Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to design in confidence. What's the <inaudible>. I'm a creative coach speaker and facilitator. Designing confidence is a podcast for designers, innovators, creative leaders, or just anyone or wants to change. I will share learnings deep reflections on how mindfulness and design to build creative confidence, improve emotional intelligence and management. This episode is about what I wish I knew on how portfolios and CV affect mental health. In confidence in my career had moments when my portfolio made me feel lost and stuck. I was looking at it a little bit. Like the queen is no white portfolio portfolio on the wall. My a good designer and the portfolio was answering Moroni Budd projects. I, he, you will never get the role you want to be. Holy is made me feeling secure about my past and insecure about all the steps I need to take next in my career.
Speaker 0 00:01:08 If this ever happened to you, maybe not with the weird voices, you might find useful how my CV and my portfolio made me feel yes, insecure, but also how, when I learn how to be in control of them built my creative confidence as designers, we are really lucky because our industry requires portfolios. This means that we can showcase our projects, our work and show others what we have done. A few other careers have something similar, but most of them have CVS and resume. I want mistakes is to think about them only when we need to apply for new jobs. But what I learned is that they are much more than that. There are a way to be grateful of what we're done, be mindful of who we are and be mindful of who we want to become in confidence. I learned that because I spent four years of my career without updating my portfolio, my CV, that because I was doing a job where most of the clients and the projects were under confidentiality bowl.
Speaker 0 00:02:19 So I was just happy about the job, or at least I thought I was happy, but most of all, I didn't want to give them pressure by that in my portfolio line, that there was looking for a job and they will have created me a problem with my employee. This is probably one of the biggest regrets of my career because then after four years, I decided to leave and become a freelancer also by leaving behind visual design and start to focus of becoming a UX designer. And when that happened, I looked back to those four years of projects. Most of them were really, really bad, and most of them were not aligned with who I wanted to be. There were mainly visual design projects, not UX projects. And these brought me to feel that I wasn't good enough and made me feel that I wasn't able to change career both as a freelancer and as a UX designer, I was scared, insecure, and anxious after resigning for the first time in my life, from a job to become a freelancer.
Speaker 0 00:03:26 And without any clients lined up, I felt as just jumped from our in board, realizing that I wasn't able to swim without knowing how deep the water was, then something happened. I'm sorry about, I don't remember what it was, but that changed my mindset. I stopped considering my portfolio as a collection of all the things I've done and started to consider it as an expression of who I have become. And with this new mindset and perspective, I started to realize, yes, it's true. Most of my projects were bad, but the projects of my last years were the best ones. So my past projects, what ensuring whatever designer, that was how I became a better designer. And yes, it's true. Most of my projects didn't show who I wanted to be, but the last ones were showing who I was becoming. They showed me that I was testing my new UX skills, even if it was planning mainly the role of visual designers on projects, because that's what was required by that organization.
Speaker 0 00:04:37 And actually these confirm me that to be a UX designers, I needed to leave. I needed new, more and better learning opportunities. And this had to do the bromine months later to get my first job as a UX designer in a startup, I didn't hide or made up things in my portfolio. I would just show him what it was doing, even if I was a visual designer. And I do remember that during the interview, that thing was questioned and I could confidently and honestly answer yes on this projects. I wasn't a UX designer and none of these projects show that I can take the process end to end that I tested each phase of the process on different projects. And this is what makes me now confident that I can handle the whole process end to end. And this is why I'm confident that that we're able to do it. If you give me this job and they gave me the job. So this mindset helped me be aware of my strengths and my areas of improvement. So that could be harnessed, weave the interviewer volts with myself on what I was able to do in the past. But most of all on what I was able to become
Speaker 0 00:05:57 Since then, uh, Neta stop updating my portfolio. Even when I did the one to leave from a job. And yes, in my eyes look like I wanted to leave, but my online presence can also attract talent to my organization. That happened. For example, when I was mentoring a line and people reach out to know more about it, but also to be straightforward. If my employer doesn't trust me, when I say that they want to leave. If my employer is not happy, when I celebrate out good for me, it is to work with them. Or if for my employer, the only way to keep me there is to force me to hide my value to others. It means that our relationship has a bigger problem, no matter whatever I do with my portfolio. So you might ask what about confidentiality and intellectual property? Part of this mindset also brought me to realize that I don't need to show what they've done in the past, but how that shows, what I can do in the future.
Speaker 0 00:07:01 This means that many times <inaudible> don't show much about the project. I can still communicate where they need to communicate, but also not all the stories need to be ready to be read. I don't update my public portfolio all the time. I also have a private portfolio where I collect stories to be told in a confidential environment, or to add them ready for whenever, be possible to share them in a public way. But most of all, the purpose of the private portfolio is to have me mindful pay attention to whatever's done without worrying about whether somebody would be able to see it before I told you that the problem with our attitude with portfolios and CVS is that we update them only where we need to find a new job. But what I'm suggesting to do is to not consider your son to there needs to be public and share with others by something private that you use to be mindfully aware and in control of your career path and personal growth, just like a gratitude journal for me, taking the time to update my portfolio means taking the time to reflect on what I learned, be grateful of the posting that was given and celebrate whatever done also by intentionally and mindfully removing an old projects from my portfolio because that past project has become not good enough to show how much better, how we'll be able to do something similar in the future.
