What your garden and career have in common
Lessons from landscape design and Sir John Whitmore
August: Spring is approaching in South Africa, yet everything is still dry and hot. There is nothing more refreshing than change and the smell of lawn fertiliser. Now is the time to work: to dig deep, plant, prune, nourish, and all the rest.
This year I decided to give my garden a revamp. And as a UX designer, I wanted to do it properly! Read up ā plan ā budget ā optimise etc.
Look, I canāt speak for landscape architects; thatās not my field of expertise. But isnāt it just an IA (information architecture) problem? Donāt they also use pen-and-paper drawings as we do wireframing? Surely it canāt be THAT difficult!
The process ended up being deeply reflective and insightful.
The ālife is like a gardenā simile
I apologise in advance for this corny topic. These words have been uttered many times by the likes of Paulo Coelho, Leonard Nimoy and countless internet users whoāve run out of captions for their posts.
I aim to give you some practical career tips. Here are some lessons Iāve learnt while working in my garden. If youāre looking for some fundamental guidance, scroll to the end.
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Big dreams need space
Garden design involves considering many aspects beforehand, such as visual elements (colour, texture, form), size and space(a biggy!), the amount of sun vs shade, the type of soil and the amount of water.
Landscape designs are done to scale. Those circles that indicate the plants show them at their mature size. Why is this important? Because young gardens look like this: (And you may feel tempted to fill the gaps!)
Big dreams need space. Prioritise what it is you want to do. This helps you to commit to it and keep your eyes on the goal. Whether it is clearing out your Tuesday evenings for self-study or making room in your budget for studying another major or doing online courses. This should be seen in the light of a healthy work-life balance.
If you donāt make room for your dream, it will certainly become inferior, deprioritised, and eventually smothered by other interests that arenāt kept at bay. š
As creatives, we tend to be overly available to solve peoplesā problems. We tend to be ambitious with very little focus. The world is your oyster, but you can easily set yourself up for failure without narrowing down your options.
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Donāt be afraid to try new things
Keep a garden corner available to nurse new ideas and explore new topics. Donāt feel like your commitment to selecting your skills is so strong that you canāt change it later on.
The beauty in career growth is continual rerouting as you fail and succeed; yes, FAIL and succeed. Because you will do both. Youāll never know unless you try. Some jobs, tasks or positions may look attractive until you have tried them!
I regret planting ericas in Pretoria. There. I admitted it. I wonāt do it again. On the other hand, I wish Iād bought more of those cotula plants. Theyāre thriving! Iām learning.
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Feed the new growth
Donāt give up once you start seeing results. Thatās both a waste of time and a sincere pity! Seedlings arenāt the full-grown plant. Yes, they are bright green and fluffy, but at this stage, they need more nourishment, love and attention than ever.
A teacher once showed me a graph indicating the growing pains of learning a new skill. It looked something like this:
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Now, for some wisdom by Sir John Whitmore:
The GROW model for career coaching
G ā Goal
R ā Reality
O ā Options
W ā Will
This is a great place to start if youāre still struggling to direct your career or make choices. You can find some self-coaching questions online that follow Sir Whitmoreās model. Note your goals, realities and options and evaluate your will to achieve these goals.
Writing this down and sharing it with a mentor, colleague or friend will help keep you on track and accountable for your goals.
And lastly, an image to sufficiently scare you into taking action over your dreams:
