The Evolution of a Graphic Designer’s Vision of Success
Vol. 070
The Evolution of a Graphic Designer’s Vision of Success.
Planning, pivoting and evolving your own vision of success to retain control of and love for your graphic design or creative business.
A quick bite:
Success is a constantly moving, constantly evolving target. If you don’t define success for yourself, you’ll find yourself mindlessly chasing something that you don’t actually want. After a few talks with some incredible designers, my eyes have been opened to how often everyone’s vision of “success” is changing…
Continue reading below…
What does “success” currently mean to you?
Does it mean landing big clients and big projects? Does it mean having 10,000 Instagram followers? Does it mean making $100k? Does it mean having life/work balance?
Over my 10 year career in graphic design, I’ve learned that success is incredibly subjective — your success should only be defined by you. Some may find that success means lots of money. Others may find that success means having the ability to travel whenever they want.
Success is defined as the accomplishment of a goal or a purpose. To find success, you must first have a purpose—you must first have a “why.” As Simon Sinek famously said in his Ted Talk: “it’s not what you do, it’s why you do it”.
I’ve spoken with a handful of incredibly talented graphic designers and creative entrepreneurs over the past week: Drew Lakin, Adam Danielson, Kirk Wallace, Brand Jackson, James Martin (look them all up — you won’t be disappointed)... I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouths, but each of them noted in one way or another that they’ve recently had a shift in their priorities. They’ve had a shift in how they view their own “success.”
For me personally, success used to look like long hours for big clients trying to make big money. When I finally began to get a bit of traction with Vicarel Studios, the idea of doing big, high-paying work for big clients meant everything. I wanted to be seen as a powerhouse in the branding space within the graphic design industry. But, that’s changed.
Yes, I still want to have a positive effect on this industry — that’s why I do things like write this newsletter. However, success now looks like a more balanced life. I still work hard, but not at the expense of essentially everything else in my life, as I used to.
To paraphrase author and leader-coach, John Maxwell,: Success is knowing your purpose in life. Success is finding your “why.” To have a purpose is stabilizing — to have that purpose allows successful people to be anchored and confident to move forward towards what they want in life.
My “why” has changed, recently. And, I’m stoked about it! For my vision of success to grow and evolve means that I as a creative am growing and evolving.
I’ve had a few different versions of what I felt “success” looked like through my career (and I anticipate having many more). At various points in my career, ultimate success looked like:
Landing a graphic design job
Becoming financially independent from my own freelance graphic design business
Saving enough money to buy a house
(currently) Hiring someone to support the growth of Vicarel Studios, allowing me to step away a bit and find more balance.
After working very hard for almost 7 years on growing my branding studio: working most weekends, working long hours late into the evening and sacrificing a lot of personal plans and interests, I’m finally in a position where I can pull my foot off the gas a bit without fear of my business suffering.
At this moment, this is the success I am after.
I allowed other graphic designers, illustrators and muralists to convince me that THEIR vision of success was what I wanted. I allowed my brain to believe that big names, big money and long hours was what success looks like. But I was wrong! That stuff is great, but it is exhausting, draining, and all-consuming.
Right now, success to me is being able to really live, not just work. This gives me more time to focus on being outside, my love for fitness, and my ambassadorship with lululemon. Working towards achieving this success has only been made possible through defining a goal: to step away and plan, and then working towards that goal. It’s inevitable that you will stumble and fail along the way — trust me, I’ve done it a lot. But failure is simply a recalibration that gets you one step closer towards the finish line.
I’m not only feeling strongly about this concept myself but also hearing this from others. So, I wanted to be sure that you were reminded of this too!
Define success for yourself. Work towards that success. Allow that definition of success to evolve, just like you and your interests.
Change is inevitable, and embracing that notion will only help you feel more confident in your pursuits of success!
