👷 If a had to start again... · The Bunker #73

Sometimes when I go to the office or I'm at the gym, I make plans to go to the movies, to the mountains, or whatever, when I meet up with my friends, sometimes one of them always makes the comment: "Things are going well for you, aren't they?"

I don't ask them what they think because they probably believe it's luck or something, so I spare myself that.

Sometimes (not often, honestly), they ask me how things are going, and that's when they sometimes drop the question: "How did you do it?"

And I start to think and tell myself - phew... where do I start, I've done so many things that I don't know where to begin, or how to summarize in a few words what I've done so they don't get bored, because this could take all afternoon.

So on the way home, I started thinking about what I would do if I wanted to approach financial independence as a designer.

It's not a matter of 1 week, not 1 month, and probably not even 1 year

This is the first thing I always say, have patience, because you're going to need it.

It's true that there are people who achieve a lot in just 1 year, but it's not common. Usually, success comes after many attempts and a lot of time of hard work.

The first thing I recommend is to have patience, you will have to learn to tolerate frustration, you will have to learn to understand that things don't always go as one expects, and you will have to learn about consistency and iteration, about the importance of continuing to build towards something, even if you don't see tangible results.

Don't give up, work towards what you want even if you don't see results

This is probably one of the most important pieces of advice I could give to any creator or anyone who wants to become a creator.

The superpower of any creator is to work consistently towards something even if they're not seeing results.

This is not the most common thing - naturally, when we see that something isn't working, we pivot to other places until we see that what we're trying works, but this is about walking inside a tunnel where we've been told that there is light at the end, but you won't see the light until probably 3-4 years from now.

Optimize for the long run

This is closely related to the previous point, but for me, it's so important that it's worth mentioning it separately.

I've said that you have to be patient for a reason - simply because this is a long-term game, you have to know how to play the pieces well. It's no use running up a hill when the important thing is to last over time.

The important thing is to last, not the intensity in the short term.

It's no use posting 300 posts this week, it's useful to post 1 post a day for 300 days.

It's no use going to the gym for 10 hours, what matters is going for 30 minutes every day.

This works in the same way.

Relationships are important, ask everything you can

There's something that was hard for me to understand - and it's that I've always liked to go my own way a lot, and there's really nothing wrong with that, but I didn't understand how important it was to ask those people who know more than me how they've done things.

There's nothing wrong with asking those who know more than us how they've done certain things.

In fact, there's nothing more honest than saying "I don't know how to do this, can you teach me?".

They're not shortcuts, but you can avoid going around in circles 3000 times on something you could have solved by asking someone.

Choose a project from the beginning

It's important to undertake different projects throughout your life, they're your guide to knowledge.

Nobody sits in their chair at home and writes on Google: How to learn UX/UI.

It's easier to set the goal: I want to make a fitness app.

If your interest is in making a fitness app, what you'll do is:

1. Search on YouTube how to make an app - you'll probably discover Figma.
2. You'll discover the world of UI.

When you delve into this world, you'll start searching the internet for "fitness app" and the first tab you'll probably discover will be Dribbble, Pinterest, or Behance, and you've already quickly discovered 3 platforms to search for inspiration.

And little by little, you'll unlock that knowledge you need, in fact, here's a video I watched a few days ago that talks about this exactly:

This describes quite well what I'm trying to explain in this section.

Share on social media what you do and even create a portfolio

It's important that everything you learn, you share it with the world in some way.

Just now we were talking about the importance of asking questions to people who are better than you, well, you'll meet these people on social media.

Sharing means:

• Sharing your technical progress - how are you progressing with your projects?
• Sharing your learnings - what have you learned this week that you can share with the world?

This will help you potentially grow an audience over time, and make connections with people in the same world. And ideally, they'll be the ones who feed you in the future.

Ideally, I'd start a YouTube channel. I'd also start a newsletter and be pretty active on Twitter and LinkedIn. I know it seems like too much, but it can't be worth it enough.

In conclusion

• Choose a project that helps you learn things, that generates problems for you to seek solutions to.
• Have patience, you'll receive many "no's", but if this is what you want, be patient because it will take time to come.
• Be consistent, but iterate in everything you do. Consistency without iteration is nothing. Everything you do should be better than the previous one, at least a little better.
• Share on social media what you do, how you're progressing with your knowledge, this will help you tell the world "I exist".

Bonus: Learn to prioritize well. Life and professional success are about choosing very well what to work on at each moment, it's important to identify which tasks are superficial and which tasks really move the ship.

Obviously, there are many paths, but this is the path of patience and work, which is the one I currently trust in and I can attribute all the "success" I've achieved so far to this.

Cheers, Jordi Espinosa.

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