Transcripts
1. Trailer: I think almost everyone go through a time where they feel that they are not really living their best life, and I can understand that 100 percent. Hi, my name is Patricia Hynes, I'm your instructor for this class. I actually started my career in science, so I studied bioscience. But I naturally realized that this is definitely not the right thing for me. Then I switched to graphic design and it's still didn't really feel that this is the thing for me. I went through different jobs and careers throughout my life already, so I know exactly about the struggle. At some point I decided to completely redesign my work life. Now, I'm a designer, I'm a podcaster, I'm an educator, I am a speaker and most importantly, I am a problem-solver. I am solving problems for my clients now using design thinking methods. The great thing about design thinking is that you can use them for every kind of problem. I think for a very long time having your career meant having a 9-5 job at a company and staying there for the rest of your life. But I think since the digitalization and other things that happened in the last couple of decades, it showed us that a career can look quite different. Now we can do different jobs, we can even pick a career that might be quite unconventional, but the right thing for us or for you or for me. The ultimate goal is to live the best life where you are happy, where you're free, where you can do what you want and feel fulfilled. In this course, you will learn how to redesign your life using design thinking methods, and create a job you love. First of all, we will have a look at the tools and methods which will be helpful for you. You will have a very, very close look on your path, what makes you unique, your skills, and your personal resources. Then we will create a vision for your life using different methods and come up with a strategy, which helps you to come a little bit closer to your goal every day. We will go through some exercises which I created for you. You can download everything in a digital e-book with a lot of other material and resources to help you throughout the course. Don't forget, it's never too late. You're never too old. There's never the perfect time, only now to restart, to redesign your life. I'm super excited to have you in this class, so let's get started to redesign your life.
2. Getting Started: Hello, and welcome to this class, career switch. How to use design methods to create the life you want to live and your dream job. My name is Patrice [inaudible] , and I'm your instructor for this course, and I'm super excited. In this course, we are going to use design thinking methods to recreate your life, to redesign your work life. The whole course is structured around the topic, career switch. If you're thinking about maybe switching careers, if you have a dream you want to get into, if you are not really happy with your current situation, this class might be perfect for you, because we are going to talk through all the different methods. We are going to go step-by-step forward, so in the end of this course, you will know what you want to do, you will have a lot of tools and methods learned that you can use for different kind of problems, and you're going to learn how to think like a designer, because as a designer, there is no failure, there are only learnings, and iterations, and creating something. Recreating this design mindset here. This class is perfect for you if you're thinking about maybe switching careers, if you have a problem you want to solve, if you are not really happy with your life, and if you think you could improve something. What can you expect from this class? We are going to go through a lot of different steps, different tools, different methods, which will help you to come up with your final projects which is creating the vision for your life and for your work. But it's also about really understanding who you are as a person. A little bit about my background, I am a UX UI designer, I'm based in Berlin, but I also did a career switch. I actually started, after I finished school, to study bioscience. I was always very passionate about science and I wanted to solve a lot of problems. I thought this was really exciting, but then within my studies, and I did a few internships here and there, I realized that the work is not really what I wanted to do, and I felt really frustrated because I put so much effort in studying and all those things, then I realized this is definitely not what I want to do for the rest of my life. Then I decided to switch to design, which was a really big step for me back then, and I started to study graphic design, which was mostly focused on print design, so we design posters, and flyers, and books, and things like that. Within actually one internship, I designed my first app and I realized, oh wow, graphic design, is not what I'm really passionate about, it's UX design, digital design. Then I switched from graphic design to UX, which was also some challenge, but I think really worth it. I know about the struggle from having a lot of interest, but don't really know where you want to go with your life because it's definitely really, really difficult, and I went through that as well. I know about the struggle, but I know some tools, and I am going to help you to find something that you're really passionate about because for me, it was also a journey to really find the areas I'm passionate about and I really love to wake up to this life and work every day. You can do exactly the same. There are a few tools and methods that I'm going to teach you. I would say, don't lose more time, let's dive right in.
3. Reasons To Restart: Designing your mission for your life helps you to stand up every day with a lot of energy, with a lot of passion, and this is what you will get out of this class. As a little motivation before we get right into the task, I want to summarize a few reasons why now it's maybe a good time for a career switch. The first is, you don't really have passion for what you're doing anymore. If you are working from 9:00-5:00 and you do that every day but you don't really feel energized for that. Every Sunday you're already thinking, oh damn, it's Sunday, I don't want to go to work and you're really looking over to the weekend. Maybe your health is affected negatively. Maybe you lost a lot of weight or you gained some weight, maybe you can't sleep anymore, you feel depressed, something like that. Be very cautious about your health, also your mental health because that's a very good sign if something's not going the right way. Maybe also your personal values have shifted. Maybe you became a mom or you started to a family and then the really stressful job is not what you're looking for anymore. Maybe you need something also because your values and what you want with your life maybe changed or maybe you start your job and you really loved it in the beginning, but now is the time where you feel a little bit bored because you don't feel challenged anymore. This is also an option what can happen. If you start something and then you don't get more tasks, you are not able to develop yourself throughout that career, you might be feel bored everyday. Another option is also that you are dreaming about something, you're daydreaming about something, maybe starting a bakery, maybe starting your own art shop, maybe starting something, and you don't know how, you don't know why, you really know if if that's the right option for you but you're dreaming about something. Those different kind of things I just mentioned are a really good sign that now is a good time for you maybe to think about a career switch, to maybe adapting your life, to maybe changing a few things here and there. We're going to use different kind of methods which will help you to see if that's a right fit for you. If you really get the most out of this career switch and where you really should focus on.
