Carving Your Path
Now that you’ve had a chance to read some of the other articles in this publication, it is a good time to discuss Carve Your Path in a little more detail and unpack the meaning behind it.
Ever since I was a kid, I was always one of those people that people would open up to. I learned to listen because I liked being someone that people could confide in. As I embarked on my design career, experienced success, and took on leadership positions, I was still someone that people would open up to and the topic of choice was design careers and the choices we make as we navigate our respective careers. During all these career conversations, I also generated a new understanding of design careers and career paths. The design career we wanted was not a series of steps, but an actual mindset to be adopted.
This career-focused mindset I call Carve Your Path is a mix of a few different concepts derived from all the career conversations I have had with many designers over the years. During my conversations with designers about their careers, a few key themes have been consistent.
The first part of carving your path is asking yourself who you are and what do you want. These seem like simple questions, but they are often difficult to answer. When I have asked designers and myself these questions there is a pause and then silence, because these questions force us to examine ourselves and understand what motivates us as designers and professionals.
The second part is figuring out where you want your career to go. This is not the same as setting a five-year plan or similar exercises, because those often end up being vague and not very informative. Rather, it is better to think about your aspirations and set career goals based on the vision you have for yourself as a designer. It doesn’t have to be concrete, because we have to also acknowledge that career plans change due to many different factors that may not be in our control. Therefore, setting a vision for your career acts as a guideline to help you make progress towards the design career you want.
The third and most important part is the actual carving of the path. In other words, the decisions that you make about your career. I use the word “carve” on purpose because it's meant to evoke imagery about career decisions being hard to make. Career decisions also require that we act with clear intent. Owning our own design careers means being able to make the intent-driven decisions required to navigate a design career path.
These three elements of knowing yourself, setting a vision, and owning your decisions are encapsulated in this career mindset I call Carve Your Path. The articles in this publication are intended to help you evaluate these different aspects of your design career and by doing so start to adopt a mindset to help you carve your path.
