It was while talking to my lady friend yesterday that I gave some thought to the superstition that riddles the design process. The creative gods as they may be sometimes bless us with the eureka solution right away, other times it can take several hours to days to have a break through. With such a precarious practice one can’t help but to be mislead by false-positives.

It doesn’t matter what you’re an expert in, there comes a point when you hit a wall. When this happens I tend to back up and evaluate. It wasn’t long ago that I found myself trying different things to extricate myself from the funk. Perhaps I had to wear more red (literally), work while the sun was shining, or even be sitting at a specific table at my favorite coffee shop. Superstition is more than a psychological kick to the process. It’s a beguiling tendency that falsely seems to be both essential and tangible.

The thing that I’ve come to realize in the past two years of working in the industry is that more important than any superstition is faith in your talent. The road to innovation can be rocky at times. With experience you feel your way through the fog and eventually find the pot of gold. The key is that you always find it if you search hard enough. Design is all about taking an idea from beginning to the end. It’s when you’re in the intermediate stages that things may seem nebulous. It’s no surprise since your work is incomplete. This is natural. Embrace it.

If you have faith that you will pop your idea at the end you’ll quickly learn that it always does. Half baked ideas are no good. Take your ideas all the way. The sooner you realize this the sooner you can stop wearing your mismatched socks.

Have a great Thanksgiving!