Learning and Growing with Confidence
"The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times." — Paulo Coelho
Failure is often viewed negatively, but it plays a crucial role in the journey toward growth and self-assurance.
For a designer vying for growth, failure should be an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and seek for ways to be better and do better.
In this post, we'll discuss how failure can be a catalyst for learning, and how embracing it can enhance your skills and boost their confidence in the creative process.
Understanding Failure as a Stepping Stone
Failure isn't the end—it's a stepping stone toward improvement. Every design that falls short of expectations provides invaluable lessons. Lessons that will help you improve your next project.
It is therefore important that when a project goes below a set standard or doesn’t mean the client’s expectations, you don’t crawl back to your shell and sob forever.
What you should do is: analyze those failures, identify what didn't work, and look for ways to leverage the lessons gotten from them to transform your design approach.
No one can make you live in a reality that you didn’t create. Accepting failure as a ladder to growth will enhance your self confidence, and help you know that failure doesn’t define you.
Gaining Insights and Iterating
Have you ever had an experience where your design is rejected and you went back to create something even better?
When a design doesn't meet the mark, it offers a chance to gather insights.
This is why you should always ask questions after a project rejection. Find out what went wrong and how you can do better. Sometimes, you will have the opportunity to ask your project lead or the client, but when you can’t do that, always reach out to your colleages and mentors and get feedback from them.
Receiving feedback, both from yourself and others, allows you to iterate and refine your designs. Each iteration brings you closer to a solution that not only meets the project's requirements but also aligns better with your creative vision.
Your ability to receive feedback and create something better reminds you of the great designer you are, and ultimately skyrockets your self confidence.
Building Resilience and Confidence
Have you heard the saying “I’ve been through worse”.
There’s a recurring behaviour seen in people who use these words. They are sure of themselves and they believe that whatever life throws at them, they can tackle it.
Overcoming failures in the design process fosters resilience. As you navigate through challenges and setbacks, you develop the strength to persevere.
This resilience, in turn, boosts your confidence to tackle new projects with vigor and assurance, knowing that even if something goes wrong, you have the ability to bounce back from it.
Embracing Risk-Taking and Innovation
No one fails without trying.
To fail, you have to do something. If you are not failing, you are doing nothing or you are not doing enough. It is when you push beyond your limits that you could meet failure.
Failure often accompanies risk-taking, an essential component of innovation.
Without the willingness to take risks and potentially fail, groundbreaking ideas may never come to fruition. Designers who embrace failure as part of the innovation process are more likely to create original, trailblazing designs.
In the dynamic world of design, failure is not the enemy—it's a friend in disguise. It's a teacher, a mentor, and a catalyst for growth.
By understanding the role of failure in design and how to learn and grow from it, you can transform your creative journey and strengthen your confidence to achieve design excellence.
Embrace failures, iterate, and keep pushing your boundaries—your next design breakthrough may be just around the corner.
Leave a comment and share one lesson you picked from this post. Don’t forget to share with your friends.
