There are plenty of technical skills to master along the way, but the biggest obstacles to earning passive income have to do with mindset—in essence, designers have to unlearn a lot of what has worked for them so far. Here are a few key concepts.

You’re not just a designer anymore.

There are many different ways to make passive income online, but they’re all based around attracting the attention of an audience and monetizing it. That means designers have to stop thinking like designers, and start thinking like publishers. Much of the grind has nothing to do with creating beautiful interiors and everything to do with building an email list, writing content, figuring out search engine optimization, talking to your audience and setting up conversion funnels. If all of that sounds deathly boring, maybe passive income isn’t a good fit.