Bye Bye 2016, Bring on 2017!
Oh 2016, what a crazy, intense, eye opening, weird, stressful year you have been.
But its all about 2017 now and looking onwards and upwards to what we can achieve for the new year. More than ever I truly believe you can do whatever the heck you want to do in life, learn anything, experience anything you want. So why not this year take a chance? I want to talk about a few things I have done in the past year along with tips for 2017.
Make the first move, take the first step. I have been reading up on lots this year, buying tons on design and self help books from the biggest and baddest! I’ll be doing some book reviews soon. From everything I have read and heard, taking the first step is the key.. Yes I know that sounds too easy, but I learnt just that majorly this year as I decided to dive into more 3D design and renders. My problem, like with most people, is that starting something is always hard. We worry about how crap we will be at something before we’ve even started. For me personally, getting in 3D has been a 5 year process of spending way too much time looking at what others are creating and constantly thinking I will never be good enough. That changed in the second half of this year when I simply began to dedicate 1 hour a day to learning Cinema4D, finding a few tutorials a night, and sticking to this routine.
A part of my #AbstractShiz series, I started posting more regularly, regardless of how polished I wanted a piece to be. The key was speed and turnover, I just needed to get things out and then afterwards take a step back to review and critique my work. I ended the year with a solid portfolio of self initiated pieces and can actually see the progression from the time I started up until now. Releasing content regularly forced myself to not overthink too much and just enjoy making my designs in the moment. I believe as soon the critical part of your brain kicks in, we start to linger on things. This is not a bad thing but sometimes when your learning something new, I find its better to just run with things in the meantime until you get to a point where you can take a step back to truly see all your progression, without getting bogged down with how well you are doing.
Take a step away from social media and the news. I find these two can really force procrastination. If you’re a digital designer like me, or spend most of your time on the computer in general, try to take a step away from it all from time to time. Its tough enough spending an entire work day looking at the screen, but then to continue outside those hours on large amounts of time surfing Facebook or whatever else is damaging to your health and mental state. Get out, get physical! A big key to my creativity this year has been joining the gym. I started about 3 months ago and don’t regret it at all. I love it, I get up at around 6 every morning from Monday to Friday to get a quick 1 hour session in. Nothing too long, nothing too crazy, just enough to get my blood pumping and breaking a sweat, for I know I will be sitting down slouching onto a computer for the rest of the day. Its kept my mind focused and body in tune for the day ahead, ready to let my creative juices unleash onto my work.
I spent most of my early years thinking greatness and success develops in isolated places, but I have come to realise that surrounding yourself around the right people and working along side them is the greatest thing you can do. This journey can not be done alone, you need to work with others for knowledge is a powerful thing when shared amongst others. Tutorials are good and all, but having physical real time responses to your questions is needed.
Why not get a few friends together and make it a thing to each learn something new weekly. A photoshop brush, an animation technique, a new cinema4d renderer? Whatever it is, then meet up maybe every week or once a fortnight to share what you have learnt. Learning through others is the most powerful thing that I have learnt this year, as I have finally been working in teams recently. I spent the last 3 years often being the only motion designer wherever I worked and it meant I had no one to learn from, or even pass on my knowledge. This leads to becoming stale in your work and then overall thinking what you do is the standard and the norm, not wanting to ever evolve and learn new practices.
Organise your day and find routine. Make a daily list, on a piece of paper or notebook, check it off every night! Make sure the goals are small and doable for the next day, or at least that week if they are need doing for that time. But small goals you can physically tick off every night is so important to actually being able to see how you have progressed and consumed your day, along with what needs to be done for the next. Checking them off gives your a little fist pump moment and keeps morale up for achieving those bigger goals you set as well. Positivity and a focused state of mind will keep you running for the journey, I promise you it will work.
Overall just enjoy yourself and take a chance, you never know what can truly come of it until you try. Let go of fears and doubts and just get your arse into gear to make the strides you have always wanted and needed to do, stop making excuses and take some responsibility for your journey and destination in life!
Thats it for now, and I wish you all an amazing Happy New Year! Why not check out my twitter at www.twitter.com/HashmukhKerai and my Instagram at www.instagram.com/hashmukh. You can also see some of my work at www.hashmukh.com
