory.

3 Core Functions of Maps

Whether you use digital or old-fashioned paper maps, there’s no question that they are an indispensable tool for navigation.

Of course, you don’t need to use a map; you can learn a territory by exploring it in person.

That said, maps give us a head-start to navigating a territory. If someone else has already explored the terrain and mapped it out, why not leverage their work as a starting point in our own journey?

Maps provide three core functions:

(1) Orientation. A map can show you where you are.

(2) Points of Interest. A good map can orient you and guide you to points of interest that you want to explore more fully.

(3) Show What’s In Your Blind Spots. A map can show you what might be around the corner but out of your range of vision.

Sometimes maps can be outdated or wrong. Several people have gotten themselves in trouble by following Google maps to dead-ends because the map didn’t map the territory.

Maps of physical terrain are not the only maps available to us.

Maps of Human Personality

There are many tools we can use to map the human personality, drives, and temperaments. Some are well-accepted, such as Myers-Briggs, Strengths Finder, DiSC assessments, and Kolbe.

Others, like Enneagram, Astrology, and Human Design are given less value in mainstream culture.

However, just like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze, none of these maps is inherently better than the others. Each of these tools offers us a map of archetypes that exist within us. Each has features that the others lack. And each offers us different landmarks and points of reference.

The Map is Not the Territory

One common criticism of maps of human personality and behavior — is that they are incomplete; they don’t give a full picture of a person.

This is valid. It’s the nature of maps.

Imagine the difficulty presented to a map-maker when trying to map an area that is in constant flux. A map is a snapshot of a territory at a moment in time; if that territory is constantly changing, the map will inevitably be wrong at points in time, until it is updated.

Plenty of people have walked into ditches by following Google Maps instead of paying attention to the actual territory.

The same applies to other types of maps.

The territory of human personality, and behavior is complicated, varied, and dynamic. Any map we use to understand people is going to be inherently flawed in some aspects.

No map is meant to be an absolute; it’s a starting point — a shortcut to help us get our bearings in the difficult navigation of the landscape of human personality, motivation, and behavior.

Archetypal maps like DiSC, Myers-Briggs, Astrology, and Human Design can help us see aspects and attributes of ourselves and others that might be in our blind spots, and they can help us look objectively at more difficult aspects of personality.

But we still need to do the work of exploring the territory.