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You are more creative then you think

Everyday you do things that are creative. From the way that you tie your shoes and even the way you avoid certain collisions.  Even the way that you cook your food and prepare it. Because whether you believe it or not that requires a bit of creativity.

At times we think of being creative as being only from certain individuals. I just want to keep this nice and short and let you know that whether you believe it or not your creative. The type of creativity you may have is one that does not work for lets say building houses and or drafting furniture designs.

So don’t let your creativity just go to waste go and make use of it.

What will die with you?

What are you doing right now that you know you should and or could be doing? Therefore what will die with you ?

Because at times we can be so scared to attempt something because of the social conditioning we’ve gotten from friends, family and society in general. So think of it this way its better for you to live life saying “I’m so glad I tried” instead of “I wish I had tried that”.

Realizing you’ve wasted time

This is at times something very hard to admit. Whenever I do not have a structured day I feel as if I’m just all over the place. When you schedule your day you don’t have to be upset at not getting anything done. Don’t live in the fantasy world of thinking being busy is a sign of progress.

When you are busy it depends on what you are doing. It is so easy to waste time on reddit and many of the various other sites. Because once you finish reading something you want to find another to read. The similar thing can be applied to taking drugs, food and etc.

Just to keep this short.

While your wasting a day you have an less and less time to get your desired goal achieved.

 

Knowing your work is not good enough

 

 

This is a realization that I came to the other day. Because over time while we post our work on our portfolio site it becomes boring. In other words we realize that its not good as we think it is. For example you have to pay attention to what people are saying.

If people are not saying anything that tells you a lot. The life of a project after getting posted can die a slow death. As humans we like to see knew and exciting stuff. If I did not update my blog 5 days a week you would go find another blog to read that constantly has new articles.

This is pertaining a realization that I need to update my portfolio section more. Really this is all in being honest with yourself. If you are like me and you’ve developed a better taste for design, then you expect more from yourself. So therefore the only way to get better quality of work is to make time to get better.

While you get off from your day Job whether you work as a designer full time or a day job like I do and design after your day Job get to work. You have to dig deep down to have energy to want to make that transition. Another thing I feel we experience knowing our work is not good by getting comfortable. One simple way to put it is being lazy.

But wait there’s one main point that I want you to remember is that:

Look at your current design work and then your previous work.  Are there things you see immediately that you did wrong? Now go look at your current work are there things you see you did wrong?

Those few questions will help you realize whether you’ve improved your work and also your vision of a completed piece and how its supposed to look.

Failing to learn

I still have been applying to hopefully secure a graphic design position. But there was one thing that I did wrong. On my resume I had a careless mistake. The mistake was have just one single letter that was a mistype. I immediately caught the mistake compared to the first time.

But the thing I want you to realize that if I did not improve as a designer then I would not have seen the mistake immediately. This is something that I have noticed about myself. The other day  I was looking through my old schoolwork and I realized the changes that I would make and then what I did wrong.

Then the realization that I have improved skill-wise and I have improved the way I see design. The same thing can be done for you as well. The amount of discipline it takes to want to improve in every way possible is almost insane. Because you have to dedicate yourself to the grind of day after day. Failure after failure which then leads to success after success.

Remember this that failing is not a bad thing if you continue on the fact that you failed and do not take the time to realize what you could learn from it and what you did learn from it.

How to stay consistent

Staying consistent is really not difficult as you may think. Because at times we start something and then just burn out. But in actuality the real thing is not wanting it bad enough. Also realizing the effects of you not staying consistent.

When you have a reason for staying consistent you have an end goal. For example if you are cooking dinner you expect to have food to eat. Then another example is if you are producing a logo that can be used on multiple pieces of branding material, you expect it to be very strong conceptually and visually.

Disciplining yourself to say I am going to continue doing this no matter what till I see results. Then after you say to yourself I am going to stick with it and you start seeing results keep going. Because you are just scratching the surface. Which means you do not get lazy and quit.

So here is how I stay consistent

  1. Realize that I do want to do this (my current task/goal)
  2. Believe that I can do it
  3. Take no days off
  4. Constantly seek inspiration everywhere
  5. Know that I am not going to put out crap work just for the sake of it
  6. Fight through the crap work
  7. Set a goal to showcase a new piece of work somewhere for everyone to see
  8. Realize that at times it will be stressful and seem impossible but do not give in
  9. Do not be afraid to experiment with different techniques and etc
  10. Remember to have fun

There are many different techniques to stay consistent. Because I know that not everything works for everyone. These are a few that I use to be able to stay consistent.

My Current book I’m reading

This is a book that I decided I needed to purchase. Simply because I felt there are a lot of books out there on design. But I knew that improving my logo design skills and etc was important. You know when you have been doing something for so long you feel as if your lost. By being lost meaning your fall into the same approach. Therefore this was the way that I had a light to help guide me. I will say this is definitely worth purchasing.

The tutorials are some of the best that I have come across and are so simple to follow. When you read through this you will feel as if you are almost cheating and then have times such as wow so this is how its done. But I’ll let you be the judge.

Know Your Limits

When you are giving it you all in your pursuit make sure to know your limits. I recently experienced being burnt out. Since I wake up between 4:15 – 4:30 a.m most days are a bit longer. Anyhow I learned a lesson about overworking myself.

After learning my limits I realized how important stamina and getting enough rest can be. Also managing your time very critically is important. Because you can wake up early and get absolutely nothing done. For example you can read and eat breakfast then after just waste time browsing the internet.

When the sun comes up you want to be saying to yourself my goodness I never had gotten so much work done. There is just something about having more time to get work done. Let me stay on topic with this post and not get off track. I am not saying working hard is bad at all. Just more so you do not want to simply slowly start killing yourself.

By killing yourself I mean by not working smart,eating right and etc. Because there are people who do not need as much sleep as others. I for one feel if I get more then 5 hours I have slept too much. Another way to look at working hard,waking up early what is is your reason for it?

Then are you willing to start allowing yourself to increase your limits. In other words are you willing to take better care of yourself to push beyond your limits. When I started eating a bit better, exercising, doing yoga and meditation I always feel great. As designers we sit on our ass all day. We both know that’s not good to constantly do.

So make sure to get up away from your computer screen when the time permits. Do yourself a favor to not crash and burn while you reach beyond your limits.