4. Why Now?: Why is now the perfect time for a career switch? For the past few decades, the way we worked, we got a job, and we had a career changed drastically. The reason for that is basically digitalization. A lot of new companies were started, a lot of startups started, and with all the technological advantage, things are changing in a very fast way. Which is not a problem because we, as people are able to adapt, but this is the thing we need to adapt. When I think about my parents, they had a job for their whole life. They started a job at a company and stayed there for 50 years and even our grandparents. For us it's different. Every few years we are changing maybe positions, we are changing the company and maybe we are also changing careers. I personally don't have a single friend who started a career or who studied something and then they didn't change throughout their career. There were always slight changes. Because you always find something out that you really love and then you change it slightly or you apply for different jobs and you have just different tasks. Unlike earlier generations, we will need to change our career or also positions several times throughout our life. We already know that. That's the reason why it's good to know about different techniques and methods to always be able to adjust. Don't be scared about change, but really incorporate that and use that as some strength. One really good example is my friend Mona. She is thinking about doing career switch for several years now because she's really unhappy in her job. But she always says that she doesn't really have the time and the resources to change the position or change her career. Because she's really busy in her current job and she has a lot of things to do on the side, so she always says that she doesn't really have the time to do the career switch. We're going to think real quick about what might be some things that preventing you to really get started? This is a good thing to get this out of your way before we get right into the tools. What are the things that might hold you back? Things that prevented you from really get started in creating your life and also the job or changing your career. The number 1 thing is fear. I think most people are scared to really change something and it's completely normal. We are all scared of something. Because fear is really important, and even if our ancestors, they were scared about the lion or something like that, so that they learned things are dangerous, we fear something, we need to survive. The human being is always thriving is to survive. You definitely survive in your job, but you're not happy, but you still survive, and I think that's important to understand. Fear will always be a companion of you. But for us it's good to remind ourselves that fear is just a companion, you still need to move on despite the fear. Another thing could be the execution to change something. This is something that most of us probably went through. For example, really putting the decision to someone else, blaming your boss for example. If your boss doesn't really give you the position you need or the responsibilities, you can always say, that's my companies fault or my boss fault, but I'm not really living the perfect life or having the work-life because I need to do the job. It's actually not boss' fault. Another option could be that you say, blame a little bit on the circumstances. For example, that you say, I don't really have the degree, I don't have a college degree, for example, I didn't finish school or I have kids at home. Those are things you definitely need to think about 100 percent, but this is not something that really holds you back. Point number 3 is no clarity and sometimes really missing out on options. For example, things like I needed to call this person back, I didn't know that. That you don't really know where you want to go, what you want to do, and you're not really clear what steps you really need to take to get where you want to be. The next time something is coming in your way, I think this is something really good to keep in mind before we get this started, is to think about when there's an obstacle coming. Think about like very clearly, is there a way maybe to overcome this obstacle or maybe there isn't? That's also fine. Then we will find another way. But maybe this is just some obstacle though. Be really aware when you go through life and through challenges if that might be one of the obstacle. Another really important thing is the problem of disbelief. Because most of us really think about, okay, I studied in this specific area or I have a college degree which was very expensive, I'd really need to work in that specific area. There's definitely a disbelief about having the best years of your life studying or, only finding a job in the area you did a major on. In the US, for example, only 27 percent of the people are really working in the area they majored in. To say it in other words, three out of four people are working in a completely different area, which is interesting. Here comes the first task for you. Really be very aware of yourself and write down what holds you back right now. It's completely fine if things are holding you back that's totally normal, so don't worry about that. But for us, it's important to understand what is holding you back because as soon as you know it, we find methods and tools how to overcome it. This is the first step. Take around 5-10 minutes, get your workbook, and write down what holds you back. Reflect on yourself and then we're going to see each other again in the next lesson.
5. Where To Start : Where can you start? I structured the course so that we are going to start with the present. Where are you right now? Then we will take a look at your vision. Where do you want to go? Where you want to be? Then we're going to focus on your life and your work. Then we will take one step back and talk about your past. What resources do you have? What skills do you have? Because what's very important is, if you are starting a new career, you never start from scratch. You always take your resources, your past, and all your experiences with you as some kind of resources. You don't really know where to start and I know about that feeling because sometimes situations feel very very overwhelming and you don't really know where to start. As the first two methods, we're going to learn how to reframe problems. Because what is design or also user experience? Your design is all about to really find problems and then solutions, and reframe problems. See problems as some opportunities to learn and to grow, and not as some obstacles that you can't overcome. That's very important, I think. Let's start with a quick example. If you're thinking about you're at the office, working there and then there's lunchtime and you meet a colleague there. You want to have lunch together, but you don't really know what you want to eat. You're thinking about, okay, what do we want to eat? You just don't know. What do you do? If you don't really know what you want, you have no idea, that's a big problem. How do you overcome that? You just reframe it. That helps very much if you just think about what kind of options do I have? Option number one is I drive home with my colleague and cook something there. Option number two is I order something. Option number three is I go to restaurant nearby. Option number four is I just don't eat and I go hungry into the next meeting. That's also an option. Then you need to decide, what do I want? How much time do I actually have? Only an hour. Driving home wouldn't work, going to a restaurant is an option, but definitely takes off a little bit more time. Okay, let's order something. What do we want? What kind of options do we have there? We might have sushi, we might have burger. Choose something that is the fastest, order it and then see how it works. If you don't really know what to do, just divide a problem or something in smaller chunks and then see what are the requirements. How much time do I have? How much money do I want to spend? Then just choose something, right? Because this is just a very, very tiny decision, what do we eat for lunch? But if you don't know, you just don't know. Sometimes it's better to just decide on something, do something, than don't do it at all. Here it's very important to really think about, what is doable for you? There really thinking about the time, the effort, the money, and your goal for this meeting with a colleague. Think about what's doable and then make a decision.
6. The Problem: Let's start with the problem. Just as a reminder, everything you are having in your life right now exists because you've let it in at some point, because you decide, let's do that. Let's solve a problem through that specific way, and not through the other way, or maybe let's don't solve the problem. Let's really think about the problem. I think what's interesting to keep in mind is that also everything that we see right now, everything that exists in our life, or in the world started because of a problem, and someone wanted to solve that. One example that I really love is, we used to have luggage without role underneath. People needed to carry it. Then someone realized, that's actually pretty heavy, and that's not really good. So the problem was that it's heavy, and takes a lot of effort, energy, and it's really exhausting actually to carry your luggage. Someone really started with the idea, maybe we should put little rollers underneath the luggage so that we can carry it, or that we can move it, and have a little trolley. Someone came up with that idea because of a problem. I think this is really magical here, because you first need to really see the problem. What is the problem here? Is it that we are carrying luggage? Is it that it's just too heavy? Is it that we don't want to carry it. Then they are, okay, if we don't need to carry it, maybe we can just roll it. Then they started to get the little wheels under it, and they created a trolley. Really magical. This is a method that you can use for your own. We're going to come up with a strategy which will help you to really get the different steps to find your problem, and also the solution for that problem, because some people, when you focus on the wrong problem, so not the problems that's something you can't solve. For example, if that person who created the trolley focused on the problem that people are carrying luggage with them, it's really difficult to solve. Because people need to carry, they want to have their belongings with them when they're traveling. Really focus on the right problem, helps you to come up with the best solution. Here's an interesting fact because two of three people in the US are unhappy with their job, and 15 percent even hate their job. When I'm thinking about my friend, Tom, who moved to New York to study medicine there. It was always his biggest dream to live in New York, to study medicine, and work as a doctor there. He even found his wife there, and they're in love, and they got kids even. He started a family there, and after his studies he got a job in a very good hospital there in New York. He had the life he was always dreaming about. We went together to school, so he was always talking about that specific life. But we had a call a few month ago and he said that he's actually quite unhappy. He doesn't really know why, but he doesn't really feel happy, although he got everything he wanted, like a wonderful wife, some kids, and also the perfect job. But he didn't really feel happy, and he has no idea why. He needs to figure that out. What is the problem there? You definitely need to focus on the right problem here as well, as opposed to my friend Tom. One of the biggest problems is that we have a few questions that are unanswered. Those might be, how do you find a job that you'll like, or even love? How do you find a career that makes you a really good living? How do you balance your career with your partnership, or maybe with your family? How can you make a difference in this world? How you can create a better world? How you can give something back to society?
