I UX’d my life to discover who I am.
When I was a child, I believed I could do and be anything I wanted, and to this day I still believe it. The problem is knowing what that is!
The decision to change careers came after years of juggling my day job in pharmacy; and a career as a producer-artist. The more I progressed the more I lost track of why I was doing either. It took a while but eventually I built up the courage to ask myself three questions:
1. Why was I doing all this?
2. What was I aiming to get out of it?
3. Who was I doing it for?
My aim for this post was to reveal my answer at the end but I have a tendency to break convention but not always intentionally.
MEET MY EGO
I had a dream to show people that with enough passion, ambition and determination anyone was capable of achieving success. I decided that I was going to do this by being the example of what success looked like, but in doing so I created expectations that I could not meet and lived with the feeling of disappointment and failure.
DISCOVERING MYSELF
Seventeen years of working non-stop I took a break and decided that I needed to find a career to suit me; what that actually meant at the time was unknown to me. Through a series of unpaid work experiences I eventually spent some time with a very irritated designer, who fed up with my constant questions told me to look into UX. I thought it was software!
So I took the plunge and graduated as a User Experience Designer. I began looking for a job (currently still looking) and found through the process of interviews, networking and describing life before UX that I had inadvertently reverse-interviewed myself. Many of the assumptions I had made about myself were totally wrong.
Assumption One — I’m shy.
This always surprises those that get to know me but none more than myself! I thought I compensated for being shy by acting confident but in actual fact I’m not shy at all. I am mostly reserved and observant.
Assumption Two — I can multitask, I’ve been doing it for years!
Thank you Andrew Godfrey; lead UX instructor at General assembly; for enlightening me! It’s a myth and I get it now. Trying to manage a career and a job was a terrible decision. Fuelled by fear of commitment and fear of missing out. Most decisions were compromised. When people tell you, you can have it all, you can! Just figure out what it is you want.
Assumption Three — I could do it all by myself.
I genuinely believed I was a one-woman band and loved the attention I got for it. Admittedly the work I produced at the time wasn’t half as good as I knew it could be, yet I still continued to put up a front. I was exhausted both mentally and physically.
Assumption four — I was a good leader.
Back in the day I managed the busiest pharmacy in London and was known to train the best healthcare advisors and dispensers. A few weeks after handing in my notice I was told the team had fallen to pieces. GP’s, specialists and patients were demanding to speak to me to fix the problems. I failed to train my successors to work as a team.
Assumption five — I could take personal criticism.
NOPE! When faced with criticism about me or my work I took everything personally as I was attached. I tried not to react but inside I was like an angry and irrational teenager ready to drop-kick anyone.
What else did I learn about myself?
I’m not embarrassed to admit that I only learnt what a start up was this year. I didn’t just change careers I entered what felt like a new world with a different species that resembled human beings that all spoke a different language!
I was having breakfast with another Lead UX designer from a well-known agency; and as we talked about the kinds of projects I had created before becoming a UX designer he casually clarified
‘So you’ve had 5 start ups’.
‘Erm, I guess so’ was my only response! I had never once looked at my previous projects as a business let alone a start up!
Audio Branding — Fresh out of college in early 2002 I bought my first domain name and my dream was to provide businesses with royalty free music for their visual content enabling composers to make 100% of their money (Online music library)
2 Tears Productions — Joined forces with my best friend to produce customised music for web sites only.
Nyms Music — I was an artist/producer making urban pop music. I was the business, label and the product.
Makeup Tutor — I gave 1:1 makeup tutorials to women in the comfort of their own homes using the products they already had.
Brown Bear Music — Another label focusing on music for advertising and composition for film.
His response was ‘you’ve achieved so much!’ but that’s not how I felt at all! If anything this revelation just added to my list of disappointments and failures.
I stopped to reflect. My bubble burst.
I was 33, divorced, had four failed start-ups, I quit my day job where I was successful and expected to pursue yet another journey as a UX designer. Was I making the right decision?
So many people I knew kept life simple and knew what they wanted while I was still chasing dreams!
DEFINING MYSELF
I really had to look at why all my start-ups failed and I felt this was the only way I could figure ‘me’ out.
I immersed myself in the world of entrepreneurialism and start ups.
I attended events and began networking more, going to meet ups like ‘The Procrastinators Breakthrough Club’, reading blog posts and books like ‘Dear Female Founder’, listening to pod-casts and eventually completed a project management boot camp.
This is what I found
- The internet was still fairly new when I started and I didn’t know how to run an internet business.
- I never created business plans or goals.
- I rarely asked for help out of fear of being told my ideas were rubbish.
- Negative past experiences working with others put me off asking for help.
- I tried to do everything alone.
- I tried to do too much at once.
- When I had a co-founder we were often on different pages.
- I didn’t invest smartly.
- I rushed into making decisions.
- I was doing things I wasn’t confident doing.
- I had the passion and the dream just not a team.
- I had no one to guide, mentor or motivate me.
This is what I learned
- I’m not scared to try.
- I love being able to inspire and share with people.
- I like working from the ground up, behind the scenes and getting my hands dirty.
- The start ups I created to help others were the ones I was most passionate about.
- It’s possible to learn on the job and develop new skills — trust me!
· I produced music videos on a mega low budget, which involved casting, location hunting, storyboarding, editing etc;
· I made web sites and managed content for them
· I created artwork and directed photo-shoots
· I taught myself how to use a ton of different software and utilise social media for promotion
I was not taught any of this before
- Making music wasn’t my only skill!
- My life’s ambition went off track and I discovered I loved being a pharmacy technician… and it wasn’t something to be embarrassed about! I have more qualifications in healthcare than music.
- I love helping people with my knowledge and experience.
- Working in retail and pharmacy made me empathetic.
DEVELOPING
I’m beginning to feel better about myself. I love that I now have a bag of UX tools to add to my many skills and talents. And I am not embarrassed to say
‘I’ve been there, done that, and the T-shirt didn’t fit’.
I once wrote a biography for my website when I was an artist that read,
‘Who I am; is all I am and all I am ever going to be, because I am the only definition of me’
I forgot this for a while trying to be the example of what success looked like. Success is subjective and for me it can’t be measured by how much you have in your bank or by a title.
It is how many people you can inspire
It is learning from falling
It is having the courage to keep trying
It is the effort not the result
Most importantly success is a result of being happy with who you are.What define me are the moments and experiences I created for myself. Who am I?
“I AM AN EXPERIENCE DESIGNER”
Deliver
This is a short video I put together about what inspires and motivates me featuring my music and of course Mylo.
Many thanks
Nimi
Special thanks to Nick Gupta and David Brant! And a huge shout out to GA London, Blooming Founders Lu Li, PBCs’ Abigail Barnes and The UX blog.
