The Link Between Design Thinking And Resilience
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In 2009, my law career stalled. I was burned out and ready to make a professional change, but I had no idea where to start or what my next step should be. Should I continue to practice law, but in a different setting or practice area? Should I start my own business, and if so, doing what?
One of the most important aspects of resilience involves developing a flexible way of thinking about challenge and adversity and being able to solve problems in an accurate way. Design thinking is a type of innovation methodology – a problem solving process to help you generate options, test strategies, and get feedback so that you can develop something (often applied to facilitate the creation of new products or processes). As I discovered, design thinking is also a great tool to help you get unstuck and problem solve life’s biggest challenges.
Design thinking can help you craft a more meaningful life, create the type of relationships you want after a divorce or breakup, or open up new pathways for you at work. Here is how I used design thinking to help me identify a new career (and save lots of time and money in the process):
- Observe. If you were going to design a new product, you would first learn all about the end-user to identify pain points and patterns of behavior. In my application of design thinking, the end-user is you, and you have some work to do.
- Define the problem. What is the exact problem you’re trying to solve? This is an important question because you can lose years working on the wrong problem. The trick to uncovering the right problem is to think like a beginner and get curious.
- Reframe counterproductive thinking. Your automatic negative thoughts (“ANTs”) about stress can cause you to miss critical information. As a result, you need to be able to quickly reframe ANTs in order to think more flexibly and accurately.
- Cut yourself some slack. Self-compassion involves being kind to yourself, getting support from others, and taking a balanced approach to your emotions.
The problem I decided to get curious about was, “What do I love doing at work?” I had ANTs about feeling like a failure for quitting my law practice, but I soon realized that many thousands of lawyers had done the same thing. Practicing law is simply one of many things you can do with a law degree.