7. Where Are You?: Where are you right now? Let's start with that. You are here and maybe you know this from Google Maps. You are here, you are at a certain point and things were in the past and things are in the future. But really focus on where are you right now in that moment? Don't think about the future or the positive like that. But really think about where you are right now, sitting there in front of your laptop probably, and doing this course career switch. Where are you right now? Generally, I would say the most important days in your life are the day where you were born and the day where you find out why. Because there you really find your passionate something that helps you to really create a life or to have a life that you really love. You're probably doing this course because you're not happy with your life or your work life and this is probably because of some problems we've already talked about that. I think what's really interesting to understand here is that there are two types of persons because we all have problems. There are the person who have problems and they only complain about that. They are complaining but they don't do anything. There are the people who see problems as some kind of options to learn and to iterate their life. I really hope that you are the second person. I'm pretty sure you are because you're already taking this class. Thinking as a designer really helps you to see problems as options to not complain about them, but see them as options to grow. Because problems start with small things like deciding what to eat. This is also some a problem where you just don't know what you want to do. But if you create a vision for your life, where you want to be, what you want to do, what you want to create with your life it's much easier for you to make decisions. Because every tiny decision we are doing every day, that might be what we eat for breakfast, if we work out, what kind of Netflix series we are watching? What people do we let in our life? Those decisions really influence the life and the things we achieve in our life as well. To create a life that we love and that's really worth living for us, we will have a focus on five different areas of our life where we are right now. We think about it and so just like make a quick check. How is that right now? Where are we right now? First, we're going to have a quick look on the area of work. Really focus on the things that you do. Those are not only the things that you get paid for it. All the things that you do but not for fun. This could also be household or things like that. It's not only about payment. Just like make a quick check. How do you like it? What are the problems there? What works may be also quite well. How is the situation right now? The second part is creativity. Where in your life right now do you really live a creative life? Creativity not only means painting or drawing, it's about where do you feel very free. Where you forget to eat, where you feel very passionate about things. How much do you have read in your life and when and where? Really think about that. Take a few seconds and really focus on where do you really feel creative as a person, as a human being? Then we are like relationships. Relationships are probably one of the most important part when it comes to living. Because they really shape the way how we see, how we solve problems. What do you think? How are the relationships in your life? Do you have a lot of close friends? Do you have a partner that you really love, maybe a family? How is the situation right now? Are you happy with what you have right now? Then the environment? Really think about the city you are living in, the apartment you are living in, the street you living in. How do you like it? Is it something that you really feel comfortable with? Just make a quick check and think about is that where you want to be? Also, your health is such an important part. Really think about how is your health right now? Not only your physical health but also your mental health. How do you feel and how healthy do you feel and how healthy do you really want? Here, it's very important for you to be very honest with yourself. No one is going to check that. Really think about where are you right now in this specific cycle? I have a task for you which is really think about those five areas and then rate them from one till 10. Think about where are you on that scale. Think about in the best case you want to have in 10 in all of those areas. Think about where are you right now and make a quick check. What is missing? What would you love to have? For example, if you are realizing, I have just moved to a new city because of a job which I don't really like. I would rather live in another city, then it's completely fine. Just write it down here on the side. If you realize maybe I don't have a lot of close relationships, a lot of close friends because I just moved to that city. Also completely fine, just write it down. Here be very, very honest with yourself because this helps you to see the right problems and really focus on the right things that are important to you. After you rated the areas in your lifecycle, I can recommend you to just print out the little postcards coming with the course and to really write down what is missing in those specific areas. Be very, very specific and write down, what do you still want to have in the specific area? What do you wish to integrate in your life in the specific area? Write this down. For all those five areas, think about examples which you could do, what you would love to have in your life in the specific areas. We will use mostly printouts a little bit later for our envision board so it will be really helpful for you to track your goals. I highly recommend to just also write it down on this little postcard just print it out. Not only in your book but definitely get started with your book and then keep going with those postcards.
8. Quality Of Life: In this lesson, we are going to focus on the quality of life, because what we tend to forget is that every single day we are living is some kind of a small life, and every decision we are making leads us to the life we living in the end. I want to talk about one example real quick. Imagine that you are in a museum. You're opening the door and you're stepping right into that museum. You're seeing on the left and on the right a lot of pictures, a lot of images. You go a little bit closer to the first one and there you see the day where you are born. You as a newborn your first day on this world. Then you walk a little bit further and you see more pictures of your life. You see your first day at school, the first day where you learned to ride a bicycle, where you baked your first cake, maybe where you finished school, where you've wrote a math exam, where you met your wife maybe or your husband, where you had an amazing night out dancing somewhere outside. You walk a little bit further and you see all those situations of your life, those kind of things that happened to you, good or bad things. You walk further and you see more moments of your life, and at some point, you see a frame which is empty, so there's no picture inside. This is today. This is today, so the day you're watching this course now because you're still making this day, there's no picture yet, you're creating a picture. You see when you look back, you see a lot of pictures about your life, all the things you experienced, but if you look more forward, you see a lot of empty frames, and you're going to fill those frames with all the things you're going to do in your life. I think it's very important to really understand that every day you're living is some kind of a small life and creating this museum with a lot of beautiful pictures you really love to look at. Where you walk through your own museum of life and you are so happy watching all those pictures because you really feel proud and energized through that. This is what I wanted to do and I think what we all want to do with our life. If our life is over at some point then we can look back that we loved, walked through our own museum and are so happy about seeing all those amazing moments we created. How can we do that? By really thinking about what are your goals, what do you want to do, not living the life someone else wanted you to do. When you come up with goals for your life, here are a few tips because what I can always recommend is to really create SMART goals. What are SMART goals? SMART goals are specific. If you think about, "I want to travel," be very specific. Which means I want to travel five countries, for example, be very specific, what do you mean with a lot of travel? This is not very specific, so try to be very specific. The next thing is measurable. If you can make a number on it, that's even better, so if you say, "I want to travel five countries," which is, for example, it's Germany and it's Spain, it's Australia and it's New Zealand, and maybe even China or Indonesia. Make it attractive, so what do you want to do there? What are your goals there? Support yourself that you really want to achieve that goal. Also, be realistic. How many countries can you really travel? A lot? Probably not all the countries in the world, but how many is really doable for you? Then also think about termination. When do you want that to be finished? You can say, "In the next two years, I want to travel five countries, and those are the five countries. After I did that, I will create something, I don't know maybe like a travel journey, I will create a book and share it with my family." Something like that is really helpful. Here comes the task for you. Really take some time, take 15 minutes, 20 minutes, think about the example of the museum I just talked about and think about what are your biggest dreams in your life? Use those SMART goals I just explained and really think about what are your five biggest goals. What do you want to have achieved when you die at someday? Could be something like travel specific amount of countries or start a family, find my dream partner and find the love of my life, things like that. What is really important to you? No one is going to check your answer so be very honest with yourself and also put in that termination on it. When do you want to have that achieved? But also be realistic. Just use the SMART goals here. Take a few minutes and then I will see you in the next lesson. After you wrote down the goals in your digital e-book, make sure to just print out the postcards printouts, and then write down your goals there because we will use those goals for our vision board there as well and that's really why you need to write it down.
