You didn’t become a designer to only push pixels.
Mentorship that helps you move beyond design work to guide decisions, influence stakeholders, and step into real design leadership.
Yay! You finally got a design role.
And you should definitely be proud of yourself.
But after a year or so, you feel overworked, struggle with imposter syndrome, and the reason you started UX — to be the voice of the user in product design — is not really working out that easily.
You may be feeling overstimulated, stressed, drained — hell, even confused.
Is this what you actually signed up for?
What if you could feel confident and invigorated doing design work at a large company?
What if you had strong confidence-levels in communicating so that you get results during stakeholder calls and presentations?
What if the fear of being an imposter no longer controlled how you show up in your team or work?
What if the perfectionism didn’t drive every single task and you could design with freedom, lead the direction of the product, and feel fulfilled?
Big questions. And I want you to imagine what’s possible — and believe (ahem, know) it can happen for you.
You’ve put in the hours.
MAYBE YOU’VE…
Focused on honing your craft through hours on figma, AI and tutorials
Learned about all the UX principles and heuristics, to the point of obsession
Taken (and are still taking) a million courses to perfect your skills
Been stuck in the loop of continuously tweaking wireframes, your portfolio, or designs to no avail…
But you still find yourself…
Overpreparing your presentations, only to have stakeholders still question your design decisions — then you don’t know how to answer in a way that influences them.
Wanting to be seen as a strategic partner —not just an executor — but being left out of strategic conversations from the getgo.
Desiring to lead with more confidence, but feeling like you're not sure how to communicate at that level to your stakeholders.
Spending hours on designs, but still unsure how they'll influence product or roadmap decisions.
You’re not doing anything wrong.
You might just be focusing on the wrong things.
The skills that helped you learn design are not the same as the skills needed to lead design direction.
New skills are needed to become the version of yourself that knows how to lead and influence.
I’ve been there, too.
Obsessed with the craft, and a love for design. But internally, I was frustrated by the lack of momentum my work was doing.
—I cared about the users.
—I knew design was valuable.
—I wanted design to be respected.
—And I desired to influence and lead product design.
After 5+ years working as a designer within an Enterprise product suite, I learned that in order to do your best work, you need the skills that are necessary to contribute in a larger way.
That’s design leadership & influence.
And that requires different skills than those pushing pixel ones.
Ready to lead as a designer?
Not yet in your design leadership era?
If you’re not looking to grow your leadership just yet, but are seeking one-off design mentoring sessions, you can find me directly on ADPlist.
Book your session today.
