What if Design Wasn’t Meant for Me?
A story on how I managed my creative self doubts
Four years ago, I was a fresh pharmaceutical student trying to figure out what I wanted to achieve in my life, after spending roughly three years learning cybersecurity and dropping out of the niche because “I felt misaligned and didn’t feel like myself.” So I took on the responsibility of figuring out — again — what I should learn to achieve my life goals. At that time, the COVID-19 pandemic was the breaking news, and I spent months in my room when I started to notice my side hobby, “design,” was taking most of my time, and I was having fun. My interest in design especially in “Branding and Brand Strategy,” started to rise quickly.
The Starting Point
At that moment, I figured out what I wanted to do next in my life, so I said the most impactful sentence of my life ever:
I want to make logos!!!
Since then, I dove deep into the design industry, turning my side interest into my main activity on a daily basis.
The Question that Changed Me
Almost after two years of hard work, a question started to come to my mind:
What if design was not for you?
To be honest, I don’t have a history of self-doubt, and this question always arose in my head because I had never even imagined myself as a creative person. Honestly, I didn’t care about art and design before 2019. This change always made me question myself: Was I really a creative person or someone who should work in this industry?
So what I simply did was take this question and use it as a compass to lead me to my answer. Unlike others, I used my negative thoughts to prove whether I was right or wrong.
The Unexpected Journey
In this phase of my life and professional career, I had a significant shift in my mindset. I started to prove to myself with *tangible evidence* whether I was a creative person — evidence like:
- How I solve problems, especially design problems
- How I can implement the solutions in a creative way
- My creative philosophy and how I perceive things and explain them to other people
- How I manage to creatively express an idea in my work
- I created some exercises to enhance my ability to create more variations and options in my logo design work, evaluating the outputs based on quantity.
Judging myself and evaluating my abilities with tangible evidence and not random negative thoughts led me on other side journeys along the way, making me more self-aware of my strengths and weaknesses. Unexpectedly, this mindset made me figure out a lot of things about myself, and I won’t lie — I’m very grateful for what I have learned along the way.
Moving to the Next Level
After learning the basics of design and logo design, I started to notice my interest in strategy and I realized that branding had more than just designing visuals, and it was another form of design that I prefer to call emotions design.
So I took on another creative-related journey with the responsibility of understanding how I could combine two seemingly separate things — eventually becoming a strategic designer.
What I Learned Along the Way:
1. I figured out that we could relearn creativity
I personally believe that every human born throughout history was creative until a point where they lost it due to their environment, life experiences, or career choices.
2. Everything that you choose has an origin inside your head; you just need to know yourself more
I recently discovered that every decision I made and every behavior I exhibited was driven by my personality type. I discovered that people with INTJ personalities possess natural abilities in the areas I was working in. This discovery is what made me sure about my choice of being a designer, and I finally defeated my doubting voice.
3. There is no way out; experimentation is your path
Most people I knew on this journey listened to their doubting voices, which caused them either to drop out due to a lack of motivation or to create limits for their capabilities, allowing mediocrity and laziness to win. There is no way out. Whether the voice says you can’t or you can, it’s right; what matters is your choice.
4. Luck exists
After everything I’ve been through, I believe that I’m lucky, and if you asked me why, here’s the reason:
I was just lucky enough to exist at the right time and to make the right decisions without knowing if they were right or wrong, driven only by passion, curiosity, and consistency. Every habit I chose to enjoy and every activity I made yesterday contributed significantly to who I am today.
Reflecting on this story it was never about choosing a career. It was about finding myself. Every negative idea and uncertainty showed me that we grow via hard work, consistency, and undeniable evidence.
Thank you
For giving me your time.
Until next time we meet, be safe.