9. Vision About Life: In this lesson, we are going to talk about the vision and our subconscious. It's very important to really see images. Goals are sometimes very abstract and you don't really know how to see that. For others it's very important to really feel emotions and to really see images. In this lesson, we're going to create a vision board. This is part of your final project in the end. What I want you to do, is to get a lot of magazines you can find at home, also go through Pinterest and really look for images that excites you, that really costs really strong emotions, so when you see them, you feel instantly very happy, and you think if this is the life I wanted to live. What I can recommend you generally is to work or to go through the different five areas, when through like, work, creativity, relationships, and environment, and health, and really focus on how does your dream life really should look like. What are your dreams? What do you want to have accomplished? Also integrate your five biggest dreams in that area as well. Print it all out, you can also print pictures. Use lot of magazines of some quotes as well, and pin everything on the board. This could be like a paper board, you could also pin that on normal paper, but I recommend you a wood board or something like that, where you can change things that always add more images that you find, that really excites you because you really need a place where you see your vision board, everything is very visual. In the end, you can place this vision board somewhere where you see that every day. Behind your desk, next to your bedroom, on your door, so when you see that, that reminds you every day where you want to be. See this vision board as some encompass which guides you through the way of finding your dream life and also your dream work. I'd just start by looking for a different kind of magazines. You can either buy new magazines or just go through your apartment and look for a different kind of images. Everything it is printed basically. I really love to use old magazines and like you can see, I have a few in my apartment and so we will just go through those magazines, and see what images really inspire our very field, really happy and yeah, have some really strong emotions in those images. There is one that I really love, so I've seen that through of a lot of books. This is definitely a dream of mine, read more and do more education and have a little library at my home. I just cut it out, put it on the side and then go through the other magazines reticence as well. Another tip is to just look online for different images. Pinterest is awesome. They have a lot of different images and I created the different album there. Then I printed those images. Our graph photo came this is interesting, different thing different a lot of quotes, some images about traveling and people and those things. Here's my board now, and I'm going to place it right here. Then I'm going to go through the things that I cut off from the magazines and different photos I printed out. Now we're going to place the five areas of life here, and will underline them with photos of images through the different goals over things that are missing in your life to feel like a 10 out of 10 in those areas. Are your goals here? Then we will look for images, who really support your goals here. Don't forget to add some quotes which are inspiring for you and also feel free to use the postcards that are coming with the course about design methods. Then take your time, go through all the different images and place them there, and then you can just stick them there. Don't forget to add your big five goals for life here on this board to be a really good reminder for you every day to really work hard to achieve those different goals. Now get ready, create your own vision board. I can't wait to see this vision board as your project here, really looking forward to check that out.
10. Vision About Work: Now we're going to talk about the vision for your work life. Life includes the work life as well. This is where we started with your general life and then your work life. But now we are going to focus on your work life. In this lesson, we are going to think about how does your ideal workday look like. We do think about where do you work. Do you work in an office? Do you want to work at home? What are your tasks every day? Who are you working on? The task for this section is to really write down your ideal workday. Be very realistic, but think about it and describe a lot of details here as well. For example, you're always thinking about your dream, so what do you want to accomplish in your life. If you want to travel a lot, then also think about, like if you want to have a family, then becoming a pilot might be not the best idea. Because you are not home that much, so family life would suffer definitely. Think about how does your life look like. Maybe it's a remote position where you work from Bali, where you have like a tech job for example, and you can work very flexible from home or from different destinations and you're traveling with your family. Be very [inaudible] , write it down, and dream big.
11. Getting Unstuck: This lesson is all about how to get unstuck. What do you do when you are stuck? Generally, as a designer you are never stuck, right? Because there are always ways to solve that. There are always solutions for every problem. But what happen if you want to change your career but you also have some debt, you need to pay for a mortgage, you have kids of who you need money for, you are in a really difficult situation financially, what do you do then? There are always options. It's never black or white or do it or don't do it. If you are in a really difficult situation, I always recommend to just stay there as long as you can and as soon as the situation gets a little bit better, then change that and use design methods to focus on the problem you want to solve there and build something on the side. Focus on the right problem and then see what kind of options do you have there. We're going to talk about different design methods you can use when you are unstuck, how to come up with a lot of ideas. Generally, if you want to think as a designer, make sure that you come up with a lot of different ideas because that really helps you to choose the best one in the end. In this course, we are going to talk about different methods you can use to come up with ideas, how to prioritize them, and in the end, how to re-decide where you want to focus on. What happens if you need to decide between something like money or meaning? That's a pretty good question because it's really difficult. But think back and focus on your goals for your life again, like what do you really want to achieve? In the next chapter, in the next lessons, we're going to focus on who are you as a person and what are your values and your rules for an awesome life. The question on money or meaning is probably not the right question to ask, or not the right problem here because in the end you defined your goal already for your life and then you really need to think about, does that fit to my goals? Does it bring me closer to those specific goals? Most of us probably have some kind of false beliefs. Things like, okay, as a musician, you don't earn any money, which is not true. Of course you can earn money as a musician. You just need the right strategy and need to figure it out. It might be a little bit more difficult than if you were working in banking, but it's still possible. Those kind of false belief keep you in a place where you think you need to decide between A and B, but in the end it's like a completely different question. Don't get stuck on general things that are not really important. If you don't know what to do, you can always either reframe the problem, we already learned how to do that. Really divide that in different questions and think about what's doable or go back to your five goals for your life and think if that really adds up and if that really guides you through those. Then in the next lesson we're going to talk about your past so who are you as a person? What are your goals and what are your personal resources that you bring into a job and into your life, and what makes you unique?
12. Who Are You ?: Who are you? Like I said in the previous lesson, if you start a new job or a new career, you never start from scratch because you always take your experiences, your resource, and your unique skills with you. Whatever kind of experiences you made in your previous job as an undergrad, this is something you bring into your new job and also to your new career. Throughout your life, you made a lot of different experiences, you've had a lot of challenges, you learn a lot of different things, and you build your unique skill sets. In this lesson, we're going to do a really fun exercise. Because most of the people or most of us are not really aware of their skills, of their resource, of everything they already have inside them, so we are going to do an exercise. Just get a huge paper and a pen. Then, I'll start by drawing a line, from the day of your birth until today. Then, you think about all the different experiences you made. It could be starting to go to the kindergarten, or finishing school, or whatever kind of experiences you made, good or bad ones. Then, make a little dot on the line and then write the name next to them. Then, you draw a vertical line with the state of happiness, like positive and negative. Then, in the next step, after you wrote down all the experiences that came into your mind, you think about how you felt during that specific events. You probably had a lot of really good event where you thought super happy and amazing, but you probably also have a few events which were really sad for you, maybe some crisis. Then, you make a dot in the negative point or in the positive. In the end, you can just connect the different dots and then you have some kind of an overview of your life. Take around 30 minutes, do that. Take your time for that. Get a pen now and circle the different peaks, the very negative times, where you maybe had a little crisis, and as the positive times. Then, take 10, 15, 20 minutes to just really reflect on those times. What did you learn there? What kind of skills that you need to have to overcome those crisis? What do you really needed to have there? Take some time to reflect and then we would see each other in the next lesson.
