The Art of Letting Go

Letting go is one of those things that can be hard.

As designers, we sometimes come up with ideas that feel special to us. We strongly believe they are the right ideas, and sometimes they resonate with our clients too. When that happens, everything aligns in perfect harmony.

But what happens when our idea doesn’t align with the client’s goals?

Sometimes, we defend the idea without really asking ourselves why. This is where ego can start to emerge. We stop looking at things rationally and objectively and let emotion take over.

That can be dangerous.

The next thing you know, you start to resent the client. You become demotivated, and when a designer is demotivated, it often shows in the final result.

This used to happen to me a lot back in the day, and I think it happens to a lot of designers.

What helped me was learning to break down what the client’s actual goal is. That doesn’t mean blindly agreeing with everything they say. It means explaining why my idea, or part of it, makes sense and showing how it connects to what they are trying to achieve.

If, after sitting with it and thinking it through, I realize that my idea doesn’t really connect to their goals, I let it go.

Then comes the harder question: how do you stop yourself from becoming demotivated?

To be honest, I used to do nothing. I would just go with the flow, get paid, and move on.

Now, I explain the why first.

Sometimes the why is simply, “I just like this idea.”

And that’s the wrong why.

So I sit with it. I think about what I’m actually trying to achieve, what the client is trying to achieve, and whether the two are aligned. Then I try to calibrate the idea to meet the client’s goals.

And if I still have to let it go, I let it go.

That doesn’t mean the idea has to disappear. I can save it. Maybe I save the idea itself. Maybe it’s just a particular detail, interaction, visual treatment, or direction that didn’t make sense for this project.

There is a difference between holding on to an idea and keeping it.

Holding on means I’m still attached to the idea. Basically: I still want this client, on this project, to validate the idea I came up with.

Keeping it is different. I’ve accepted that it doesn’t belong here, but I don’t have to believe that it was worthless.

Sometimes an idea is simply waiting for the right problem.

Because letting go isn’t about losing something. It’s about releasing your attachment to it without losing what you learned from it.

And if the idea is good, nothing is wasted.

It can always find its place in another project.

So here comes the beautiful contradiction:

We let go, so we can keep.

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