Leave your ego at the door

In your last year of uni, you’re the top dog. A maverick. A third year who’s capacity to care ended when your “Overall similarity” score was too high on submitting your dissertation at 3am on TurnItIn. “Because I wanted to.” was the answer that would spring to mind when lecturers would ask you about a design choice. Sure, you could fluff it up, palm them off with some quick on the spot thinking and fabricated deeper meaning, but you knew that that decision was made because it just looked cool.

Fast forward through the trials and tribulations of finding a job, you’ll quickly realise that “Because I wanted to” doesn’t fly and it’s time to get down with being asked lots of questions, making amends and implementing feedback. These can quickly start to feel like a reflection on you and your abilities, only exacerbated by the imposter syndrome looming over your shoulder. Tunnel vision starts to set in as the world closes in around you. It’s you, the screen, and the headline you’ve pushed around the page a thousand times with no end in sight. “Am I good enough to be here?” “Was landing this job a fluke?”

In my first junior role, I held onto these insecurities for months until the fateful day came that totally changed my perspective. Sitting in the studio (probably internally obsessing over my last round of amends) my director gave constructive feedback to my line manager. Of course, the only natural thing to do in this scenario is to start earwigging. The director said they were sorry for derailing the project to which my line manager replied, “It’s fine, I’m not precious about these things, you’ve got to know to leave your ego at the door.”?

Call me dramatic, but after hearing that conversation I never looked at feedback the same way again. It made me look at the bigger picture. It’s not about you. It’s not a reflection of your abilities. It’s not that your senior is on the wind up or that you ended up in the wrong career and should have listened to your mum when she told you you should have been a writer. (Although looking at what I’m doing right now, maybe there was some truth to what she said.) It’s about learning and evolving, listening to other perspectives and not being the smartest person in the room. The old saying “two heads are better than one” is the whole point of working in an agency in the first place. Except maybe instead of two heads, you have anywhere between 5 to 50 or more!

Ask questions, stay inspired and have confidence that you will find your flow and feel the groove. It may take a few weeks, it may take a few months or even years, but you will get your eureka moment when everything suddenly somewhat makes sense and falls into place. Now, don’t get it twisted, that doesn’t mean the feedback will one day stop and you’ll be an unstoppable force of nature that tears through projects like a machine that can do no wrong. Everyone receives feedback and everyone gets imposter syndrome. It comes with the territory, but know you aren’t expected to have all the answers. That’s why you’re a junior. Trust that your directors and line managers know what they’re doing and take comfort in the fact that you are where you are because they saw your potential. The rest, as they say, will come with time.