Where Purpose Meets Practice
On why we begin, how we work, and what experience teaches us
Beginning Again - Thoughts on Starting a New Project
There’s a familiar feeling that arrives whenever I begin a new project, it’s part anticipation, part uncertainty, and mostly a quiet sense of stepping into something I haven’t shaped yet. I felt it again this month, and it reminded me that beginnings always come with equal parts nerves and excitement, no matter how long you’ve been doing the work.
Starting a new project means learning the rhythm of a new team, a new brief, and a new way of working together. It’s a moment where the inner groundwork you’ve quietly invested in, the books you read, the notes you scribble, the reflections you make about who you are and how you show up, starts to surface in unexpected ways.
Two books on my desk speak to that balance right now:
Simon Sinek’s Start With Why and Alexander den Heijer’s Nothing You Don’t Already Know.
One pushes you to find clarity of purpose, the other reminds you that much of what you need is already within you. Together, they mirror exactly how starting a project feels: part forward looking, part deeply rooted.
The Quiet Work Behind the Work:
The image above captures a snapshot of my process, ideas spilling out in loops and arrows, sketches, half thought sentences, diagrams that make sense only after revisiting them. It’s messy, tactile, grounding.
I’ve realized that my creative process depends on using my hands.
Using paper.
Marking pages.
Moving between notebooks.
Letting colour or shape bring forward something my mind hasn’t articulated yet.
Everyone expresses thoughts and feelings differently, but the tactile part is what I’m drawn too. In a digital first world, these physical scribbles and doodles become a way of slowing down just enough to notice what’s actually there.
What This New Beginning Is Teaching Me:
As I step into this new project, a few themes keep circling back, some old, some evolving with time:
1. Start With WHY
Perhaps because Sinek’s book is physically sitting on my desk, but also because it’s true:
Every project begins with purpose.
Why does this brand want to launch a new collection?
What gap does it fill?
What story is it trying to tell?
Clarity at this stage shapes everything that follows.
2. Communication as the Compass
Early conversations matter more than most people realize.
How we talk, listen, question, and align in these first weeks creates the foundation for the work - the trust, the pace, the honesty.
Good communication doesn’t make the project easier, it makes it clearer.
3. Aesthetics & Materials - The Ongoing Conversation
These two are always in dialogue.
What a piece looks like and what it’s made from aren’t separate decisions; they reflect values, identity, longevity.
The art is in knowing when aesthetics should lead and when material integrity must take the front seat.
4. Experience - The Part You Forget You Have
Alexander den Heijer writes about how so much of what we seek is actually already within us.
That applies here.
Experience doesn’t shout or boast, it nudges.
It shows up in the questions you don’t forget to ask, the patterns you recognize without realizing.
I’m learning to make space for that, to trust it, and to let it pull its weight.
A Small Closing Thought
Beginning a new project always feels a little like standing at the edge of something you can’t fully see, but somehow already know the feeling. The nerves, the sketching, the conversations, the purpose finding, they’re all part of the same unfolding.
What I keep coming back to is this:
Start with why, communicate with clarity, design with intention, and trust what you’ve already learned.
The rest has a way of revealing itself in time.