Setting & achieving career goals
I'm in a period of growth right now as I tackle a large new-to-me project at work which is setting me up to achieve one of my career goals: to work on something so interesting and impactful that I get invited to speak at conferences about the process.
It's been a goal of mine for years, ever since attending my first big design conference in my home country of NZ; seeing designers speak about interesting things they'd worked on and passing on learnings to the audience.
I've spoken at conferences before, but largely about content creation or giving more general design advice. I'm dreaming of the day I can get up on stage and passionately tell an audience about what I learned on this current project!
What are some of your career goals, Reader? Do you feel like you're on track to achieve any of them this year?
If so, I genuinely hope you'll reply and tell me about them!
And if not, will you reply and let me know a) what your goals are and b) what you think might be holding you back?
I'm a firm believer in setting big goals. They help to orient our learning and growth, and give us a sense of purpose and progress when we take even small steps towards them.
A lot can feel out of our control in our careers – especially in the current tumultuous state of the tech industry where mass layoffs are a regular occurrence.
Now, more than ever as creative professionals we have to realise that no one will ever care as deeply about our goals as we do, and that it's on us to take steps towards them. We can't just wait for opportunities to arise; we need to create them. And when they do arise, we better be damn sure we're ready to be considered for them.
When I look back on the career goals I've achieved so far (like getting to travel for work, earning a six figure salary, becoming a manager...) there's one thing I can point to that was a key factor in creating or landing the opportunities: my reputation.
I built a reputation as a hard worker who took ownership of our conference branding; so I got invited to go on my first work travel trip in 2014 to help the Australian office work on the AU conference event branding.
I built a reputation as a marketing designer through my content online; so I was offered a job at a US tech company in 2016, which led to my salary reaching six figures.
I built a reputation as a leader within the company; so I was tapped to become Creative Director and manage the Brand Studio team when it was formed in 2020.
As a creative professional, your reputation is your personal brand. And whether its intentional or not, you already have one.
It's time to start thinking about what skills, behaviours or attributes you need to have to reach your goals. And if you already have some of them; it's time to start making sure that they're obvious to the people who have the power to grant you the opportunity.
It's time to intentionally work on your personal brand and building the reputation that will open doors for you.
Last year I hosted an online workshop teaching my personal brand framework to help creative professionals do just that.
This year, I have something even better...
Join me in Auckland to work on building your reputation together
Tickets are on sale now for the first in-person workshop I've ever hosted.
In this intimate afternoon event I'll be teaching my framework for crafting a compelling, unique personal brand and helping a small group of ambitious creative professionals take steps to start building the reputation that will open the doors they need to achieve their career goals.
Will you be one of them?
The Crafting a Personal Brand workshop
Sunday April 14th. Mackenzie Studios, Auckland.
2:30–6pm
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If you can't make it to the in-person event (I get it! New Zealand is a pretty remote place to travel to!), you can purchase a replay of the online workshop to watch on demand here.
If you're in NZ though (or perhaps even travelling over from Australia!); you should join me for the afternoon on Sunday 14th. Not only will you get a ton of 1 on 1 help with your brand that I just can't offer through an online workshop, you'll get the accountability of taking action right then and there, feedback on your personal brand and you'll get to build a network of other motivated creative professionals who you can lean on for advice throughout your career.
Plus, you'll get a snazzy new profile pic in a set of brand images taken by our event photographer (custom professional photography like that is worth the ticket price alone!)
In-person opportunities like this are rare and special, and I'm excited to help you reach your goals – whatever they may be.
Hope to see you there.
(Also, hope to see you from a conference stage in the next few years telling you about the ConvertKit project I'm currently working on!)
An honest chat about burnout in tech
In case you missed my last issue, the reason you'll be seeing less issues of the Marketing Design Dispatch in your inbox this year is that I'm recovering from burnout.
I shared this video on my YouTube channel talking about my experience both with realising I was burnt out, and with taking steps to recover.
I'll be uploading a vlog soon with an update on how I'm doing and what a day in my work life looks like now that I'm being more careful about my energy and stress levels, so stay tuned and make sure you're subscribed to the channel. (and thanks for your patience with me as I seriously slow down on my content schedule!)
Behind the scenes of a Figma product video
You have to click through to this tweet from Chad Colby, Brand Motion Lead at Figma and see the sketched animatic draft for the 'multi edit' feature release video.
I get excited every time a creative shares a bit of the behind-the-scenes like this, because we can learn so much from the way our fellow creatives think about projects – especially in the early stages!
Here's a tweet that includes the final video too, so that you can compare:
Motion graphics is something we're definitely focussed on getting better at in the Brand Studio team at ConvertKit, so this was super inspiring.
Thanks for sharing, Chad!
In non-work related news, I finished sewing my fifth garment this weekend! You'll hear me talk about it in the burnout video linked above, but sewing has been an absolute game-changer of a hobby that I've picked up recently. So relaxing, and fun to invest creative energy into something that isn't work.
Here's two of the dresses I've made so far, snapped by workmates in Mexico on our recent ConvertKit team retreat.
See you in the next issue,
PS: here's that in-person workshop link again! If you're a kiwi creative professional, I'd love to see you there. And if you know a kiwi creative professional, please share the link with them! it's gonna be so great 🙌
