Fall in love with the process
Let me take you back a little*.
*little /ˈlɪt(ə)l/ : adjective, used when one refuses to admit how long ago 7th grade was.
I’m standing in line in a rather flimsy gym. One girl in front of me is running like a maniac and twelve others behind me are dreading the training. You see, we’ve been lunging after a bloody ball for the past two hours. The coach throws it low, you lunge to try and save it. Rinse and repeat. Palms and egos are bruised and our knees forgot how to be other color than purple. An ad man would say the game got under our skin.
My mom’s dream of me wearing dresses got diminished when I started playing soccer instead of playing with dolls at 4 and pretty much vanished when I discovered volleyball. This lady’s not for turning.
Here we go. My turn again. I jump, miss and barely stand up again. At this point, my ambition is limited to at least touching the ball.
“Move faster. Get up even faster. Put both hands in front of you. The ball doesn’t wait and neither does your opponent. Move! Move! Move!” Our coach had a 300 vibe at that time. “Spartaaans, what is your profession?!”.
There isn’t much space to be the cool-kid-on-the-court when you get to know the floor up-close and personal. You don’t get to do awesome moves, to hit that ball into oblivion in the beginning. That’s what I was waiting for. The ACTION.
Instead, the menu that day was as follows:
Run. Lunge. Save (maybe). Fall. Great.. Get up. Get yelled at. Get pissed off. Go back in line. I’ll get it THIS time. Run. Lunge. Miss. Fall. I hate this f*cking game. Get up. Get yelled at… Glamorous!
Thing is, that training rhythm stuck with me (maybe it was discipline, maybe trauma, maybe it was Maybelline). By the time I was working part time, going to college and dipping my toes in freelancing a little bit, it actually didn’t feel that heavy. It might also be that, at 20, your body is a self-healing machine.
Not knowing where else to start or how to get anywhere, I focused on two things:
- I got informed. I knew that in order to be a better designer, I had to understand a little bit of everything. A design by the people, for the people.. So, I started reading: management, marketing, economics, politics, psychology, journalism, how diplomatic relationships are built and what it actually means to have a relevant network. I looked for experienced people and I got really picky to whom I chose to listen to. I’m still doing that. Every designer should be familiar with the culture he’s living in. You can’t create something in a vacuum because design is, by definition, functional.
- I perfected my craft. I was so mindful of every line I wrote, every button designed and every concept delivered. Some saw me as ambitious, I saw myself as scared. Potato, tomato. I found peace in discovering great designers because they made me better. They showed me a different way of thinking and I was taking notes.
Through all of it, something unexpected happened: I found my own rhythm and fell in love with the process. Getting my knees bruised and hitting the wall from time to time didn’t hurt as much anymore.
To this day, this continuous discovery is what I love most. Because I have this great privilege of seeing the world the way it really is. Every assumption can be destroyed, every new thing makes me smile because everything now is.. interesting!
I’m most proud of the fact that I get to keep growing — Paula Scher
The recipe for success doesn’t exist. You create your own. And by the time you get to any sort of shape of form, you realise it recipe has to be changed. Because life isn’t a series of steps you get to follow. It’s dynamic, unpredictable, wondrous and sometimes highly frustrating. It can put you down in a second and raise you right back up the next. And be glad it does. Otherwise it would be terribly boring.
