119 - Everything Isn't Great

What this episode covers

Everything isn't always great, and it's OK to admit that. Sometimes. Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED Music and links from this episode Lunar Dunes by Spinning Clocks Anti-Saloon League Midnight Mystery by Fields Ohio Nothing Like Captain Crunch by Broke For Free Line-by-line notes Being British has its advantages We don't have the endless optimism of the Americans We're definitely more realists than optimists I think it's the dour weather That sours our mood Today's episode has a very melancholy mood And not because I'm in a melancholy mood either Everything isn't great all of the time And it's OK to admit that This AADA, and I'm Craig Burgess. MUSIC I will be honest though I really couldn't be bothered with this podcast today I spent all last night making a business idea, writing and building a website in 3 hours That's online now by the way if you want to check it out It's at whyismywebsiteslow.co.uk After last night's late night The last thing I want to do tonight is more things that require me to think hard But here I am Recording this podcast And speaking to you now Things aren't always perfect And I think it's OK to admit that It's more than OK to admit that Social media is definitely skewing this opinion that we always have to be great Facebook, Twitter and Instagram especially is a carefully edited edition of somebody's life It all looks good when somebody's life is reduced down to a couple of photos on the internet But when we sit flicking through that kind of thing And everybody else's life looks more perfect than ours It's hard not to feel a little bit ungrateful about your own life Why is my life not perfect like their perfect life on Instagram? The thing is though, it is Your life is just as perfect as theirs No matter how happy they look in that photo they just took when they got out of bed Five minutes before they were as miserable as sin and didn't want to get out of bed We all suffer from the same things The same highs and the same lows And today, I'm here to tell you that's OK This applies to everything in life, but especially with design When you're designer, you're constantly looking at other designer's work And it's hard to look at their work And not feel inferior to all the better designers out there I feel like this all of the time I wish I could be more like Michael Beirut And I wish I could draw properly like all the amazing illustrators on the internet But the same thing applies You're looking at a carefully crafted portfolio designed to make you think that designer is amazing It doesn't show behind the scenes at the work that we've all done Those design jobs that we don't put in our portfolios because they're absolutely terrible It's OK to feel inferior to them, but remember that you're not Every designer has their off days, their off weeks, even their off years Every designer goes through a period of not feeling inspired anymore And questioning whether they're past it, or not good enough, or never going to be as good as insert any famous designer If you think like that, you'll never be good enough As long as you pursue a life long mission to be better than you was yesterday That's good enough Everything isn't always great And that's good enough too Perfection sounds nice But it just doesn't exist MUSIC This was AADA, and I'm Craig Burgess Music featured in this episode was: Lunar Dunes by Spinning Clocks Anti-Saloon League Midnight Mystery by Fields Ohio Nothing Like Captain Crunch by Broke For Free For a line by line run down of this episode, go over to askadesigneranything.com/ep119 Thanks for listening I'm back tomorrow Support Ask a Designer Anything Ask a Designer Anything Website Twitter (@craigburgess) Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook Leave me a review on iTunes