I got to thinking back about some of the websites I’ve designed and built in the past 10 years, and I can honestly say that probably 75% of the just plain sucked.  Bad layouts & navigation, bad ideas, even worse SEO (if not non-existant SEO) and just all sorts of dumbness.  It’s funny becasue at the time I was making them, any particular site seemed like the best work I’d ever done, and it was destined to be a HUGE success.  Unfortunately, the majority were flops…but that’s the important part.

You learn so much more from the ideas that stink and never get off the ground, than you do from the ones that are successful.  By this I mean that when something just doesn’t work, it’s often much easier to figure out why it failed compared to when a project takes off and is a resounding success.  Tweak here, tweak there, research a little more, change this, and the next project that comes around will be better if nothing for the fact that you’ve probably honed your skill set and are smarter for it.   Personally, I laugh hardest at some of my attempts at graphics and art work.  My Photoshop skills were almost non-existent until a couple years ago, but I thought my headers and images kicked serious ass….boy was I wrong.

Remember, what you think is your best work ever, will probably be in the “What was I thinking” pile a few years from now.  Guess what ?  It’s because you more skilled than you once were…and that’s exactly where you want to be.