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The Key to Success Is Being Coachable
If you want to level up your design career, be curious and open to feedback
As UX professionals, we constantly iterate and refine our designs, features, and products. We collect user feedback, uncover key themes and problems, and revise accordingly. While it can be scary to put our ideas and designs out there, collecting feedback early and often is crucial to our overall success. It’s better to learn we’re on the wrong track at the beginning of a project than to learn it after we’ve invested several months of hard work and dedication. This idea of collecting candid feedback and adapting accordingly is equally important from a professional development perspective. In order to excel in your career, you need to be coachable. You need to cultivate a curious and open mind, actively seek out and welcome feedback, and continuously look inward and honestly self-reflect.
Being curious and open minded will expose you to new ideas, perspectives, and opportunities
Whether you’re just entering the workforce or working as a high-level executive, curiosity and open-mindedness are crucial to your success. Seek out colleagues you don’t often work with and learn more about their roles. What projects are they working on? Who do they work with? What do they care about?
Say yes to a variety of opportunities and projects, especially early in your career.
By learning more about them, you’ll forge new relationships, better understand the overall business, and maybe even uncover opportunities to partner together.
Be hungry to learn and open to new opportunities and experiences. Look for meetups in your area, listen to podcasts, attend webinars, and read. Learn about problems other professionals are facing and how they’ve overcome them, and think about how you can apply these learnings to your own workplace.
Branch out and learn about completely different fields as well. It will keep things interesting and can spur more creative and out-of-the-box problem solving. And say yes to a variety of opportunities and projects, especially early in your career. Approach them as…
