Trial, sample and do more with your career.
Sounds like a common cliche: It’s Not Whether You Win or Lose, it’s How You Play the Game
Why? The common reason given is that it’s your approach and implies that you win some and lose some.
The advice is not wrong but honestly I think it misses the core point, especially if you want to work in design or user experience or strategy. You should know the value of experimentation.
The number one reason why you will benefit from experimentation is knowing what exactly you are comfortable with or not. Your real skills will actually start to shine through instead of skills like communication or personal brand building.
For example, from the age of 21 to 31, the following list of career experiments actually helped me figure out what makes sense to me:
Cinema Poster Illustration Design
Sold my artwork for printing rights
UI Designer, Prototyping & UX Design
Product Design & MVPs
Running a design recruitment agency
Running a Product Design Cohort and School
Teaching people design, product & no-code.
Running multiple podcasts, content and video
Using Product principles to run MVPs.
Using Design & No-Code to help clients
Business ownership, Sales and more.
Today, these things don’t seem so hard and crazy. They seem normal because I had great support system at home and office. These people provided me with great guidance and I could have done better in listening to them too.
Having this experimentation mindset does not stem from simple having ownership over simple tasks, etc. It stems from the need to figure-it-out and needing to know where I can best utilise my skills, time and curiosity.
This is why, I never settle or get too comfortable with my role. And I envision the space I created for myself to help me with the same.
Without this space, team and giving myself the permission to experiment I would not be where I am, today.
If I had a chance to be more organised, here’s how I would structure my experimentation career:
Every day:
What parts of my work are exciting me?
Do I do this even when I am tired or sick?
What feeds me energy instead of zapping it?
What did I ship or learn today?
Every week :
What was the highlight of my week?
What was the low point of my week?
What task/project actually triggered you?
What task/project actually made sense to you?
What communication stood out for you?
What communication sucked?
Did you receive any feedback this week?
Did you receive any praise this week?
Every Month:
What project/task stood out for you?
What communication stood out for you?
What communication sucked?
Did you receive any feedback this month?
Did you receive any praise this month?
Document these and reflect on these consistently, so you can see and adjust your career accordingly.