13. Your Superpower : I hope you were able to draw your lifeline because this is a very important part for the rest of the course. I think it's always very magical if you look on your life and you see like how many ups and downs you had. I think it's super interesting. Because actually you are your own superpower, and what makes you unique, what are your skills, your experiences, your passion. This what we're going to talk about in this lesson. You can see your skill set as some kind of resource that you always have with you. Imagine that you are going for a hike somewhere in the mountains, and what you always bring with you are some snacks, or water, or food, or a tent. All the things you need to really survive and have a good trip to have a safe place during the night. Your resource, your skills, your passions, what makes you unique are all the resources you have in your backpack. This is what we will focus on in this lesson. Because the more confident you are, the more you really know about your skills and your superpower, the easier it is for you to handle difficult situation and also to find what you like. Here comes the task. Now we're going to fill your backpack with all the things you already have inside you. We are going to start with experiences. What were really difficult experiences you may, but you handled it really well? You overcame that obstacle. What kind of experiences make you unique? What did you handle well, where you're really proud of? Write that down next in your worksheet. In the next part we are going to talk about your skills. What are you really good at? Where you are better at, at most people. This could be a lot of different things. It could be communication or maybe you're really tidy, you find everything, you are a good listener. If you don't really know about that, my recommendation is to talk to different people. Talk to your friends, your family, some former colleagues, people you maybe just met. Ask them what do you think are my strengths? It's really interesting to hear what they're telling you. But most of the times you probably already know what your strength is, so write that down. Here, it's also important to really focus on what makes you different compared to other people. Point number 3 are your passions. What does really excites you? What can't you do a day without doing or maybe two or three days couldn't do it, you need to do it. Something where you really forget to eat maybe, forget everything around you, what you really love. If you have a free day or something, but what do you really love to do. These could be tiny things. But something where you think you're really passionate about that, you love to talk about that topic and you feel really excited when you just think about that. Write these all this down, fill your backpack, and then we're allowed to see each other in the next lesson.
14. Mindmapping: Welcome in the chapters of Ideation. Ideation means coming up with a lot of ideas, ideate, be creative, and think about solutions. You figured out the problem, you're past but also your resources. Now we're going to focus on how can we come up with ideas, what might be solutions? The first technique we are going to learn is mindmapping, it does a really great way to think about your problem. Be creative and think a little bit outside the box. So what do you need now is a big piece of paper, some pens, and then we are ready to get started. First, I'm going to explain how I am going to do that, and after that, I'm going to give you the task. So the goal now is to really think about the areas you are passionate about that really inspire you. Here is my mindmap, so what I really love is crafting, I like to neat. I really like to craft different things like birthday cards, for example, so everything around design. Another area for me is travel, so learn new languages, for example, something that I'm really passionate about and that I really love. New cultures something that I'm super interested in, but also, of course, new places and different things. Here, will you think about all the areas you're excited about and other sub-areas and really take your time as you can see, watching me doing the mindmap. I'm going back and forth and I'm adding things here and there. I'm coming up with different ideas and different things that I really love. The third area here at the top is education that have different things that I added their learning in general, I think this is really helpful. Yes, in the end, write down everything that is interesting for you. For you to watch me doing the mindmap here. But my recommendation is to integrate as many subcategories as you can. Think about as many topics as you can, so I'm even integrating things like food. I'm gluten intolerant, so I am interested in gluten-free food. I'm interested in the future of food and baking and gluten-free baking. It's something I really love and yeah, definitely something I should integrate in the mindmap. It's not only about the things that you love about a work but things that you are generally very excited about and really love doing. Another area of me is technology, I am working with some AR/VR clients and super curious to hear from senior tech and consulting people, client. You extradite, [inaudible] Now let's take three pens, different colors and circle to which of three area in the same color where you thing that would be a really great thing to combine those different kind of areas. Because in the next lesson we're going to do your future scenarios, and there we going to combine those different areas. Starting with the first color circle two or three areas you are passionate about. Make sure to really use the all parts which are on the outside. Then go to the next color and circle different things that you can combine and then go on with the third color.
15. Future Scenarios: Now we are going to use another design methods which are scenarios. Because all the abstract things we gathered in the mind-map are going to come together in different scenarios we're going to write down. I think what's very important to keep in mind is that there's not this one perfect future for us, but there are multiple futures for us which are all great. We just need to decide where we want to go. Life is not like one line, but you always learn, you always iterate and you adjust on different things because you learn things. It's not a straight line, but there are a lot of ways back and dry and that's totally fine. Well, this is something we all need to learn and remember when I were younger, when I was studying, and I need to decide where I wanted to do my internship. I remember that I was stressing out about this decision, because I thought I need to have the perfect internship, the perfect company. If not, then I won't find a job afterwards, and if I don't find a job, I don't get paid, I don't have a good career in front of me because of this job is so important. I was totally stressing out about that, and back then I'd in the end, decided to do an internship at an advertising company because it was super passionate about like coming up with good ideas and interesting contexts for problems in the end, and I thought, okay, that's totally advertisement." Marketing and understanding the user and then influencing those are so exciting. I did an internship there in the end and did a lot of complaints, but also won a project which was not really usual for an advertisement company. During that 1st UX project, I got hooked, I was so excited, and I realized, oh wow, UX is actually what I want to do. I don't want to work in advertising. I want to work in UX. This was, I think when I look back on that like, super interesting because did I do the right decision with like doing internship at an advertisement company. I mean, it was definitely not beneficial for my career, but I learned something that got me on the right way. Made made a lot of different experiences and then I could choose what I wanted to do because I had this one experience there which really excited me back then, so I could start to focus on UX which I'm still working on. What we're going to do now, we're going to use the different things we gathered in the mind map and going to focus on three combined areas and we're going to write future scenarios. We will make a five-year plan based on those different possibilities and really structure each year and thinking about what we want to have achieved there and what probably would happen if we're going to focus on their specific life with the specific goal. We're going to write down for each of those scenarios and what are our resources. What really excites us about that specific future scenario, but also what problems and questions we are still having. Take around like 1/2 an hour or so, write that down, because we're going to work with those future scenarios in the next lessons.
16. Change: In this lesson we're going to talk about change. Sometimes it's very difficult to choose on something, because now's a good time to choose one of those future scenarios. Where do you want to focus on first? That might be a little bit challenging the beginning, so Here are a few tips and tricks, what might be helpful for you to really focus on those. Where you want to focus on first. Because now we're going to talk real quick about the values. This is also something that defines you as a person and helps to make decisions a little bit faster. Values are the things that you stand for, that are really important. Here's a list of different values they can see and the task for you now would be to circle the ones that are most important for you. I would recommend you to just circle five and in the end pretty bring them in an order. You do that by always comparing two. Which one is more important, the most important move to a little bit forward. You can just write them down on different poster and then sort them based on your prioritization. Those value needs to be very important for you throughout your life and something it's very helpful for you to know about those values because it also helps you to make decisions. Now, we talk about like the money or meaning problem. But you can also do that for all different examples. For me, for example, I got a job offer two month ago for a really high paid as your x position in an innovation agency here in Berlin and its all really amazing, like a really nice team, a lot of things to learn. But 9-5 job, or to be honest, probably like 9-7 job. Which was a really difficult decision for me, because it sounded like a really good option, like a really awesome opportunity, like nice teammates, a lot of money. But one of my values is one. I love to be independent. I love to work on my own. I love to decide when I want to work and be very, very flexible and this is super important for me. If I can't do that, I'm just not happy. This is one of my most important values for my whole life. As I knew that or as I remember I decline that job and I felt really relieved after that, because I felt that the independency for me is so important so I kept on working in my freelance life and I'm really happy with that. If you know your values, that helps you very much to really focus on the right things; take a time, here's the list, circle the five ones which are most important for you and then bring them in on and write them down in your workbook.
