Moving away from bad habits and toxic patterns as a designer
If I had to list every single bad habit or toxic patterns as a designer and creative person… it would be longer than your monthly Costco receipt.
Most people have them, but their shiny curricula won’t tell you about it. It’s a personal battle that they fight and mask most of the time, and I do that too - because you know what? Nobody is perfect, and the toll that jobs in general put on us plays a significant role in how we act and react on a professional and personal level.
In my experience, it’s been a mix of different factors that triggered something in me. Some of them lead to smoking, others to people-pleasing, and something else gave me burnouts and imposter syndrome. Overthinking and blockage? Put that on the list too. Told you it was a long one.
This is not a therapy session though, so I won’t be an annoying bitch analyzing every single habit or pattern here, but I want to highlight a couple that I have recovered from (or am still actively recovering) and how I’m doing it.
The Great Fear & The Comparison Monster
We are four months into 2026 and so many things have happened already in my life. I made some harsh decisions that revolutionized everything, and along with all of that, there has been a great mental shift that pulled me out of a stagnant and scary pit of misery.
After long years, I decided to actively recover from being constantly scared. Of what, you may ask? Everything. Mostly of other people’s judgment. I was conditioned by different situations, people and their expectations during my toddler and teenage years, and it kept me always frozen in fear of potential judgment or unattained excellence. I dragged that shit on my back into my twenties and thirties too, and it got to the point where I was fully fed up and tired of it all.
I was tired of being frozen in front of a blank canvas because whatever could have appeared on it might not have been good enough (for who? I don’t even know). That fear was physical. It almost felt like sleep paralysis, and sometimes like static that was painfully stopping my muscles from even moving my hands in order to create something, anything.
Recovering from that wasn’t a simple task. It wasn’t easy to eradicate the one and only approach to life that was planted in my head, which sounded like this: you must excel at everything, otherwise you won’t be worthy of anything. Extremely toxic behaviour towards myself, if you ask me.
Putting the bar that high couldn’t lead to anything good. In fact, for years I wasn’t able to be consistent with my art and design, because not only I was already scared of that unreachable bar, but I also dreaded the comparison to other artists and designers. How can I be a good one if out there we have so many other excellent and talented people that I can’t even stand next to, let alone be more successful than them? That was a recurring thought in my head for a very long time.
What if this is not a fucking rat race, though? I mean, in some aspects it might be, but an enlightenment came to me one day when I was reading Creative Confidence by Tom Kelley and David Kelley: this is not the art & design olympics. There is no supreme jury and definitely there is no single podium to fight for. Each artist and designer has their own style and mission. Each of them reaches different people and audiences, and solves different problems (yes, wanting to decorate your room with cool prints or paintings also counts as a potential problem or need). Rather than podiums, we all should look at it as reaching individual goals and stress a bit less about this whole fear and comparison acrobatics, because it’s simply not worth our mental health and time.
But how did I overcome that? It might sound a bit silly, but at the beginning of the year I bought MindPanda’s Thrive planner and told myself: this is your new planner, you will use it without thinking about pretty calligraphy or aesthetics, you will put stickers in it that you always feared wasting. It will look messy and ugly but it doesn’t matter. It’s you goddamn planner, not the artwork to put at MoMA. Nobody else will see it, just you.
This stupid planner actually started the process of embracing the imperfections and fighting that invisible Supreme Judge standing in the corner of my room, who I somehow depict in my mind as Bill Nighy in “Free” videoclip by Florence + The Machine. And it’s working. It’s working because I finally got back to drawing and designing, and this time I’m sure it’s a long term change, not just an exciting hiccup that will last a week or two.
Another, very crucial change to make was to limit my online activities, especially on social media. It got to the point where I was getting nauseous and angry while doom-scrolling Instagram feed, and it was not serving me at all. Removing myself from those environments helped me not only to stop wasting my time, but also to stop comparing myself to others and injecting my body with stress and pointless anxiety.
Don’t get me wrong, I still scroll Instagram or that hellhole of LinkedIn, but my social media screen time has drastically dropped since the beginning of 2026. I’m focusing more on analog hobbies, watching movies, listening to music, working out… and you know what? I feel much better.
The Third Knight of Apocalypse
Another debilitating thing that was implanted in my head a long time ago is that I have to be productive all the time, and if I slouch a bit then I am a lazy bitch who doesn’t deserve a dime or rest in her life. And if I allow myself to rest, it’s just a waste of time.
I’m pretty sure this is a very slavic mindset that I inherited from my mum. For a very long time I would force myself to work long hours, burn my eyes in front of a monitor day and night, just to seem busy and convince myself (and others) that I’m actually doing things and being productive.
It doesn’t work like that. There are plenty of studies telling us that people are not meant to work all the time. Actual productivity has specific windows during the day, and there are many factors that impact it: sleep quality, food and nutrients, hydration, enriching activities, sports, hobbies, and so on. It’s a complex machine, and thinking that work is the only thing that matters… well, it’s wrong and toxic.
By working 13 hours a day in the past, I might have somehow pleased the Supreme Judge, but it took a big toll on me in the long run. No inspiration, burnout, increased stress and anxiety, poor sleep, you name it.
After decades, I finally realised that in order to be actually productive and create good work, you have to live a balanced life. Instagram gurus had been telling me about it for years, but I didn’t believe them until I decided to make a change myself. It started with thinking about and understanding what is important to me, what is non-negotiable, what can be changed, and what could work for me in terms of activities and time management. All of this had to respond to one rule: sustainability.
Again, planning played a big role in this. Setting boundaries and time intervals for my activities was and still is very important to me, so I avoid letting my work screen time bleed out of control. My current schedule looks pretty much like this:
Monday - Friday
Research & admin: 2h
Deep work: 5h
Workout: 1-1.5h
Hobbies: 2h
Chores: 1h
Self care & relax: whatever remains of the day
Saturdays and Sundays are planned weekly because I want to keep them flexible, based on whatever life brings that week. However, I try to avoid working on the weekends because my brain and body need a full reset to be fresh and be ready to work the following week.
All of the above requires discipline. It is annoying, it is a pain in the ass, but in the long run it brings positive changes and makes living in the capitalistic world a little bit more bearable.
Try it. And drop me a message to let me know if it works for you or not :)
This entry has been written without any AI aid
