Recalibration - 4 months in

So...here goes. The tricky second album.

It's been nearly 4 months since I left work to recalibrate, and quite a bit has happened (cue typical British understatement). I kinda figured when I left employment that I would have the luxury of time to meet up with specific people to pick their brains, enjoy some solitude to explore my own mind and ambitions and indulge in various pastimes I rarely had time for previously. Oh yes...and build a shed.

Not so.

In fact, this particular period of time will no doubt go down in history as the most upsetting and unsettling time many of us will ever experience. If a global pandemic wasn't enough, we're also seeing a long overdue spotlight on black equality. I wouldn't want to bet on what comes next.

I guess you could say I got exactly what I wished for. I left work to spend more time with my family...and boy did that ever happen. 24/7. In all honesty, whilst it's been stressful and complex at times, it has taught us a huge amount about each other within the family unit. Preconceptions have been smashed and the household has had to settle into what we can nominally call a structure - as fast as possible - following massive upheaval within a matter of days. This won't be news to any of you and I'm sure every one of us has a tale to tell and experiences that will stay with them for years to come - some good, some dire. We've been fortunate. I've not had to work. We live in a nice part of the world and have acres of space we can access from our front door, and - within the normal rules of family engagement - we all get on as a family. So far.

I digress. There's little point of talking about my lockdown life as its neither unique nor interesting. What I'm here to discuss is what I've learned from the ongoing recalibration exercise.

So here are the things that I've come to realise or have observed. I've tried to be as brutally honest as I can be, and haven't really done a damage limitation exercise on my thoughts. I think it's really important to share this stuff as it feels, not simply what will resonate with an audience for sympathy or self-inflated agreement. It goes without saying that these thoughts are entirely my own!

1. Where's that bloody epiphany!

Epiphanies are handy. They are supposed to arrive unannounced and solve our mysterious circumstances. Unravel the knots and provide clarity. Every good autobiography is riddled with good epiphanies and moments of enlightenment. If that's the case, I'm not sure my autobiography is going to sell very well. No epiphanies here. Not yet anyway. I'm still as confused and perplexed by what my future holds and what direction I should pursue as I've ever been. This isn't particularly easy for me, as I've known what I've wanted to do since the age of 13 with an insolent and direct instruction to my parents to buy me 'Presentation Techniques' by Dick Powell. At each stage in my 'career' I've known or pursued a goal to lead me to the next stage, be it aiming higher than I'd ever dreamed possible or doing something nobody expected of me. But this time, I'm empty... like the childish joke punchline...'No F**king Idea'. You could argue that with all recent events, none of us have had the mental 'time' to really consider our desired future, given that we are in the midst of coping with our very tumultuous present, and I hope that once things start to settle a bit, this time and space to think will return. I'll come back to this later on.

2. It takes time to unravel a tightly knit ball of mental twine.

I know in my initial article, I talked about the realisation that my mental health wasn't what it should be and that I needed to remove myself from the root causes. However, what has struck me beyond anything else, is the sheer depth of the roots that those mental 'weeds' have made. I knew it wasn't a simple exercise, but the rawness and the lack of warning in emotional awakening has been revealing. There have been instances in the last few months, when feelings and anxieties from my youth (and I'm talking about my 11 year old self) have bubbled to the surface with no real prompt or reason. No massive eruptions or riotous mood swings (I had a pretty decent childhood TBH), but almost a blind, unconscious stumbling back through the library of bits of life that formed my mind. It's fascinating really. Jigsaw puzzle pieces of me slowly emerge to reveal themselves, making me reacquaint myself with myself. Stuff I already know (or knew but had forgotten), but having the time to let it happen has really helped me to start to put that puzzle back together again. Not that it was broken per se, more a dawning realisation that the puzzle is a bit bigger and less defined than I thought it was a few months ago. And it's by no means complete...see point 1.

