Self-limiting beliefs

Will I get a job?

I’m reaching the end of my master’s program. Once I graduate in November, my student life will be really over. When I graduated from my bachelor, I still had some time to figure things out. But wrapping up a master’s just feel bigger. The transition from student life to working life feels more real, decisions I make have real consequences now.

I’d been telling myself to look for jobs to be prepared for life after graduation, but the truth is I’m kinda pretending it’s not real. Life after graduation feels like a big, scary shadow looming over my shoulders that I’m too scared to look back at. Job hunting has been on my mind, but I have been avoidant with it. Mostly because of anxiety.

After my Sociology bachelor, I took a masters course in Product Design because I wanted to pivot from the slow-paced academia to a more dynamic kind of work in fast-paced environments. This is not to trash academia (I will forever be a Sociology girl). It’s simply that I feel most alive doing product design. I love seeing my research being put into building something tangible.

With such a pivot, I feel like I’m stepping into a completely new world.

My master’s program doesn’t teach vertical technical skills. They throw students into projects with real clients, in teams with different competencies, then you figure it out yourself with some guidance from mentors. In a way, it helps me leverage my expertise in research and the horizontal, multidisciplinary thinking I had started to gain through some work experience, and add value to the projects.

On the other hand, it leaves me questioning: “will I ever learn vertical skills a designer is supposed to have?” - like UI, visual design, and some basic knowledge in coding. With an intensely packed schedule of the program, the only time I’d have to learn vertical skills would be at the expense of sleep - which is not ideal for someone who literally turns into a monster with any less than 8 hours of sleep :)

When I share my anxiety to mentors and teammates about not yet having solid vertical skills, they all tell me that I’ve got the mindset, that I add value to projects with my research expertise and multidisciplinary knowledge. Still, I can’t help but wonder: will I ever get hired with such a lack of vertical skills and knowledge? Ergo my anxiety about the near, scary future of having to find a job.

I’m now confronting this anxiety, still shit scared. But if I keep being avoidant, I will get detached from myself and soon become a dissociated adult working at a job I fundamentally and viscerally despise. Doesn’t sound like a good life!! So I’m forcing myself to confront this anxiety.

When it comes to thinking of myself as a designer, I (hate to) admit that I have self-limiting beliefs. I never really consider myself a designer in group projects, but rather the researcher, the strategiser, the organiser (my skills in these are still rusty) - despite having actually done design work in the projects.

I designed some concepts and products - from sketching, rendering (with the help of AI) and prototyping - but I still feel somewhat detached from this identity. There’s still a distance between me and the statement “I’m a designer” - like I’m afraid to step closer to that reality and feel unworthy of owning this identity - again, despite having done design work in the projects! Girl bffr.

Not having any solid vertical skills in design lead me to refuse thinking of myself as a designer, and therefore believe that I have no tangible value to offer.

This is a fundamental self-limiting belief that is shaping how I feel about myself in work, and translates to my anxiety with job hunting. I have no tangible value to offer, will anyone ever hire me?

This is a pattern. I have had such self-limiting beliefs before. Around 2 years ago when I was looking for internships, there were internships in really cool companies that I wanted to apply to. But I thought with my experience, skill and knowledge at that time, they wouldn’t hire me. So I did not apply to these companies, and only applied to those within my reach.

Similar to when I applied for my masters, there was a Product Design course at Northwestern I really liked. But they required 2-3 year work experience, so I would not have gotten in as a fresh graduate from Sociology - a field not directly related to design.

Looking back, if I really wanted that Northwestern’s program and believed I had a chance, I could have developed my skills and knowledge, gotten a product design job, and gained some experience to qualify. It would’ve taken longer, but I could’ve followed this path to apply for the program I really wanted.

Instead, after reading their eligibility requirements for the first time, I immediately decided I had no chance and never considered Northwestern again. I rejected myself of that possibility, immediately and forever.

I eventually found a cool program and resonated with their design philosophies. I applied and got in. I’m enjoying this program so far, but at the end of the day, this was a program I felt like I had a chance at getting in. I applied with the fundamental belief that it was within my reach.

This is not to dismiss the program as less worthy than Northwestern’s, it’s a realisation about myself: I had only been playing games I can win.

I guess it’s good that I know where I stand, but the problem is: I have not been trying.

I have not been letting myself aim higher, believe I deserve a shot at what feels out of reach, and go after what I truly want, even if I fail.

The fear of failure and uncertainty have been keeping me in safe zones. In safe zones, everything is comfortable and certain. It’s not that I don’t try in safe zones, effort is still needed. But the point is:

in safe zones, I know that my effort will return good, predictable results.

If I charter out of my comfort zone, I will need to try much harder, without any guarantee that my effort will yield good results. Doesn’t make sense economically, does it?!?!

But, do I want to go through life in comfortable calculations of effort and results, or do I want to jump into unknown waters and explore all I can?

There’s no right or wrong answer (not trying to promote any way of life), but right now, for me, jumping into unknown waters and daring to aim for what feels out of reach feels like the necessary leap of faith.

Right now, I want to try things knowing I can fail, and knowing deep down that my self-worth and values will not get shattered by failures, but built through the effort and experiences gained along the process.

To learn through the most valuable and impactful form - experiences.

To not let anxiety, fear of failure and uncertainty be the subconscious and looming reason behind everything I do.

To not rob myself of any possibility just because I don’t believe I qualify at the moment.

To believe I have a chance.

To be shit scared and do it anyways.

To trust the process and commit, even if it seems scary at the beginning.

So, will I ever get a job as a designer? Who tf knows? But I will try.

Not in the sense that I will try to get a job, but more in the sense of being courageous to ask myself hard questions: what is the meaning of work? What kind of work do I want to do? How can I do such work? Instead of frantically applying to jobs within my reach because I’m scared of uncertainty and don’t think I have the chance at anything more meaningful than that.

I talk a lot about letting myself learn and try and fail, but the truth is it is so much scarier and more emotionally taxing when I’m actually learning and trying and failing, than when I’m just talking about it.

It’s so easy to get so scared of failure that I forget what I’m here for in the beginning: to learn. So anything that serves this purpose, is worth trying.

All in all, some mottos for the next months as my student life concludes:

1. Let myself be a designer without thinking I have to be a good designer.

2. Trust my values and build on them.

3. Stop being avoidant with my anxiety about the future. Process it.

4. Reflect on the meaning of work, and take a leap of faith.

“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith.”

Conclave (2024)

Let us doubt and believe :)

If you have any advice or similar feelings and experiences, please do share!! Perspectives from other people would really help - would make me feel less like a crazy 24 year-old getting her first taste of existential crisis.

Will be back with posts on the meaning of work and the current designer job market.

Lol byee. xoxo.