10 Bad Weeks

A mindful design challenge to push back against my inner critic and start making things again.

Lately, I’ve been haunted by a tiny negativity gremlin I call Mr. Bad. Recently, when I sit down to do creative work, he'll chime in with unhelpful comments, “Are you sure about that?”, “Eh, I don’t know…”, or, “Honestly, that’s pretty bad…” If you've ever lived with a Mr. Bad, you know it sucks.

For months, I've tried unwinding Mr. Bad in therapy. But talk therapy is only making me think and overthink more, which provides fuel for Mr. Bad. When I'm not paying attention, he'll slither in to feed on my scattered thoughts, and leaves a noxious trail of perfectionism and anxiety in his wake. His "contributions" make me feel worse, which keeps the cycle going. I've got to face it: thinking will not get me out from under Mr. Bad.

10 Bad Weeks

So, I'm embarking on a 10-week design challenge to get out of my head and back into my life (shout out to Dr. Hayes). The challenge is simple: make something every day and share my progress daily on Instagram and weekly via this blog. My goal is to develop 10 different concepts over the course of the challenge, and share one at the end of each week, regardless of how "done" it is. The idea behind this is to stop prioritizing any specific outcome and to simply focus on "doing," no matter what Mr. Bad says or thinks (he'll say it's all bad, anyway).

Ultimately, my goal is to give myself permission to create a little more freely and lean into the iterative and messy process of design (life?). If I make some cool stuff along the way, that would be great too! But for now, I'm taking a mentor's advice to "simplify and go."

Max