Deliberate intensive practice to enhance resilience

As a designer, we must be present our design to other stakeholders. The process is more often called “design critique.” Design critique itself is essential to an iteration creative process to make a high-quality design.

Surely every designer has felt harsh criticism for the designs their make (and it feels like being on the battlefield actually). Because there must be one person in a room giving counter-arguments, opposing, or unpopular arguments to test their validity without actually being committed to it. We can call this stakeholder is playing a role as a “devil advocate👺”.

When our work is not received well or highly criticized, we experience feelings of shame. Then make us feel low self-confidence about our work, and we become blaming ourselves; “my design result is shit, so I’m shit too.”

How do we embrace it? What should we do?

Deliberate intensive rehearsal to enhance resilience. If we look at orchestral performances, the players actually do intensive rehearsals before they perform. The supportive environment allows players to enhance resilience and grow as musicians who are able to control the pressure of concert giving.

This also applies to designers when presenting their designs to stakeholders. That’s the orchestra stage for designers. We also need to intensive rehearsal before doing it. Therefore, it’s crucial to practice design critique in an environment where people feel safe enough to share their work and provide feedback with other designers or team members.

When we practice design critique more often in a safe space;

1. It will build trust with others
2. It will build confidence in our abilities
3. It will make us adapt to feeling the pressure

The result is we can control all pressure of design critique session giving. It should be good for us because it can shape us to become better designers; in other words, it can make us more resilient.

(*I will not discuss how we create the environment in more detail in this article. But if you are interested, please comment in the comment section, and I will try to explain in the following article)

Lastly, as a designer, you should know that;

“What you make is a part of you and a reflection of you, but it is not you. You are more than what you make, so stop blaming yourself and start to be more resilient.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy reading this article. Since you made it this far, I’ll introduce myself.

My name is Jufry Heryanta, and I’m a Product Designer.

If you have any feedback or just want to chat with me, drop me a message at [email protected] or connect on LinkedInand Instagram.