17. What Is Prototyping?: Prototyping. What is prototyping? This is one of the best and the most amazing methods and tools and things you use in the vein of thinking. A prototype is a tiny or tangible version of your end product. If you want to move fast, if you want to make decisions fast, if you don't want to lose a lot of time, prototypes are awesome. Most of the time we use them for an app, for example. If you want to design an app and you want to design an onboarding process, for example, you just design and create prototype. This could even be a paper prototype where you write down all the different features and draw them. Then you let a user click through and see how they react if information is missing, if things aren't working out, and then you adjust and iterate on that so that you don't waste any time on building the perfect product and paying developers or designers to come up with the perfect solutions when you don't really know if you even need an onboarding. This could also be an option that you decide in an app. You don't need an onboarding, you just skip that. Prototyping helps you to come up with solutions really fast and also, yeah, provides you some guideline and something you can test. Prototyping is something that helps you actually also to come up with the right insights, helps you to enjoy the process even more. Because I think it's really sad that so many people are working in a job, maybe like eight hours a day and they don't really love their job. They don't really feel fulfilled and the work is such an important part of a life. We talked about different life goals and even your museum of life and there your work is very important part. We came up with different future scenarios. Now, we're going to talk about how can you prototype those future scenarios to really find out what works for you, what doesn't work for you, and whether you need to iterate, adjust, and change maybe the idea slightly. Also, how can you answer the questions you just note it on the site. Another thing I definitely want to emphasize here is that another really false belief is that most people think that we know we have this one passion or this one thing we are really good at and if we don't find that we are lost. But research actually shows that people don't really have that. Most of the times that happened that you try something out, you like it, you do it more often, you become better. You will realize that you become better and enjoy the process and then it repeats itself. You do it more often, you become better, you do it more often, you become better. You really enjoy the process and at some point, we really master in the specific thing, whatever it is. It's a lot of practicing whatever it is. Most of the times you find that just by accident, I would say. You try something out and you realize that you like that just by trying it out. Prototyping is very important that you try something out and then realize, do I like it? Do I don't like it? Is this helpful or not? Then change. If you don't like it, don't focus on it. Then in the next lesson we're going to talk real quick about how can you use prototyping for your future scenarios.
18. Let's Prototype: Let's prototype. You came up with those three scenarios so where to focus on first, then how can we answer your questions now? Prototyping is building tiny versions of your future scenarios and answering the question, is everything how you figured it out? How can you answer your questions? Do you need to address something about your future scenario? There are three ways that I can recommend you to try it out or where prototyping really comes in place for your future scenarios. The first is, just try it out. Try a low version of what you expected. How could this be? Imagine you are thinking about maybe starting a gluten-free bakery and you think this is a really good thing for you and this is your dream. How can you try a low version of it? Pretty easy. You could start with a catering service, for example. You don't need to start off with a lot of budget, but with a low version where you bake all those different things at your home and then you offer food ordering or catering for weddings, for different kinds of services. We even see if you like the process, if it's still fun if you do that over and over again. You also learn a lot about what people like, what they don't like, where to buy ingredients and how to improve the whole process. You will learn so much even in that specific process. The next thing is to get a job in that specific area. If you want to start your own bakery for example, it's not only about baking. If you want to start that it's all about like financing and a lot of business things that are important. You could start a job in a bakery and see what task do you come to you? It's not only about baking, it's maybe different other task you haven't really thought about and then you can focus on what do you really enjoy is that the baking, is that handling different employees? Is that all the admin task? What do you enjoy most and where do you want to focus on? Because if you think about a job, it comes with so many different tools and things you need to cover. Point number 3 are interviews. Some user research. This is something I highly recommend to everyone. As soon as you found out one of those areas and think they're interesting and still have a lot of questions open, there are a lot of people outside who are happy to answer your questions. So look for people who are already working in a specific area. If you know people who maybe also started that gluten-free bakery or who have a bakery close by, just ask them if they have time for a 30 minute coffee and ask them some questions? How did they come to that specific place? How did they started? What skills they have? Learn about their way, their journey, maybe their failures, and everything they can give you as tips and tricks. This is so amazing and it's some kind of a free resource. This also comes with some networking. Because you meet new people, you get some help and those kind of people are also likely to support you and help you with tips and tricks and maybe offer you a job at some point or something where you can just ask question, connect, and learn so much. The task now is to write down what prototyping technique do you want to use and how? If you want to do interviews, for example, who are the people you would like to talk to? What are the questions you wanted to ask? Because there it's really important to make this all about the other person. So ask questions. Not demand something. Ask about like, "I need this, I need that." Rather focus on the other person and try to learn. How did they come to that specific position? This doesn't only mean that people need to work in a bakery, this could be every position. Reach out to people and nowadays it's so easy through LinkedIn, social media, Twitter, Instagram. Don't be shy. Just introduce yourself and start some conversations and invite people for coffee or for lunch and yeah, use their knowledge that usually people are so happy to help.
19. Prototype Learnings: What are you learning? You learned from the prototyping, and you may be came up a few prototyping techniques here and there. What did you learn? What did you learn about the kind of questions are unanswered? Which are not unanswered? Where do you still need some answers? What do you need to dive a little bit deeper? Do maybe more interviews, try some low versions and those kinds of things, and then iterate everything. You'll learn a few things and maybe you already realize, maybe it's not the gluten-free bakery I want to start maybe it's just a job as a baker or as a cook somewhere. Or maybe you think the catering was a really awesome idea. You want to go on with the catering. Adjust your future scenario and iterate on everything you learned, and rewrite your future scenario based on the learnings you had from the prototyping.
20. Finding a Great Job: Now the exciting part begins because we're going to build a strategy now to create your vision and to use overloading you came up with your prototyping. We divide that an actionable steps that you can do every day to come a few steps closer to your vision and to your goal. I think before we get started, your dream job could be totally different. This could be working as a freelance, graphic designer somewhere or maybe finding a full-time position somewhere, so that's totally different. We will talk about both but talk a little bit more about how to land a job at a specific full-time position. Generally, I think what's important to understand is that if you want to land a job somewhere, you probably need to apply at some point. A huge part or almost 50 percent of the applicants don't even get a rejection letter, so they just don't get an answer at all. If you applied for jobs and you didn't get a rejection letter or a response, don't worry about that, that's totally normal because sometimes or most of the times companies or teams need to pause their job description and open position before they can hire someone. Sometimes they already have a candidate that could be internal or someone they know or something like that. But they still need to post the position. But then they are not really looking for someone. They can't really reject everyone who applied. This might be an option if you are in the path who applied for a job and didn't get a response. Another thing which I think is really interesting is that a lot of the job descriptions are, you find on all those job platforms are not really written by the hiring manager or by the team over someone who really knows what this job is all about, but by someone from HR; so from human resources who just write a lot of really generic terms and then job description. We can look on a few examples here and there, which is very generic. It's not very focused on the job. Here my recommendation is to check out a few job descriptions: look on the different kinds of job platforms, check out the descriptions, what are they offering? What are they looking for? Then see what kind of resource, what kind of things do they need? What kind of things may ask for? If there is not a specific job title you can find there, you can look for a similar job because already is some kind of a reference for you. What kind of things you need actually to succeed in the specific work environment.
