Do you know how you’re feeling?

What are you thinking?

Why do you do the things you do?

Many of us are simply unaware of what’s going on for us.

We move through our day not paying attention to what we’re thinking and feeling.

We tend to do the same things over and over.

We react in similar ways when things trigger us.

We act in ways that seem like a mystery to us.

We think it’s just the way we are or the way things are.

You probably never give it much thought.

You probably never think about what you’re thinking except that you notice you often feel anxious, frustrated, self-conscious, filled with doubt, angry, you feel stuck.

But why?

The why. That part is fuzzier.

Our brain tells us we’re angry because our boss is an as*hole, or we’re self-conscious and filled with doubt because our work isn’t as good as the designer who sits next to us.

We don’t even know why we’re anxious, we only know we feel it all the time.

We feel we’ve hit a roadblock, we’re at a crossroads in our career and we don’t know what to do.

So what’s going on here?

What I want to share with you is something so powerful and seemingly simple.

What’s going on is we’re having a whole series of thoughts.

And these different thoughts are creating our experiences.

Your feelings are created by the thoughts that you are believing.

You need to examine all the thoughts in your head to get a clear idea of what’s going on for you.

We think we know what we’re thinking but we really don’t, so we need to start writing all our thoughts down.

I suggest you do this by creating a thought download every day.

You may want to leave your thoughts in your head but it’s extremely important to write your thoughts down.

This is the only way to become more aware of what’s going on for you.

It’s like doing research on your brain to observe how it works. This is critical because your thoughts produce your feelings which drive your behaviors.

When you write down all your thoughts, you can start seeing all the thoughts you’re believing.

Get curious

Closely examine each and ask yourself – is it’s true?

Get really curious about what you’re thinking every day.

If you want to understand why you believe something or you do what you do, you must start by looking at your thoughts and getting curious about your thoughts.

We tend to believe our brain but it often thinks things that aren’t true.

Our brains are wired to create narratives around everything we think about and to find evidence for the things we’re already thinking.

Do you ever notice times when you create a story in your head and it doesn’t prove to be true? We sometimes call this jumping to conclusions. As humans, we do this a lot.

Remember it’s not true just because you think it.

When you write all your thoughts down you will become more aware of all the beliefs you’re carrying around.

You can start seeing more clearly why you’re feeling angry or why you feel so much self-doubt or are anxious.

What thoughts are you having about your career?

So start by writing down all your thoughts.

Do a thought download every day.

It’s about understanding yourself better by examining your brain. It’s an important first step.

Stay tuned. Next, I’ll share with you how to get a deeper understanding of what’s going on for you by taking a look at your feelings. Our feelings drive our actions so it’s super useful to understand how you feel.

You try to stop but your brain keeps creating more and more thoughts about it. The more your mind thinks about it, the more stories it creates.

You’ve experienced this before, right?

Story versus facts

Do you know that the story your brain tells you are not the facts?

Facts are things that can be proven in a court of law, that everyone would agree with.

Your story is not the facts, it’s not the truth.

Why do you choose to believe everything your mind tells you?

Your life is created by your thoughts

There’s a difference between your thoughts and what actually happens in your life. Any given situation is neutral. It’s your thoughts about a situation that create your experience of it.

How would thinking more neutral about a situation at work benefit you? Rather than believing your own story about a situation, how can you be more intentional with your thoughts?

A big bag of rocks

I used to create a lot of drama about what other people thought about the work I was doing. I created a lot of story around being under-appreciated and undervalued.

I carried around this story for a long time, like a big bag of rocks. I’d take it to work with me in the morning, and drag it home with me at night.

It was exhausting and it didn’t get me anywhere. I made it so much harder on myself!

We often produce the exact opposite of the result we want by believing the stories our brains are creating.

Over time I realized that these thoughts were not the ones I wanted to live with, they were simply the stories my brain made up about the situation.

And these thoughts produced the opposite result I was looking for.

The more I thought this way, the less I appreciated myself and valued the work I was doing.

What do you make it mean about you?