Speaker 0 00:08:29 And it's okay when you don't add the new things in your portfolio for three reasons, the first reason why it's okay to not add new things to your portfolio. It's because some projects have be your courses that you might end up doing. You just do them for the sake of doing them, maybe in the future, you will understand why they fit, whatever you are, whatever you have become, or maybe not. And that's okay. Now, for example, happened to me with improvisation and with organizing creative mornings, there's something that was in my CV in the past. And then after a while, I realized how that could be part of the narrative to share with others or what I was doing or what I can do. But many of the things never ended up there, which links with the second reasons why it's okay. When you don't add new things in your portfolio is there.
Speaker 0 00:09:21 As I said before, it's okay. If not, everything ends up on your public website, where you showcase your professional career. I have different portfolios. I have a public website. I have a PDF. The one I mentioned before I have an Instagram account, I have medium posts. I have LinkedIn and a lot about, and you can do what suits you like a word document, or a collage on the wall or whatever you should look about your portfolio as a spectrum of things that you use. There is one end of the spectrum where you have things that are for others. You do have an audience, and you understand how to tell them a story of what you're capable of. And then there is the other end of the spectrum, which is just for you Saturday. You used to be grateful, mindful, and learn and reflect on what you've done.
Speaker 0 00:10:16 But also there are some portfolios that are on the middle of the spectrum. Some are public at a share and they give a little bit less formal image of who you are as a professionalist. You might have another portfolio that you use to share things or into as small and private audience, for example, your mentor or your teammates, your company. And then you might have some public portfolios where actually it's not clear who you are, your identity secret, so that people cannot see the connection to your professional career. The third reasons why it's okay when you don't add new things to your portfolio is the goal is not updating it, but deciding whether to update it because it becomes a way to be mindful of where they, you are building the story that you will tell in the future. For example, I always wanted to manage and lead others to help them grow and impact.
Speaker 0 00:11:13 But multiple times, by looking at my portfolio, I realized I wasn't getting the learnings. They pushed entities to actually build that confidence and to tell that story in the future. So I designed what to do as a freelancer. I decided to create them by becoming a teacher as employed. I asked my employees to have me become mentor coach and manage others. And when I felt that that was not good enough, I started mentoring online. Yes, maybe we time by just doing my job. I was, will get the experience to show that I was good to do my job and get a promotion and become manager, but I'm sure I will have felt far less confident at that. Because many times people get promoted with the assumption there. That means that you're going to be able to support and mentor and inspire people that do that job.
Speaker 0 00:12:04 That's something that also Simon Sinek talks about on the show notes that you can find on designing confidence.com. You can find the link on an amazing toxic gave, but he says that people are expert in the job they're doing, but they're not expert in being in charge of people that do that job end up micromanaging because they need to feel in charge of the work they're doing. And the way I managed to avoid them, my career is about being aware and in control of my portfolio and what career narrative was creating all the learnings it was giving me. So I could build the creative confidence to move from being able to design, to enable others, to design in confidence. I have a final reason why it's okay to not update your portfolio. Is there like everything else, too much of something hurts. Remember the beginning of this story, I started using my portfolio to manage your mental health.
Speaker 0 00:13:01 When I started to be aware of how my projects, my story, and my portfolio, whatever were really impacting on my mental health. And that is just what they did. Y'all might be a different story. Make sure that updating doesn't become an obsession, something you're dependent from and get angry about. Remember they're mindfully, updating your portfolio means giving yourself the opportunity to be mindfully aware and in control of who you are and mindful design, if when and how to update your portfolio and plan what to do next. So it's more like Simba from the lion king, when it looks into his image inside the pond, and he could hear my father saying, remember, design, who you are, look at your portfolio, Simba, you are more the warrior you have become. Remember, I'm pretty sure we'll fast. I said something like that.
Speaker 0 00:14:01 So start to mindfully design your portfolio or whatever you will use in a public or private way to be mindfully aware and in control of what you do become a will be. I will talk more about portfolio feature episodes. So subscribe, meanwhile, you can reach out if you need any support with yours. If you have any questions, go to design and confidence.com there, you can see how to contact me and also find links to relevant resources and people I've had respiring for this. And other talks. Remember that we'll talk about here does not represent any of my former or current employees, but in some show notes, they deserve a Lisa. Thank you. And if you found this aspiring, please leave a review and share this podcast. Tell people why you think this podcast help your creative confidence, become someone else, a safe space to talk about these topics and to find support in building their creative confidence. Because if you got this far, I'm sure you're a great listener, which I thank you for. And now he stayed for me to shut up so that you can listen to your thoughts after this episode and remember to thank yourself for the time you spent to learn and grow.
