The year 2019 was very good, personally and business-wise. But in spite of the success and being very busy, it still left me feeling adrift, happy but not certain where I\u2019m heading as a creative professional. In finding a focus and specializing after 12 years as a solo entrepreneur, I\u2019m hoping to find guidance, less stress and more financial growth.<\/p>\n
Although I just started with this process, I wanted to write about it to structure my thoughts and share my insights. Maybe you\u2019re in a similar situation too. This might help you.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s okay to try out different stuff when you\u2019re starting your career or are not sure about what you want to do. But in my case, I’ve been working\u00a0as an independent visual designer since 2007. I have a feeling of what I like and what I don\u2019t, what suits me better and where client demand is.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless I was still offering a pretty broad range of services, from branding to web design \u2013 as opposed to classical graphic design \u2013 for digital, print and everything in between. I always struggled with deciding on a discipline and positioning myself there. (Yes, I\u2019m hopelessly in love with typography\u00a0and shared a lot<\/a> about it, but again: that\u2019s a very broad or narrow<\/a>\u00a0subject). I thought that specializing wasn\u2019t necessary,<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m busy anyway. And there is the fear of missing out on opportunities. As a creative I treasure variety,\u00a0I want to do everything for everyone.<\/strong>\u00a0But of course, if you say that, you could also offer nothing to no one.<\/p>\n I found a lot of excuses like \u201cI specialize in being a generalist,\u201d \u201cI love the variety of different disciplines and clients\u201d or \u201cMy strength is combining branding and corporate design with web, digital, and print design.\u201d These things were not false. I delivered decent work and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 my clients were happy and achieved their goals with it. I took on every job I got that seemed interesting, with the wish to reinvent, redefine and surprise myself every time. But deep within myself I often wasn\u2019t sure: Is this really the best work I can deliver?<\/strong>\u00a0I want to start taking on work more consciously, work that better fits my wishes. But what am I looking for?<\/p>\n I discovered the podcast 2 Bobs – Conversations on the art of creative entrepreneurship<\/a>\u00a0and there the topic almost always comes down to positioning and why it\u2019s so hard for us creatives to choose<\/a>. They address the fear that tightly defined expertise is going to bore me. Listening to that, I felt caught and understood at the same time. But then they turn it around by asking: what if focusing leads me to the most interesting work I can do?<\/strong><\/p>\n In another episode, one of the hosts, David C. Baker, talks about tasting competence<\/a>\u00a0and that really resonated with me:<\/p>\n \u201c[In a creative\u2019s early career] they’re still exploring and the idea of deep competence is not as important as variety and trying lots of things. Then in their mid to late 30s they usually have a change of heart there. [\u2026] They taste competence at some point and they\u2019ve also tasted incompetence. [\u2026] When I tasted competence the difference was so staggering to me, I just made this pledge to myself. I\u2019m never going to go back there. I\u2019m tired of that.\u201d<\/p>\nAdmitting I can’t be great at everything<\/h2>\n