Most designers replace their income every 30 days. Land a client.Deliver the project.Invoice. Then start from zero again next month. I did that for a while. Then I locked in my first retainer. $5k/month. One client. Recurring. The relief wasn't immediate. But a few months in, I realized something: I wasn't scrambling anymore. Everyone else was hunting for next month's rent. I had runway.I could breathe.I could think. I could be pickier about who I worked with. And here's the part that changed...