The wrong version won
You presented three directions. One felt safe, one felt interesting and one felt genuinely right. The client picked the safe one without much deliberation, thanked you for the work and sent the approval email before you had even closed your laptop. Now it is live, or in production, or sitting in a shared folder with a green checkmark next to it and every time you see it you feel something small and uncomfortable in your chest. That feeling has a name and it is worth taking seriously.
Approval is not the same as resolution
Getting a yes does not mean the design problem is actually solved. It means the client is satisfied. Those two things can exist in completely different places. A client brings their own pressures to every decision, including familiarity bias, fear of standing out, internal politics and a preference for whatever reminds them of something they have seen before. When those forces win, the better concept loses and you are left holding the result.
What the discomfort is actually telling you
The version that keeps you up at night is usually the one where you knew better and said nothing, or said something once and let it go too easily. That is not a failure of the client. It is a signal about where your own process broke down. Did you present the stronger concept with enough conviction? Did you explain the reasoning behind it in terms the client could actually connect to? Did you give them a way to feel safe choosing the riskier direction? Discomfort after approval is often just unexpressed advocacy replaying itself. It is your instincts reminding you that the job is not only to produce options but to guide people toward the one that will actually serve them.
How to carry it forward without carrying it around
You cannot undo an approval. What you can do is document your thinking so the better concept does not disappear entirely. Write a short note to yourself about what you believed in that direction. Save the file. Some of those ideas will find their way into future work in ways you cannot predict yet. More importantly, use the discomfort as a process note rather than a wound. The next time you are presenting work, you will know exactly where to push harder.
You presented three directions. One felt safe, one felt interesting and one felt genuinely right. The client picked the safe one without much deliberation, thanked you for the work and sent the approval email before you had even closed your laptop. Now it is live, or in production, or sitting in a shared folder with a green checkmark next to it and every time you see it you feel something small and uncomfortable in your chest. That feeling has a name and it is worth taking seriously.
Approval is not the same as resolution
Getting a yes does not mean the design problem is actually solved. It means the client is satisfied. Those two things can exist in completely different places. A client brings their own pressures to every decision, including familiarity bias, fear of standing out, internal politics and a preference for whatever reminds them of something they have seen before. When those forces win, the better concept loses and you are left holding the result.
Approval is not resolution. A client can be satisfied with a direction that the designer knows is the wrong one and both things can be true at the same time.
What the discomfort is actually telling you
The version that keeps you up at night is usually the one where you knew better and said nothing, or said something once and let it go too easily. That is not a failure of the client. It is a signal about where your own process broke down. Did you present the stronger concept with enough conviction? Did you explain the reasoning behind it in terms the client could actually connect to? Did you give them a way to feel safe choosing the riskier direction? Discomfort after approval is often just unexpressed advocacy replaying itself. It is your instincts reminding you that the job is not only to produce options but to guide people toward the one that will actually serve them.
The version that keeps you up at night is usually the one where you knew better and let the moment pass without saying so clearly enough.
How to carry it forward without carrying it around
You cannot undo an approval. What you can do is document your thinking so the better concept does not disappear entirely. Write a short note to yourself about what you believed in that direction. Save the file. Some of those ideas will find their way into future work in ways you cannot predict yet. More importantly, use the discomfort as a process note rather than a wound. The next time you are presenting work, you will know exactly where to push harder.