ep.01: failed to succeed

Episode 01: failed to succeed

I’m failing to succeed.

Not because I haven’t achieved anything, but because I keep dismissing what I have achieved.

I think that a lot of designers, or better yet self-taught designers, can relate to this damn habit of forgetting to look back at the achievements that we did succeed in, and all the struggles that comes with beating the grind of classic academia.

For me - I forget that I’ve been working as a designer for more than 10 years and that I landed jobs at 5 different  offices, in Israel first and then in Germany.

That I built my career without a formal academic degree, learning everything through online courses, self-study, and endless trial and error.

And yet, when I’m facing another slump in my career as I do these days due to being laid off from my previous job, I suddenly feel like I haven’t achieved anything at all, because I again need to prove my aptitude to yet another series of hundreds of recruiters and HR managers.

That’s the trap: we zoom in on the failures and zoom out on the wins.

But maybe the problem isn’t that we’re failing, it’s that we’re expecting SUCCESS to feel like a clean, upward line.

For me right now success seems like a blurry target, but that’s the deal - show up anyway to do the work, despite the doubts.

To all of my brothers and sisters in the gang of misfits who are failing, I say - let’s fail together! 

I am right there with you.

This is the first post in a new series I’m calling “The Failed Designer”, where I’ll share the missteps, doubts, rejections, and creative stumbles that have shaped me just as much as (maybe more than) the wins.

Because now, even after a decade in the field, I’m still learning how to fail better.

If you’ve ever struggled to see your own progress then I hope this resonates with you.

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