As a Junior Designer, a newcomer in the industry we are prone to being introduced into something new to us more often. To be able to conquer this, you must have to be able to learn, unlearn , and re-learn

It’s a bit uncomfortable because we are usually able to learn but never follow through on the latter two habits.

In order to learn, unlearn, and re-learn, you must have to be self aware to know your limit capacity.

Being self aware will help you to assess yourself. You will know what you are good at, where you lack, what you are bad at, and where to improve! Of course, you will not know it all at once.

YOU HAVE TO TAKE YOUR TIME

There is already a lot of pressure around you, don’t add up to the fire. Duh.

You are not used to everything that you are introduced to, and so you do not have to move fast. You just have to make movement or progress everyday. It will be harder to track at first, but that is okay. Plan what you are going to do, assess your weakness and strength first to know your capacity. You do not want to rush things and fail before you even get to the middle.

TAKE WHAT YOU DO SERIOUSLY

I know we often say to some of our colleagues “Do not stress about work”, “Don’t take it seriously”. But it is not always the case, there are things that we really are committed to and want to achieve – so we have to be serious about it sometimes. That doesn’t mean you have to be serious and focused 24/7, know when to stop and have fun through the journey. It’s more about commitment.

ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL EMOTIONS

Make yourself feel the very emotion you are feeling at that moment. Whether that emotion is frustration, accomplishment or anything else! Allowing it to be felt will point you on how you are doing in that moment. It will help you observe, analyze, and assess yourself later on.

JOT DOWN HOW YOU FEEL

Those fleeting emotions that you have felt, you can jot them down (digitally or traditionally). The point is to make you remember later on how you felt at that moment. You will be able to get back at it and start assessing your struggles, your accomplishments, your failures. Sort of like a diary, a diary that will help you monitor your day and how you are moving forward.

REFLECT

Reflect on the emotion that you have jotted down. Think if it is something externally or internally that affects you. Think WHY? Think HOW?.

Why is this happening? How has this happened?

This allows you to track how you ended up here, and you can see if you want to end up here again or how to avoid feeling this way.

Reflect and you’ll find the answer.

ASK

Ask the people around you. Be it your manager, your co-worker, or someone in another department. There’s never any harm in asking.

OPEN YOURSELF TO FEEDBACK

Always be open to feedback. This is one of the important points of integrating the self-awareness habit.  Open your ears to any feedback from your colleague as they are also seeing and working with you.

More often than not, you will get diverse answers and be able to see yourself from a different lens. This can often lead to more reflection, which is always a good thing. Don’t let negative feedback bring you down, assess it in a positive manner.

WORK ON IT STEP-BY-STEP

Building a habit is hard, but at the very least you keep moving even if it is inch by inch. Assess yourself day by day and reflect, because not doing any work on the assessment won’t l end to any results!

A final point: do not rush anything, just trust your process.

Especially as a Junior Designer, you will be dependent on your seniors most of the time especially on decisions – but if you acquire the habit of self-awareness/reflection, you could be improving yourself day-by-day in the industry that never sleeps.