Finding Passion in Work That You Don’t Control

Exploring ways to cultivate personal passion in work for a client or your day-job.

All artists and designers on any skill level are passionate. Most of us have been working on the trade since we could barely hold a crayon.

Every day is another step working towards our 10,000 hours, as popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outlier.

Our first projects tended to be those stunning family portraits scribbled together on loose computer paper, working to please our first ever clients: our parents. While they didn’t pay us anything (rude), their satisfaction was immortalized when they hung it upon the glorious refrigerator door altar.

Maybe we took advantage of those days when our “clients” gave us creative freedom to fulfill any project. They were our projects after all.

We decided the goals & objectives. We chose the medium. We called the shots. The control over our art was wholly ours. We were both the client and the agency. Life was good.

And then we hit the real world.

Our clients are no longer our parents, and we now have deadlines, project timelines, copy, direction, design aesthetic, and the feeling that every project detail is out of our creative control.

The client knows what they want. You are merely the tool they need to make their vision a reality, and that’s where the conversation ends.

However, it doesn’t need to be that way. To have your project be more successful for you and the client, it should be everything but that. If we can bring that old sense of passion into each project we work on, there is always something greater to be gained.

Finding Passion Point 01:

Keep an open & honest conversation.

The relationship you hold with a client starts with the first meeting (as cliché as it sounds- it’s true).

As designers, yes, we will have to learn to talk with people. And yeah, probably should avoid the annoying art history terms we memorized. You don’t want your client to feel talked down to or the conversation will become closed off.

Allowing them to be comfortable opens up the conversation to those deep cut questions that help to elevate the project research. An honest and open-minded client will give you their objectives and their specifications, while still keeping the door open to more opinions.

Nurturing an honest conversation between you and the client helps to set-up the project for success. Once you know exactly what your client wants, you can really excel and take the project to the next level.

If there’s any confusion between you and the client, you’ll both end up annoyed with one another, and annoyed with the end result.

Finding Passion Point 02:

Define your personal goals on each project.

Clients can be difficult, and their visions can be blurry. Sometimes, the project is just so boring that we just can’t get excited about it, or we fear that it can’t help us grow at all.

So how do you deal with this? It’s simple, really.

Just remember: There is always something to learn from a project. Maybe it’s honing your time management skills, art direction, communication, or project management.

The important thing is to stay a student of your craft and make it a point to define your own personal goals for each project.

On projects where I feel no creative energy or where I disagree with the client, I pull back and see what I can still grow out of this. Lately for me, my goals have been to focus harder on project management.

I have an understanding of my skills and how to take a my sketches to completed designs, but my organization skills could stand to be improved upon. Or in the case of this project, trying to improve upon my writing skills (which I think are garbage).

Finding Passion Point 003:

Each project is a stepping stone to the next.

Each project you work on is a rung on the ladder of your career. Each one before helped to get you to where you’re at, and the project you have now will help get you even further and higher.

Having this thought in the back of your mind helps not just to sustain passion, but also to push your passion further for each project. Know that even if it may not be your favorite job, the connections you’re building and the work you’re creating are still valuable.

Maybe the client you’re working with is a total nightmare, and you’re ready to call it quits. Ask yourself: What do I benefit by staying the course?

Make it something that benefits the client and yourself by ensuring that the end product is always top notch quality- useable in your portfolio and on your resume. This will encourage you to continue putting in your best effort. After all, we as humans are nothing if not selfish!

We all have passion projects, and those seem to be the ones that we use to define ourselves by. What you’re working on the outside of your day-to-day grind is more important & rewarding.

Bringing that passion into every project you work on, client-based or not, can open many more doors. Each project offers the ability to grow in talent, skill and passion, even if at first it feels like a dead end.