Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

2020 was a tough year for many of us. We missed out on many things, on many adventures, on learning opportunities, on dream jobs, we lost friends, family, colleagues. Some of us might have lost our current jobs, others had to postpone dreams that they had. It was a strange year that definitely left scars on people’s mental health.

2020 was definitely a big year for me when it comes to my career, I’m probably not the only one to say that my job kept me sane through a few of the lockdowns that we had. Before we jump into the madness of the new year, I wanted to look back on 2020 and see what I learned about myself as a designer and what I can continue doing in 2021 to become a better person. It will be more of a personal post that I’d like to look back on in a few year’s time when I’m older and wiser but I’m also hoping that you might find something in it that you can relate to.

Stop being so hard on yourself!

I’m hard on myself and I’ve always been. When I was younger, when we got bad grades in school my friends used to be terrified of their parent’s reactions. Meanwhile, my parents have always been understanding — I was always giving myself a harder time in my own head than my parents would ever do. Everything that I’ve ever done, I always wanted to get it done for myself and because of that, I’ve always been my own worst critic.

Sometimes it’s too easy to feel like you’re an impostor.

This hasn’t changed since I started my career 2,5 years ago. “Stop being so hard on yourself” were the words that I would often hear from my fellow design team, family, friends, and about halfway through the year, I got to a breaking point. I finally realized that I need to stop pushing myself to the very limit. During the last few months of the year, I stopped criticizing myself (for the most part…) and instead, took a healthier approach in pointing out what I could’ve done better and how I can improve in the future. So far, it has worked wonders, I feel like the quality of my work has improved, I’m less stressed and happier.

You can achieve more than you think you can

Not only I have always been hard on myself, but I’ve also had a bad case of impostor syndrome. I always feel like my progress is too slow, I could do something better, blah blah blah. Last year proved to me that I can achieve way more than I think I can. Looking back at myself in January 2020, I would have never thought I would get to where I am now.

Look mum, I gave a talk!

Not only my design skills improved but also my soft skills. From someone that was terrified of speaking in public, I became a designer who loves running workshops. Heck, I even took part in a design conference this year. My fear turned into excitement and if you showed me last year where I am now, I would have never believed you. 2020 sucked but it also helped me become more awesome. And no one can tell me otherwise 😎🤟

Not traveling will affect your work.

I love traveling. Due to some personal reasons, I didn’t really travel much in 2019 and 2020 was supposed to be my year. I planned weekend City breaks, I wanted to go away for Christmas. Then Covid happened and I did have my holiday — but I spent it in West Cork. (Which is literally 200km away from my house). How much I miss traveling. I think I miss it more than anything else. But what does traveling have to do with design?

I’ve always seen it as the best way to get inspiration. New cultures, landscapes, people, smells, flavors even the weather has always been such an inspiration to me and has helped me see a bigger picture. I feel like it’s this curious part of designers — if we don’t explore and learn and see new things, we might start feeling burned out. I often go back to this TED talk by Stefan Sagmeister about the projects that he has done during his time off. He takes 1 year off every 7 years so that he can get that creative boost and during that time, he usually travels. He says it himself — it makes him happy and this creative energy flows back into his client work and I couldn’t agree more.

Empathy isn’t only for your users. It’s also for your team and clients.

It’s easy to get frustrated with your team and clients especially when you hear a lot of don’ts and can’ts. Not every project will be perfect and not every project will follow the clean, design thinking process — and that’s okay. 2020 has been the year where everyone struggled — and it gave me an opportunity to work with smaller budgets, tighter deadlines, and I realized that it’s a good challenge in itself. It helped my process become leaner and become more creative with solutions that I’m coming up with. Now, instead of thinking that the client doesn’t trust my expertise, I put myself in their shoes.

Spending hours on dribble and medium is not a waste of time.

I would often think that looking at Dribbble and reading Medium articles is pure procrastination. I would even feel guilty about it. But it isn’t — it’s one of the best things that I could be doing in my spare time. If it wasn’t for those hours I spent reading up and looking at other designer’s work, how else would I learn and find out about amazing, new things? 2021 is the year where I want to take the time during the day to check out what other designers are up to and what others have to say. I now know that it makes me a better designer — it’s not all about creating all the time.

People actually care what I have to say

Going back to my first point — I’m always hard on myself. When I started writing articles and sharing them, I felt like no one cares. Sure, there have been times when I got very few views, but there is always someone that will benefit from what you’re seeing. Earlier this year I received a message from a girl who said one of my articles helped her decide to move into the tech industry. It was the best feeling ever! Even though I think I’m not the best writer in the world, there is always something that I can share and someone will care about it. And you can too.