How to Define your Values for Effective Decision-making- For Interior Designers
WHY OH WHY?
I don’t know about you but as a designer, I am drawn to creativity. There has always been something in me that has wanted to create. As a child, creativity was channelled into art classes. I couldn’t draw naturally and there was someone in my class that was really great at drawing. Even in kindergarten, I remember comparing myself to him and coming up short. It was only later in life that I discovered I was much better at building and making things and over the years I have developed skills in knitting, crocheting, photography, and jewellery making to name a few. I even practice my drawing and have developed some skills in that too.
So essentially my WHY is this desire to create and help others create better.
WHY IS IMPORTANT TO DEFINE YOUR WHY AS AN INTERIOR DESIGNER?
It’s no secret that I absolutely loathe social media. The only reason I go on Instagram is because of my business. It’s been a long hard road to even get to show my face on camera. But whenever times get tough, I always circle back to my why. In my interior designer coaching program, I start off with an exploration of why my clients want to be designers in the first place. A lot of my clients have entered into interior design as a second career, some of them have been business people, lawyers or accountants in a past life and made decent livings.
It’s tempting, when things get tough, to forget about why you are here in the first place. Most of us have never taken the time to really think about it, let alone commit these thoughts to paper. We start off doing everything ourselves and the learning curve for interior design is steep. This is one of the things that gets thrown to the wayside. I guess the last thing we want to do at the end of a busy day is think about our vision, mission and values.
In this post, I’m going to discuss why it is important to define your WHY aka your Values
We’re going to do this in 4 ways:
we will define what makes us different and how this relates to our brand position and customer segmentation
I’ll share with you my values and how I went about defining them
I’ll give you a method to define your own core values
I’ll show you how this will relate to your mission and vision for your business
What are values?
When we define our values, when things get tough, we can lean on them to hold us steady. These are the foundations of our design business and as you make decisions in your business, you have to ensure that these decisions align with your values.
For example, one of the most common issues with interior designers is deciding if they really want to work with a client. It is tempting at the beginning of our journey to just take on whatever project comes our way, but sometimes you realise that they want something that you can’t provide. This is where we look inwards.
Action Step:
Write down the top 3 things that are really important to you in your work
Think about the best client/project that you ever had- how does this relate to these things
Think about the worst client/project that you ever had and- how it relates to these things
Now we have thought about your most important things, let’s look at my core values.
Do things that I love
Learn something new every day
Work hard and you will succeed
Don't be afraid to make mistakes
Make a positive impact by helping people
So when I am trying to make a decision, I think about these values and the path becomes really clear.
Action Step:
Have a look around the internet to find some other businesses’ values. Do you think that they put these values into action?
Okay, now you’ve looked at my values, and a few others. Let’s write yours!
So let’s define why you want to be a designer. You probably have come across this before, but this is super important as a service provider. Knowing your ‘why” serves to explain what is special about you. This has to come through in your brand messaging, your website and how you talk and interact with clients. You can check out Simon Sinek’s Ted talk to get those creative juices flowing.
What are your personal values? What is important to you? What is something you would never do? What is something you ALWAYS do?
Now take a 360-degree look at your life. Ask three people who really know you the following questions
what do they think is important to you?
what is really important to you
one example of when something got hard is that you really thought about its implications
what are some quotes that you live by? what are some books you love that you are drawn to?
Write down three people that you really admire. What qualities do they have that you really admire?
SO WHAT NOW?
Now you have dug deep. It’s time to make a list of what you think your values are. My list is five things. Any more and it can get messy. Write them down. Put them on your Notion dashboard, and jot them down on a piece of paper or anywhere where you can look at them for a couple of weeks. Every time you have to make a decision that requires a little thought pull them out and assess.
Do they guide you to your next step? Do they clarify your decision-making? Can you see any weaknesses? Anything where you might colour outside of the line.
YES? Then reassess, delete or replace ( you don’t have to have 5 values)
NO? Then keep them.
Action step:
Print it out and keep it visible.
You can check out this Canva template here.
Now you have your list, pull it out every time you have to make a hard decision or a choice.
You can use your values list to
attract your ideal clients and projects
review your processes and ensure that it aligns with these values
ensure that your team or new hire aligns with these values
WANT TO SAVE THIS FOR LATER! THAT’S WHAT PINTEREST IS FOR!
CLICK BELOW TO PIN IT!
