Design vs Resign Mindset: Transforming Challenges Into Opportunities

One of my favourite Maya Angelou quotes beautifully says…

"Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realise that the quicker we will be able to treat life as art."

This quote could possibly cause a raise of the eyebrows accompanied by a thought like, ‘easy for her to say,’ because for many, I don’t think adventure describes their experience of life.

Life is difficult. And pain is very much a part of the package. So too it was for Maya. For example, a traumatic abusive childhood experience resulted in her not speaking for five years. And yet she became Maya Angelou, this huge influencer who was poet, author, activist, dancer, polyglot (she spoke 6 languages), chef, and on and on we could go.

Could the impact of her life be linked to the mindset of an artist, someone who approaches each day as an adventure in ‘design’? This takes us to the topic of the blog: design vs resign mindset.?

Design or Resign?

Design vs resign mindsets – how possible these are always the two choices we face in almost every situation. To cultivate such a mindset can be very difficult and yet it’s one we must craft if we really want to enjoy being here, where we not only adapt to change and circumstance but are transformed by change and circumstance.

Liz Zander, co-author of ‘The Art of Possibility,’ teaches us to not say, ‘I’m on vacation but it’s raining’ and to rather say, ‘I’m on vacation AND it’s raining….what should I do with this moment?’ She powerfully connects us with some key attributes of the mindset of an artist, where the artist does not deny the pain but instead embraces her circumstances from a place of curiosity, enquiry and ultimately design. Artists embrace and combine objects, allowing ‘this AND that’ to create something fresh and authentic.

Marcus Buckingham of Strength Finders fame, shares in his book ‘Love + Work’ that you can write a long list of things at work you can’t change but don’t focus here. Focus on what you can change. Their research shows that 73% of workers say they have the chance to modify their jobs to fit their strengths better. Change follows the focus of your attention. I believe that the 73% can be even higher. We just need to teach people the skills of being a designer, and not a ‘resigner.’

A design mindset sees life differently than a resigned one.

Let’s briefly focus on one of these, where Liz Zander has already given us a clue. A design mindset speaks differently to that of a resign mindset. By simply watching our words, we just might immediately begin to unleash some design within us.

~ Say ‘I'm excited’ and not ‘overwhelmed.’

Feeling excited is a similar physiological experience to feeling nervous or overwhelmed. So, when you find yourself overwhelmed you can change your language to one that embodies excitement. Overwhelm is an emotion with energy. It can’t just be switched off. Instead of trying to put a handbrake on the energy, change the direction of the energy. ‘I have so much to do, and I am excited that I can apply my skills to these tasks.’ Artists get excited.

~ Say, ‘What a fascinating outcome’ and not ‘What a disastrous outcome.’

Fascinating does not mean you like the outcome, but what it does do, is keep your mind open. Once something has been concluded as a disaster, it’s hard to do anything with a design mindset from there. So, for example, when your idea is not chosen, become fascinated around how the decision was made, or the merits of the idea that was chosen, and not in a concluded state of resignation.

~ Say, ‘I get to…’ and not ‘I have to…’

We’ve all said it. “I have to attend that meeting,” or “write that report”, or “look after my kids”. The words ‘have to’ is an obligation. And whenever something is an obligation, there is no love in it. ‘I get to,’ connect us with privilege and wonder. It opens our minds to possibilities and allows us to do something with the time we have been given. Many have to change their mind on a Monday morning, to ‘I’m grateful that I get to go to work today. For most, work is a privilege, and I’m one of the people in this world that has it.

~ Say, ‘What could we do here’ and not ‘What should we do here?’

Once again, ‘should’ is an obligation, decided by someone else’s expectation and closed to little options. ‘Could’, however, speaks about our options, where we can choose what we do with what is in our hands.

~ Ask, ‘What do I want to do in this situation,’ and not ‘What is everybody else doing?’

Simply put, artists ask a different set of questions. Being an artist is about pushing into our own resourcefulness; it’s not a mimic of others. As Brene Brown says, ‘The only unique contribution that we will make in the world will be born of creativity.’ There are times to follow suit, but don’t make this the default. Give yourself the ‘gift of pause and ponder’ by verbalising questions that go down into your resourcefulness.

Our words become our actions and our actions become our habits.

To move from a response of resigning to a response of designing, focus on your words. It would be great to hear some of your examples of design vs resign mindset rephrasing. So if you have any, feel free to share. Let’s help each other along.

Finally, these thoughts are part of what we take very seriously in CAFE Life.

One of our key focus points when working with team culture is Job Crafting. This is the simple yet freeing notion that we can design in our place of work. That we can enable a thriving experience, rather than a surviving one. There are so many things CAFE Life does that enable this, so please do reach out to us if we can support you or your organisation in making this happen.