Dear Dave,
Recently I reconnected with a former colleague (hi Jeff!), and we got to talking about ambition.
I was reminded through our conversation about the early days of building my design skillset. I worked at a company where designers were expected to own everything from discovery through execution alongside developers, without support from specialized roles like researchers, content designers or ops. This was a great place to be when I was learning because it helped me grow in lots of different directions, and figure out what I wanted to do - and what I didn’t.
One such example was struggling over making an icon of an awning sufficiently ‘whimsical’, feedback that kept me up at night unsure how I could achieve that. I managed to get the awning right - and learned that an icon designer, I was not.
That was painful. But it was also instructive.
Knowing what I didn’t want to do helped me understand the kind of designer I wanted to be. And when I was given the chance to lean into the research and strategy work I loved, it was deeply affirming to be celebrated and encouraged for those skills.
We tend to think of ambition as wanting something grand. But ambition can just be wanting something different. Ambition can be wanting to find a role that’s just right for you, that enables you to thrive and do your best work. Not to always get it right, and certainly not to always know what you are doing - but to love the work you do.
When I meet with people on my team for the first time, I like to ask them, what gives you energy? (Or using more vivid language borrowed from another former colleague - hi Polly! - ‘what fuels your fire?’) And what takes it away?
We often think of career growth in terms of promotions and salary. These things are very real, and very important. But the happiest people I know in their work are the people who made decisions to work places that embrace who they are, and where the work feels good day-to-day, because it’s aligned to how they work best.
I know this moment in the industry feels disempowering for a lot of us in UX, and with good reason. And: operating from that feeling of disempowerment creates poor conditions for doing your best work.
I still think about that awning. Not because I ever got good at making icons whimsical (or at all), but because of what the many, many hours I spent on it taught me about who I am as a designer, and who I’m not. When all was said and done and my icon made it into production, I knew something more about who I was and who I wanted to be.
I think that’s what ambition actually looks like much of the time. Not a big plan. Just paying attention to how you feel in your work, and redirecting your energy where you thrive.
From beneath a whimsical awning,
Danielle.