21. Resume: Your resume or something you need to apply with. In design, it's usually a portfolio you need to create and for most jobs, you need to write a resume. This course is not totally focused on how to really land a job, but I still want to give a few tips and tricks here to rewrite a good resume that lands you a job. My first tip here is to reuse the words you find in the job description. If they're talking about a team player, if they're talking about someone who is flexible, make sure to use the same words they're using in their job description and underline them with a lot of different [inaudible]. Think about what requirements, what they request in their job description, and make sure that you really underline your skills and use their words as often as possible. Make sure to really focus on what you can provide them. How can you make their life easier? How can you support the team and try to impress them with your skills? With a lot of examples where you can show that you really got the skills they're looking for. Most importantly, learn to really speak their language because every industry has their own language. If you want to land a job as a chef somewhere or even in the health industry or in graphic design, they all have their own terms, expressions, and it's really important to know those terms and expressions. It's like a different language. If you know this language, it's easier for you to write a resume, to also succeed in a job interview, and to land the job in the end. How can you learn that? First of all, check the different job description, what kind of words are used there? Another tip is to check out literature. There are books about different topics, and just read them, and then you will see the same terms over and over again. As soon as you know what it means and how to use them, you will learn their language automatically. Every industry has their own language, it's verbal and also non-verbal. You can check that out, maybe you already learned that through prototyping by starting a tiny version or starting a job somewhere just to learn about the environment, the people, how to communicate with people, what terms to use and not, also networking and those things. But as soon as you learn the language, it also helps them to understand that you're really willing to get the job. Because when they give you a shot, when they give you the chance, they need to know that you are really willing for it, that you're really keen to learn about that, and that you're really passionate about it. I also added a few articles I can recommend you to check out to this course. You can find the links in the link sheet, so just read those articles for a few further recommendations and tips.
22. Understanding The Jobmarket: How does the job market look like today? I already talked about that rule that some companies have a specific rule that if they need to hire someone, they first need to post the job publicly. The idea behind that is to find the best candidate. But sometimes, like I already mentioned, they already have a candidate. This could be someone internally or someone someone knows, vitamin B. There are a lot of jobs on the job market that are not really there. Another thing is that there are a lot of job descriptions not listed because many job description are very generic. But if you have specific skills, most companies are happy to create a job for you with your specific skills and requirements. Jobs are ready to be created. Most important question, how do you know about those job opportunities, about those hidden job opportunities. I think that's the secret to that is to talk to people. The bigger your network, the bigger your influence in knowing other people is, the more likely are you going to know what specific job offerings. You probably already have done a few interviews in the industry. As soon as you ask people about their way into a specific field, how they got into it, they're happy to share their learnings with you. Most of the times they realized you're passionate about that, they're also going to help you. One thing you can always ask people is, what would I need to do to land a job in your company or to work with you? What do I need to do? This is also very interesting to first hear their answer, what skills requirement? What education do you need? What do you still need to get before to land a job there or maybe also show interests to the other person. As soon as there's something coming up, they are maybe thinking about you and helping you out, so integrating you in the application process. That's a very important point. Talk to people, ask about their way, and get in this hidden job market.
23. Networking: Networking, this is probably one of the most important things ever in your life, whatever kind of career you are going to focus on, whatever thing you want to achieve in your life. Networking is not about being nice to other people and trying to get something from them, but really building true connections, building maybe true friendships, and having real life conversations to real people and talking to real people, helping them, and you are also going to get something back. I think this is really important. Networking is not only about getting what you want but also building a network connecting to people and asking a lot of questions. Networking might be very intimidating also for people who are a little bit more introvert or not so much outgoing personalities. That's totally fine. But, today, it has been even easier with social media, so just make sure that you reach out to people through social networks, through LinkedIn, through Instagram, through Twitter. Ask them questions about their life, about their projects, some of the things they are doing, and learn a little bit about them, how they are doing. People love to talk about themselves, so it's, for you, really amazing to just hear their stories. Building a network is also adding people on LinkedIn, of course, but also with a message included where you talk about yourself or you introduce yourself. Be nice. This network will help you through whatever really happens there. The task here is to make a list of different kind of people you want to reach out to: people who are already working in the industry you're passionate about, people who are already doing something you think this is really, really exciting. Just reach out to them, ask questions, talk to them, and get the insights you need there. Make that list and then reach out to them one after the other.
24. Keep On Ideating : There are always new challenges and there are always new problems that you need to solve. But the good thing is that all the tools you learned now in this course can be used whenever you have a problem and for every problem you will have in your life, or with your job. We're talking about mind mapping, reframing, future scenarios, interviews, prototyping and those. Sometimes or actually most of the times, it's important to just make a decision and then move on. In UX, the paradox of choice is a very important or very interesting thing actually to keep an eye on. [inaudible] like one rule that the more choices you offer a user on a website, with the more buttons there are to choose, the less unhappy is the user the end about their choice. The same of us in our life. If you have all the choice in the world, it's so difficult for us to decide on something and we aren't really happy with something because we always have the feeling about missing something out. Then the feeling of what could have done or what could have been is something that sticks in your heart. So see your life as a process or try to learn through failures and failures are something that really helps you because you improve, you get better and you adapt it, you definitely get stronger out of failures. Especially if you are some kind of a perfectionist, so you could just think about yourself, are you a perfectionist? That's a good and a bad thing. Usually you are very careful about things, you prepare a really good quality if you do something. But on the other hand, you stress a lot about the things you're doing, about the quality, if it's right or wrong and sometimes you don't even do it in the end because you think it's not perfect. So try to be less a perfectionist and more a designer where thinking wrong is right and trying things out. Don't be afraid of failure, but, using everything as some way to try things out, to learn and then to get better. So you're never done, always keep iterating, always keep learning and always keep this designer mindset in your mind.
25. The Power Of 5 People: The rule of five people. Generally, your network will help you so much throughout everything you're planning throughout your whole career switch. There is a rule of thumb actually, that the five people you spend the most time with make the average out of you. So you're the average out of the five people you spend the most time with. I think this is really interesting. So choose those people wisely is definitely a recommendation, sometimes you can't, but generally I think it's interesting to keep that in mind. There is an upper tip when it comes to five people. Because if you want to do your career switch, one really good strategy or something that will help you a lot is having five different people who help you with different things. First of all, you need the master connector. This is someone we have, usually, a great connections. Generally, someone who's really good at networking, knows lot of people. Then you need the former colleague, someone you worked with, someone who knows about your strengths and your weaknesses, and can guide you a little bit on the way. Then you need a friend. Someone who is supportive, who helps you if you fail, if you need some support, and who's really someone who stands behind you. Then you need the pusher. Someone who really wants to see you succeed, someone who knows about your boundaries, your comfort zone, and someone who really likes to push you forward and motivates you a lot. Then you need the native. Someone who is already working in that area, knows the industry, knows the language, knows a few tips or tricks, and can help you with connections and some tips and tricks here and there. So here's the task, please find out those five people, write them down, write their names underneath. If you don't have someone there, you can leave a blank. But you can also look for people, you can also ask friends and family and former colleagues if they maybe know someone who could be that kind of person for you.