3. I feel like I should miss work more than I do.

When I've had holidays, particularly longer holidays in the past (I'm only talking a few weeks), I've found myself wanting to go back to work. There was an inbuilt timer that went off after a certain amount of time and it pulled me back. I didn't resist and I loved returning to the craft and industry I've been passionate about for 25 years. However, what has struck me in this instance, is the lack of desire to return to that world. Don't misinterpret that as a distaste for the creative design industry. Not at all. Just apathy. It could well be that since my leaving work, things have gone somewhat awry thanks to our friend COVID-19 and work as we all knew it has had to reframe and restructure completely, so I rather suspect it's a lack of appeal rather than a lack of desire. However, as someone who has been fiercely passionate about design and professional creativity since Day 1, it's rather unnerving to say the least. I have absolutely no doubt that this desire will return, but I'm not going to push it. It needs to have an arm wrestle with my 11 year old emotional self...see who wins!

4. Realisation of the self aggrandising professional bubble you inhabited.

I'm not what you would describe as a 'design luvvie' nor the kind of person that pours over the design press or fawns over the latest beautifully rendered object. Quite the opposite. I'm a democratic pragmatist that likes to see design and creativity as a solution to many things, all seen through a commercially tuned set of awareness goggles. However, what has struck me is the pinball nature of design opinion (by that I mean the way an opinion is positively bounced around within known walls and reactions, gathering points and kudos along the way) and how little the so-called top level design industry genuinely looks outward to the big wide world (contrary to oft touted opinion) when considering its 'place'. I know I'm probably exaggerating somewhat, but our industry is dangerously close to tribal. We often make misplaced or grand statements about design thinking and societal shifts, but I rarely see genuine action at a level that I'm gobsmacked by. We talk ourselves up a lot. We talk to each other about how we do things...or rather how we say we do things. We try to outwit and out-wordsmith each other, claiming we are more creative and more innovative than our peers, but I don't feel as much a part of a tribe of genuine change agents as I should. I guess this time has given me a bit of perspective on an industry I've probably been far too close to. I'd like to think that some of those genuinely creative minds can influence and alter the world's axis for the better. It would be nice if there was a bit more honesty and a bit less flounce.

5. You dream wider, not higher.

This is weird. I guess when you are caught up in a job that is all consuming, your mind crevices fill with the leakage from that job and the pressures it puts on you. When you empty your mind of those pressures (some people may well be able to do this and do the job...I couldn't!), those crevices fill with other stuff - often random stuff that couldn't compete with the job leaks beforehand. I've always dreamed (I mean the sleepy, make believe, impossible, going to school in your pyjamas type stuff) prolifically, but typically my dreams have been fed by the stuff in my head that has in turn been the stuff from my day and therefore the stuff from my job. Yes, there's been the occasional dragon and underwater caterpillar, but mainly stuff you can anchor back to daily tribulations being sorted out by the unconscious mind. However, since leaving work, my dreams have been 'wide'. I use the word 'wide' carefully. Wide conjures up horizons and unseen stuff behind you. Higher presumes trajectory and ambition. I like wide. Wide feels exploratory and unending. My dreams have been wide and absurd and unpredictable. I'm quite enjoying them, and combined with those visits from my 11 year old self, are proving to be a little bit healing but mainly enlightening. Maybe that's why I feel like the industry I was in felt a bit narrow and insular? Who knows. For now I'm going to enjoy the width of my dreams and the emerging puzzle.

So there it is. My thoughts, warts and all, on a platter for you to judge. I'll probably read this again in a few weeks or months and wonder what I was drinking, but for now, this is where it stands. Happy to compare notes (at a socially appropriate distance!) with anyone else who has had similar experiences. I've never done this before so I don't know if this is typical or expected.

And to point 1. I said I'd come back to it.

I currently have lots of thoughts about what I could - or should - do next (much like asking a 7 year old what they want for Christmas), but nothing resembling a direction with any priority or conviction. I'd love to hear from people in my network about decisions they have made at key points in their life. Did you move from agency to client side or vice versa? Did you move industries completely? Did you take a punt on an industry that nobody knew about and is now commonplace? How did you decide what the next step should be? What did you come to realise from the move? What did you wish you'd told yourself if you could go back? You get the gist. I'm not looking for THE answer, but interested to hear from people who have tried to answer it themselves. Particularly people who are professionally creative, and who thrive on solving problems. Specifically human centred ones.

I was overwhelmed by the response I received from my last article about deciding to recalibrate. If I only got half the number of responses as I did to that one I'll be happy. I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Happy to have a chat with anyone who wants to...

Russell (sometimes aged 11)