anxiety vs. joy: how to define a design practice that serves you

A brief lesson from my eight years of using human-centered design thinking

When was the last time you felt intellectually and creatively satisfied? You followed an idea to its logical end simply because it fascinated you or detailed a concept on paper to understand its nature. You talked with, not to, someone, for hours, about theories, views, and beliefs. The process was not frenzied, concerned with so-called perfection, or presumptive. It was an open-minded and open-ended search for meaning. Slow, patient, wondrous, and delightful. This is the ultimate luxury life affords us, and it is absolutely free. 

Stressful educational, work, or social environments have robbed many of us, myself included, of the joy of inquiry and learning. Decoupling anxiety from learning has been my personal journey for the last ten years. 

What I have found is, each action I take to make learning less stressful is also a step towards making it more relaxed and enjoyable. I massaged scar tissue and involuntarily fresh, living-giving blood flowed through my cells. 

This effort has been crucial for me to grow as a designer, a product thinker, and a creative. Designers need to be curious, but to be genuinely curious we need to be capable anxiety-free learning. So, how do we create this for ourselves? 

Here’s what has worked for me. 

To be an anxiety-free designer first requires a level of self-awareness. You need to be able to identify when you are stressed and articulate what stresses you. Then it requires buy-in; how badly do you want to change your ways and thought patterns? And why? My why was about how much I fundamentally value abundance. I want to always operate from a place of abundance, which is antithetical to stress and fear. Lastly is a realization that you are in control of your own values. What values do you want to underpin your design practice? 

For me, an anxiety-free, curiosity-fueled, joyful design practice is underpinned by:

• Planning, which includes: 

  • Knowing my priorities 

  • Goal setting

• Patience

• Conviction

• Low ego

• A sense of humor

• Strong communication, which includes:

  • Setting my boundaries 

• Adaptability

• Reflection and evolution

Each of these values requires attention and cultivation, and applying them to my practice has been gradual. 

Engineering culture, and specifically coding culture, at my alma mater, Stanford University, was centered around overworking. Students burned the candle at both ends, the late night oil, and, eventually, their own creative light. The stereotypical coder was someone who rarely went outside, drank Mountain Dew at 1AM to stay awake and code, and infrequently showered, socialized, or engaged with the humanities. 

I want my generation of designers to model a different type of creator within technology. I want us to have high quality, peaceful lives that are healthy and whole. I believe this is fundamental for longevity, happiness, and inspiration as a designer. The models that came before us, e.g. Steve Jobs, provided a blueprint that doesn’t work for me. I am interested in walking down a new pathway, through bramble and bush, pushing aside small branches, and walking through spiderwebs. Our lives are short, and we want to design. Let us design in a way that is complimentary to who we are, or aspire to be, as people. 

Exercise 1 

1. Write down a topic or a question that you have recently found interesting. 

2. Research (e.g. search about it on the internet, talk to smart people, muse while you walk to your next destination, shower, cook, or clean).

3. Brain dump in a Google or Notion doc, Miro, physical whiteboard, or on a piece of paper. 

4. Once all the information is laid out, start labeling what you’ve found and grouping the information. Give each group a theme. 

5. What themes did you identify? What do you now know about this topic or question that you did not know before? What questions remain? 

6. Share! Meet up with a friend and share what you discovered. Or share your process and findings in a group chat, with your colleagues, or on social media. 

Exercise 2

1. Write down a list of characteristics you believe define your design / creative / product development / coding practice. 

2. Label them as positive, negative, or neutral. 

3. How might you lessen or entirely remove the negative values?

4. How might you strengthen or add on the positive values?