Mindset for interior designers
Everything you need to know
Why mindset is a key element of creating a successful interior design business.
I worked with an interior designer recently who told me that she was overwhelmed with her interior design business and didn’t have time to work on her website, though she told me she had got some leads from it in the past. She noted that she had quite good traffic but that people were not converting.
She said the following:
I have so much to do, I just want to hand it off to someone and hope it’s good enough. I am not sure that I will be able to learn the skills I need to do this at all.
I don’t really want to learn this.
I hate my website but if I change I will have wasted all the time I have put into it already.
Whatever effort you contribute to your business, you will get back. It’s just a matter of time.
After spending the last 15 years working for myself as an interior designer, I can only say this. Owning a business is hard. It takes time (a lot of time) and work. You get back what you put into it. Whenever I have ignored parts of my business that I thought were too hard and tried to pay someone else to work on it, I have regretted it.
A big part of how we become successful in anything is a mindset.
Ask yourself this:
Are you willing to fail?
Are you willing to learn from your failures?
Do you tell yourself when faced with decisions- this is hard, I don’t know whether I have the time?
You might say to me: learning something new takes time.
I say: This is true. You have to invest time into learning anything, and it can be difficult. Sometimes you think you are getting nowhere. But the good news is: every minute that you spend on it you are getting better, even if you don’t think you are.
You might say to me: I know this is important for my business but I think I will just pay someone to do it for me, even if it is not that great.
I say: Yes, you can. This can be a great option to get you started. But in a few months or years, you will be back in the same position. It’s important to build on your skills to get you started.
In my first business, Eclectic Cool, I had something of what I would call a fixed mindset. I thought I had no time, I hired a lot of people who sometimes were effective and sometimes were not. Most of the time, I thought by hiring someone who I thought knew what they were doing, I would be okay. This is a short-term solution. Essentially it left me with two options: continue paying them or learn how to do it myself.
Often, unless the person you hired as a vested interest, is really great at what they do (that can be hard to find and expensive) the results can be disappointing. Your lack of knowledge and skill means that it is difficult to manage them and your own expectations.
So how do we get around this:
Mindset, specifically a growth mindset.
Recently I read a book by Carol Dweck called Mindset- the New Psychology of Success. If you haven’t read it , you should. Essentially she says this:
You can become more skilled with effort
If you have a growth mindset you will thrive on challenges
There are 2 types of mindsets : the fixed mindset:”I can’t do it” and the growth mindset:” I can’t do it yet”
Your mindset will affect the way that you approach life.
You can learn new skills by challenging yourself
Even if it is hard, you can continue the process of learning and thrive on it.
I like these quotes:
The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.
This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience
So what makes us not want to grow?
Fear
As interior designers and (probably as human beings) we fear judgement. We are always looking for the best option. One of the defining experiences of design school was hating design presentations. There was something about pinning your stuff up on a wall and having everyone looking at it that was very confronting. We had to get over our fear, or at least manage and accept it.
So how to get over this:
Do something hard every day.
Get used to the feeling of trying and not getting it right. As Carol Dweck says in her book:
Not only were [the children with a growth mindset]not discouraged by failure, they didn’t even think they were failing. They thought they were learning
It’s hard
Yep it is. And you probably won’t do so well the first time. But you will do better the second time and better the third. You have to keep on trying and though there are problems, there are solutions.
So how to get over this:
For every problem, try to work out what went wrong. How can you improve in the future? Are there processes, more skills, a better contract, small tweaks to your site. There is always something you can do.
Fall down and stay down
Not being successful is hard. I am sure we have all looked at people who we think are killing it and thought about how life is so unfair. Now sometimes life can seem unfair, but I guarantee that behind every ‘perfect’ life there is a lot of work: blood, sweat and tears. We just don’t see it.
So how to get over this:
So stay committed, when things don’t go your way, look at it as an opportunity to improve and grow. Accept that the road to success is paved with hard lessons.
Embrace growth. Everything is a lesson to be learned. Commit to success not fear of failure.
Are you :
✔️ looking for more clients✔️ wanting to launch your new interior design biz effectively?
✔️ wanting to upskill your offerings?
I’ll be launching a series of courses and resources soon…check out our courses page