26. Setting Small Goals: After you decide on a future scenario, after you prototype different scenarios, ideas, you probably got a lot of insights about resource, about things that you still need to really succeed in a specific area or to really land a job in the specific area. Now's the time to be realistic and think about what is still missing, and then we're going to divide that in small actionable steps. What I would recommend you is to really think about what is missing. What do you still need? This could be during the interviews, you maybe learn that you still need to improve your English, you need to understand that language even better. Or maybe you need to have a certificate about something like online marketing for example. Something like that. If you realize that, then you can think about what can you do every single day to become better and to finally get all the resources you need for this specific job. Think about how much time you can spend every day on succeeding this specific goal. Could be that you buy a specific book about a topic you want to work in later on. Then you say, every day you're going to reach for one hour on this book and make notes, so you learn the language, and you also get a lot of insight, and you do that for one month. After that month, when you did that every day, you can totally celebrate yourself and be super proud about yourself because that's a huge achievement. But here it's really important to think about what can you do every single day, and how much time are you willing to do that? Write that down and then do that for one month, and whatever you think makes sense there.
27. Feedback Session: We arrived at the last chapter of this course which is about personality, and this lesson is about feedback. Don't ever be afraid to ask for feedback, either your colleagues, your friends or someone else. This is a work in progress and it's not supposed to be perfect at a point, so feedback is only helpful for you. Especially make sure that you connect to the five people who support you, your five supportive people from time to time, and really ask them for update, ask questions and let them know where you struggle and ask for feedback. One thing that I realized actually when it comes to meeting new people is that you need to tell your own story over and over again. Every time people are probably going to ask you, what do you do? What's your story? What is your dream? The more you have figured that out in the beginning, the easier it is for you to be really convincing and help people to understand your dream and your vision. In this lesson, we're going to come up with our own personal story so when we're telling stories, it's much easier for the brain to remember certain facts. This is how our ancestors used to behave and used to tell facts and stories. We can use the same methods. Here's a quick thing about storytelling. Generally, a story starts with the beginning, and then the middle part, and then an ending. What is really interesting for people to see is if they know your why, the problem you're struggling with right now, and why are you so passionate about certain topic? When I'm telling my own story, I always start with that I studied graphic design and at some point I realized that I'm really passionate about UX design because I did this one project when I was working as an intern at an advertising agency. Then my biggest struggle was how to get into UX. I tried different things out. I read a lot of books, I made up with people, I listened to a lot of podcasts, I read a lot of books. All those kind of things. Now I'm at a point where I'm wondering, what do I else need to do? Where can I learn even more and become a better designer? This is my biggest struggle, and this is the question I want to ask most people or I used to ask most people. Now get a pen or use your e-book and write down your own story. Just quick, that you can tell that in around 1-2 minutes, not too long, where you tell about your way into what you want to do and why are you so passionate about that topic? Could be something that happened in your past, could be something like anything that could have caused this kind of passion. Because the more emotional this story will be about yourself, the easier it is for you to convince people.
28. Conclusion: Generally, before we are finishing this class, don't forget, your life is a work in progress. It's never finished, and you're never stuck. If you want to think as a designer, every problem that comes up is something for you which helps you to learn, to iterate, and to improve. There are no failure, only options where you either win, or where you learn something. How you spend your days, how you spend every single day of your life really makes the difference about how you spend your whole life because every day is a small life. Use that as a mantra, your life is a prototype, there is no option for you to fail because you can't fail, you can only recover from that, you can learn from that and get out of anything that didn't work out even stronger. In the next lesson, I want to talk real quick about some resources I can recommend you to check out and get the most out of this course.
29. Thank You & Resources : Thank you so much for you checking this class. I hope this was helpful for you. Please let me know if you have any questions, or issues. I'm super happy to support you and help you. Also, feel free to connect on the social network, I really would love to see your way into a new career, and see how you use design methods for your day-to-day problems. Awesome. Here are some resources I can recommend you and I would really love to see you using if you want to get a little bit deeper into the topic. In here, I have a few other resources for you I can recommend you. Let's get started with some books. I divided them in different categories. The first one is the spiritual ones are more about spirituality and finding your purpose in life. The three books I can recommend you are: The Alchemist, I guess many of you have maybe even read it already, then, The Four Agreements and Big Five For Life. I think all those books are awesome and I can recommend you to read all of them. They've really great resource to understand life even better and also your meaning and what life is and what is important in life. I can highly recommend to read this. The next one is inspiration. In there, I integrated a few books about productivity. Atomic Habits is a really great book, it's about how to establish new habits. It's really awesome. What's your problem is understanding the design-centered mindset a little bit better. Creative Confidence is awesome if you're working in the creative industry, if you maybe lack a little bit of confidence, this is a really awesome book, if you're doing anything more of creativity, I would say. Then, The 7 ways of Highly Effective People, is also really awesome to learn about structuring your work, your day, your life a little bit better to reach your goals little bit faster. Then here are the books about, I would say, mindset in general. I can highly recommend all the books on Tony Robbins, I think they're very inspiring and integrated a lot of learnings. I really love those books. But also the books about money, Rich Dad Poor Dad is a really great book when it comes to money and money mindset. Also, Think and Grow Rich, it's not really about getting rich, but more about how to reach your goals. It's super awesome book. Another really great mindset book is the, How to Win Friends and Influence People from Dale Carnegie. It's a really awesome book, especially when it comes to networking, meeting new people and building your network. There are three books about work that I can recommend. First is the Designing Your Work Life, really great book, and then the Pivot and Take The Leap book, all are great books, just check them out if you want to get a little bit more insights into the topic of work. Then there are three podcasts I can recommend you. First the one from Tony Robbins, I think it's really great mindset podcast, very inspiring. Also, The Career Switch podcast, which focus especially on career switch. I also, really love The School of Greatness from Lewis Howes. It's about mindset, it's about work, it's about finding your goal in life, awesome podcasts and very inspiring. I integrated a lot of other resources, all of other links and articles I find interesting and helpful for you guys in the resources list. Please make sure to check out this list and use everything you can use to help for your career switch. Also, make sure to upload your final project, which is your vision board and your personal resources. I would really love to check that out and feel free to use the PDF I created for you, so you can just download this and integrate everything you learned in this course. Or you can also design your own sheet where you put everything together and then share that in this course resources. I am super happy to check that out. Also, thank you so much for taking this class. I think it was really awesome, I hope you learned a lot and really looking forward to see your final project. Also, feel free to say hi on social networks, especially Instagram, you'll find me there at ux.patricia. I would love to connect. We are looking forward to see your results and hopefully connect on the social networks.
Patricia Reiners, UX/UI Designer // Innovation //
