By Marley Muirhead

A yummy PB & Stress

Last week saw the end of our first portfolio brief and there’s no doubt that it was just a taste of what’s to come. Though I’m proud of the work my partner and I did (it could have been miles better) I’m especially proud of the two weeks that went into making it happen. That portfolio brief hung every single amateur habit I had on the line. I mean the neighbours’ neighbours could see my novelty socks and polkadot undies. I’m quite an emotional person, and quite sensitive at that. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find myself motivated by the whole experience. It sort of feels like when you’re playing a video game and you reach enough points to reveal some new levels. Those levels are still locked, all faded with a little padlock symbol on them. But there’s something really motivating about having them come into view. That’s what happened over the last two weeks. My time management was atrocious and honestly, I knew it would be going in. However, in it going wrong I have a better idea of how to do it right the next time. That couldn’t be more of a cliché. You’re welcome to run this blog post through a plagarism checker. Nonetheless, that was an important takeaway for me this week. (Don’t tell my parents. After filling my ears with that verse for years, it’d be a kick in their teeth to say it took ten weeks under the wing of a blue-haired man to really have that sink in).

My use of techniques to generate and develop ideas was also a total mess throughout those two weeks. The techniques just aren’t fully part of my muscle memory. I haven’t even worked out my way of using them yet. To top it off, I had a really great meeting with a team from And Rising a couple of days before the deadline. I showed them a couple of rough scamps of our idea for the campaign and BOOM they were just reeling out ideas with fluency. It left me sitting there wondering if I even knew the alphabet. But I liked that! I liked seeing with my own four eyes (you’ve seen my picture by now) where my craft could be with enough work. What was also really cool is that me a couple of weeks ago probably wouldn’t have taken it like that. I probably would have compared myself to them a bit too much. I wouldn’t have been as accepting of the fact that I wasn’t as good as them. I recognise that as growth. Which is bloody exciting. How many moments do we have where we actually feel like we’ve grown? I really liked the seed of the idea my partner and I came up with and now I’m thinking, gosh I am an INFANT in this. Like a whole-ass Bambi. What are these ideas going to be like when I’m not? So on one hand, I’ve realised just how much potential I have to get better. Then, on the other equally as fantastic hand, the fact I’m excited by doing it wrong means I’m being receptive to these failures. I’m actively failing. What a scrummy place to be.