Make a little progress every day to reach the next level. Building a successful design business isn’t easy. It takes skill, it takes time, and it takes effort, a lot of effort. Think of your design business’s success as a journey. One where you strive every day to make progress towards that next level of success. Every business starts off new, with all the potential in the world. To grow your business, you need to have a destination in mind of what next level you want to reach. Then you get to work and make progress towards that goal. Maybe that destination is to land that first paying design client. Maybe it’s to see something you designed in print. Maybe it’s hearing from your client that they’ve made their first sale on a website you built for them. Whatever your destination is, you need to work hard until you reach it. Of course, reaching that destination is not the end. It's a new beginning. Once you've reached that destination and achieved that goal, the next step is to progress to the next level. You do that by setting a new destination for yourself and setting off on that path. Maybe your new destination is to get your second client. Maybe it's to design something portfolio worthy. Maybe it's to see your design on store shelves. Whatever your goals are, or whatever path you take, you get there by putting one foot in front of the other until your next destination is reached. Overcoming doubt. Like any journey, there will be bumps along the way that may cause you to doubt yourself. Am I a good enough a designer to be doing this? Why would someone hire me instead of one of the other talented and more experienced designers offering similar work? Can I create a design that truly reflects who the client is? Am I charging too much or too little for my work? These are all normal questions to be thinking. Some designers don’t even realize they doubt themselves by asking them. But it's ok; all designers do it. And you know what? Doubting yourself is healthy. If you didn't doubt yourself, there would be nothing to keep you in check. Nothing to cause you to stop and think is this the best idea or direction. Nothing stopping you from taking a wrong path that leads you away from the destination you set for yourself. The trick is to use that doubt to help you navigate to that next level. This goes for whether you’re just starting out in your design business or you’ve been doing this for many years. The next level is still the next level. It’s the place you haven’t been before with your business. Another step on the road to success. One of the big challenges of reaching those next levels is self-doubt, the uncertainty and the lack of clarity about how to get there. We all experience it. There have been several times over the years when I wasn’t sure about what I should do next, or how I should proceed with my business either. I doubted myself. When I switched from hourly billing to fixed and value-based billing, I wondered if it was the right move. When I went from charging hundreds of dollars for a website to charging thousands of dollars I was worried that nobody would hire me anymore. When I decided to give up hand coding websites and focus solely on building Wordpress websites I was worried that I wasn't being true to my design roots. Heck, when I was thinking of starting the Resourceful Designer podcast I had doubts. I didn’t know how the show would be received. Would people like you enjoy it? Would you find the topics I talk about interesting and informative? Would you even bother listening to someone like me who isn't a big name in the design world? All of these were next levels in my design career that I chose as destinations to reach. And I reached them by getting over my self-doubt. Maybe you don’t have your own design business yet. Maybe you’ve recently started one and are in the process of growing it. Maybe you are running a part-time freelance business while working a full-time job. Or Maybe you’ve been at this a long tim