TFI NO.14 // Personal Growth
Personal growth has been on my mind a lot lately. Writing a blog, challenging yourself to stay creative and to expose your work on a frequent basis forces yourself to quit your comfort zone, to become more daring and of course to grow personally. Looking at some of the first designs I put online, makes me shiver now but that's part of the game that you become better at your craft whenever you do something daily and also that your early works won't reflect your talents or signature style because it takes time to develop these things.
Also I have been talking to my talented designer friend Alejandra about personal growth today (since she put lots of hard work into relaunching her website and blog, take a look at Sieleth), actually reading her post and seeing her personal growth represented in her blog and studio work inspired me to write about this topic today.
I think I have personally grown a lot as well ever since quitting my 8-5 job to work independently. Blogging, sharing my work and thoughts and also the daily struggles of freelancing certainly make you grow. Learning new things, staying creatively challenged and of course life's daily struggles make you grow - if you let it happen. Stagnation is one of the worst things for me and personal growth certainly is the opposite of stagnation.
I am still not exactly where I want to be in life but I feel that with each step and all the dedication and hard work I put into it, I come a little closer to it day by day. You can only grow from being challenged in my opinion because when you are not challenged or facing struggles, you get comfortable in your little comfort zone bubble. This can be nice for a while but it won't make you grow. So it is important to change things from time to time, to spice up your routines, to learn new things, to meet new people, to visit new cities and countries and just to make new experiences that widen your horizon and let you become more open-minded and flexible.
Growing personally is a big gift you do to yourself. Think about where you were 10 years ago, how much has changed most probably (in my case for sure) and that you'd probably scream if you were still in the same position in life as you were 10 years ago.
I am currently doing this teaching certification program, as I told you before, and I also see it as another step that helps me to personally grow because it clearly forces me to quit my comfort zone. I had to relocate to another city for that time, meet new people, learn lots of new things about didactics and methodology, semantics, systemisation and language teaching in general.
I am a self-taught language teacher and I have been working as a language teacher ever since I was a media design student and now to get a professional background of what I have been doing for so many years now, is a very precious experience. It helps me to personally grow and to feel more self-assured about my work.
Also on my design journey I have grown a lot ever since I started my blog, connected to other designers and started designing on an almost daily basis. Believe me, I learned so much more during that time than I ever did when I was still studying design in university. Because now I do the work that I always wanted to do, the work that I love and also I get back into all the things that were important to me in the past and I feel so grateful and happy about that. Whenever I can learn something new at my own terms and conditions, learning became so easy and I can see my progress as I do.
So you see personal growth is a big topic, one that motivates us to reflect about where we are now and where we want to see ourselves in the future. Compared to a year ago I have come a long way already and I will come a lot further for sure as long as I keep on focusing on my interests and hobbies and while putting lots of time, work and effort into it, I see how my skills improve and that is personal growth for me.
How do you feel about personal growth? Are you happy where you are for now or you want to grow personally more?