Our brains are wired to tell stories and to make connections. It’s a natural tendency of our brains.

But what are you making the story in your head mean about you?

I was making my story mean that I wasn’t doing a good job because the people around me weren’t valuing me in the way I desired. Simply put, I wanted external validation. That’s a natural tendency too, we all want to be valued, but we need to value ourselves first and find our value within ourselves.

The good news is that you can better understand how your mind works and you can start choosing new thoughts to try-on.

I decided to drop the story about being undervalued and decided to feel proud of what I was doing no matter what. I realized I had the power to reclaim my self-confidence and to believe in myself. And the best part is it didn’t require me to change other people! Which you understand isn’t possible, right?

You have the power

Do you believe this?

Do you feel empowered about your work and your life?

If not, check-in with the stories you’re telling yourself, what are the thoughts going through your head?

With practice, you’ll be able to see your thoughts in real-time and you can learn to be more intentional with your thoughts.

It’s about living intentionally with your thoughts.

What we choose to believe is our truth.

Do you want help and guidance to feel more empowered about your work? How can you think more intentional thoughts to produce the results you really want in your life?

I hear many designers talk about passion projects that never get done and about believing things need to be done right or not at all. Designers focus on producing excellent work for clients and feel frustrated when they do not complete their own passion projects that are meaningful and important to their heart and soul.

I held onto the expectation that all my projects (both work and personal) be executed with precise detail— perfectionism at all costs! In my mind, things were never really done perfectly and I often felt disappointed or upset.

Does this sound familiar?

As designers, we often carry around perfectionist tendencies.

“I need to do everything perfectly, or not at all.”

The trouble is, there’s no such thing as “perfect.” Perfection is an illusion because perfect doesn’t exist.

Perfectionism is a dislike for anything less than perfection.

A perfectionist is “a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”

The mindset of perfectionism

Expecting perfection produces feelings of anxiety, stress, judgment, low-self-confidence and loads of self-criticism.

In the Psychology Today article “How to Overcome Your Perfectionist Tendencies”:

“Perfectionist tendencies lead us to engage in a comparing mindset, where we rate or grade ourselves in comparison to others in almost everything we do. And you know what happens then: we almost always come up short in our estimation.”

These feelings led to a lack of joy in most any project but also to avoidance and procrastination. You’d rather not do it than to do it poorly.

The result is that perfectionism often results in things not getting done, like the passion projects that are most important to you.

Here’s an example of how the mind works:

Circumstance – Your passion projects
Thought – “I need to do everything perfectly, or not at all.”
Feeling – Anxiety
Action – You procrastinate and don’t work on side projects
Result  – You donâ€t get things done.

The fix?

Overcoming perfectionism

Basically, the idea is to produce a new thought. “I need to do everything perfectly, or not at all,” is a thought that does not serve you well and produces the result of not getting things done.

Since this is not your intention, working towards a thought that will produce the intended result of getting things done. “I’m going to work on my side project and see what happens.”

Other strategies are to produce B- work. Rather than striving for A+ work at all times, allow yourself to do the work with an above average result rather than outstanding. (For those designers who prototype, see it as the first iteration of the project!)

Excellence and perfectionism are two different things

Excellence is doing the best you can do. The operative word here is doing. Perfectionism so often leads to inaction or to no progress.

As designers, our client projects are not done perfectly. With client work, constraints and compromises (plenty of them!) play a role in the completion of a project. We do excellent work in the timeframe allotted for the project.

At work, obsessing over perfection will block you from getting anything done. And let’s face it, project deadlines are what keep perfectionism from getting out of control.

Setting time constraints

Client work gets done because it has a timeline with a specified deadline. Rather than allowing the tasks for your passion project all the time you need, give yourself a time constraint.

“I have three hours on Sunday to work on completing “x” and I will complete it in that amount of time.” Sticking to a schedule can really help you get things done. And watch your thoughts because your mind will want to tell you that you need more time!

Is perfectionism preventing you from reaching your goals?

I know what it’s like when perfectionism gets in the way. We can work through it!  Schedule a mini session with me to talk over how we can start working together.