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The time has come.
Yes, it's that time of the year which asks me to see where I am right now and what have I done so far?
Have I grown a bit? Have I learned something? Have I made progress? Basically, I try to find answers to these questions.
In a nutshell, this year has been a roller coaster ride for me.
First big function (My sisters marriage) to quitting the job, breakup, finding a job in a different sector, travelling to different cities, speaking at my first design event, meeting a hell lot of new people. This year has it all.
And while I am writing this, I just felt like patting on my shoulder and saying, dude, good job 👏.
Meanwhile, here's my year in review, 2018.
It was the first big function of our family and as you all know, In India it is a big social gathering where we as the host family, have to take care of all the responsibilities.
I still remember those days, we went up like 2–3 days without sleep, going places to see if the arrangements are proper or not and that was one hell of a function.
In Indian context, this is what I believe. A boy transforms into a man, 1st: when he gives his first salary/earning to his mother and 2nd: when he contributes to his sister's wedding. Been there, done that.
Just a disclaimer, this is something that I believe, necessarily need not be true for you all.
This was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made. Pondering over this for over 2 months, I finally took a plunge and sent my resignation over email on 17/03/2019.
While serving the notice period, I never thought that it was going to be tough. Though, I was unsure on what to do next?
I wanted to do a blogging based startup as I had just sold one my websites for 4 figure dollars but turned out that I wasn't ready for that.
While I was juggling with the scattered thoughts, the breakup happened. I won't get into much details here but it primarily happened due to couple of following reasons:
Learnings:
As if all of this was not enough, we also had to change our apartment due to some issues with our landlord. Even though this may seem very trivial to you but when you are going through tough times, all of this seems to be a big setback.
The good part is that I am a very linear thinker, so, I decided to focus on one primary thing that is my career and that helped me a lot.
One thing I would like to mention over here is that "Anxiety attacks" are real. Every single morning of this timeframe, I woke up anxiously and mind you that it's a feeling that makes you very uneasy.
And meditation helped me a lot. This app called "Headspace", I purchased a subscription and followed the guided mediation and it helped me reduce my anxiety to a considerable extent.
If I look back, I don't know how I made it? It isn't easy but certainly I was the one who signed up for it. So, fair deal. 😂
I dropped the idea of doing any startup as I wasn't sure what to do?
Design was always in the back of mind while I had quit my job. So, one way was getting into design but that was tough. I had made some connections in the design fraternity but it didn't helped much.
Except one phone call with Sankalp Sinha gave me a clarity on which sector I should be choosing and that was product design.
And then I made a roadmap along with my friend who discontinued after a while but I persisted. That series is called "#Designerfromscratch" and guess what, I succeeded in that.
Within the timeframe of #Designerfromscratch series, I got a new job as a product designer in one of the fastest growing startup in India @Udaan.
How I got the job? That's the story of another time but that was the silver lining of the entire struggle.
I still remember the time when the company rolled out the offer and I couldn't believe it.
But that made me believe in the phrase that says, consistency beats perfection. It does.
August 4th, 2019, my UX blog UXSprout turned 1.
It's an amazing journey so far and hoping that 2020 will be amazing as well.
30/11/2019 — I always wanted to do a design event of my own and what's better than my Alma Mater.
Mind you that, the awareness around design is close to zero there and hence, I considered it as my responsibility to at least tell them that it's something that you can explore.
Rest of the experience about this event is captured here.
Yeah, that's about it.
If you have made it this far, thanks folk. Means a lot.
Just in case, if you want to talk about design, philosophy, blogging or startups, do let me know. Coffee/Lunch on me.
Here you can connect with me:
Ok, Bye. See you soon.