The UX toolbox part 6: Grow your mind to grow your designs
I was once involved with a group of pretty interesting individuals. Their goal was personal growth for of their members and for them to realize their own potential by way of their own discovery. The basis of all of this transformation was that there is a lot of knowledge that you are taught through your life and this knowledge becomes your guide to the rest of your life. You know what you know, and you know what you don’t know.
Simple as that. You know that you don’t know theoretical physics (maybe). You know that you know how to add and subtract. But is there anything else out there? Surely, there has to be a bunch of stuff that we don’t know, that we don’t know. Right?
If you’re interested in maintaining a growth mindset you must consider these ideas. Yes, it’s possible, there are things you may not know.
Shifting your paradigm
Everything you do has the ability to be done differently by different people. Even if it that means the smallest detail changes from person to person it becomes their own way of doing it.
So? That’s great, you tie your shoes upside down. What does that mean for a UX designer?
As a designer the design studio is a tool that shows the difference in thought process time and time again. You sit down as a team, sketch your concepts out individually, share feedback and blow each other’s minds. Things you saw as simple are eliminated by another designers concept. Suddenly everything you sketched is irrelevant and you need to rethink everything. Maybe even steal some of those concepts.
The point is, your whole idea of what you were doing is completely washed away. Your paradigm was shifted. You saw things you’ve seen so many times come together so simply to create something you might not of conceived.
The ink bleeds through
Now, you have this concept stuck in your brain and you have seen just how simple certain things can actually become. You acknowledge the over complications you’ve been adding to your own process and begin to audit your method and designs. Things you didn’t see before are showing up in your work.
The other person at that design studio has taught you something you didn’t know. You embody a growth mindset by putting this information into play and allowing it to influence your designs from there on forward. Not only that, but by doing so you become curious to do it again.
The next design studio or feedback session you take part of will be some of the most fascinating moments of your life. Realizing that others see so differently and hold such valuable solutions to complex problems will alter the way you approach all kinds of problems in your own personal life and professional life.
This knowledge will show up everywhere and eventually as you see more and more of others perspectives you’ll begin to offer those solutions to others. By doing so, you might even change the world. A lot of us are stuck trying to solve complex solutions with the same hammer we’ve been using for years. Sometimes we just need someone to show us what a screwdriver does in order to change our world.
Get out your toolbox, learn more, and share with others what you know.
