If we’re being honest here… I really don’t know WTH I’m doing with my life. One part of me is content with winging it (ahem—recovering perfectionist) and the other part freaks out when thinking of the future (fear of missing out or what if’s).
But I came across The Katelier’s post on Instagram that captioned “Anyone out there wandering what the heck they are doing? Me too! In the meantime, thankful for buddies who take my picture while I ACT like I know what I’m doing.”
I broke it down to this simple message: There’s no road map to life but if you’re doing life with people that matter to you, you’re doing it right—live LIFE. Why are you putting energy into something that does not bring about the quality of life you want? Demands of the family, demands of making a living? All very good and logical reasons of course but if we had a choice? And do we really have a choice? Yes we do! This concept is totally the minimalist way and there’s a lot to take from that. What I’ve learned about life (and hey when you’re in your 30’s you can pretty much do whatever the hell it is you want to do right?) is that advice is everywhere and people really do mean well, but you’ve got to take bits and pieces of what works for you, drop what doesn’t and absolutely DROP the guilt.
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It’s been almost a year that I’ve decided to not actively book any weddings. I’ve booked a few family sessions here and there and it was just about a month ago that I started to plan and actually do personal projects again. I’ve been soaking up every moment of family time, eating out (cause I’m not spending all money on film), hanging with the hubby and going out with friends—having a part time job just to get out the house and hey—even joining a yoga class. It’s been amazing. I was starving for LIFE. Don’t we all? It is our natural desire, it’s ingrained in us. We want eternity (and yes I want unicorns and fairies) but time is fleeting. Maybe I’m speaking for myself but what is life, really, if we’re not doing it with the people we love and care for the most?
I use to have a lot of HOT MESS express days and I’ve had AMAZING days but without my family and close friends to share that with, it’s a lonely road. It’s what I’ve come to miss in being a small business owner—sharing my highs and lows with people that I love. I thought I had to hold it all in and keep it together and I definitely didn’t want anyone to know how alone I felt. On another note, it seemed whenever I did confide in a friend I always felt like I needed fixing—I always felt worse than when I started.
365 days passed and my head hasn’t been cluttered with needing to close the booking and sustain the business and I am loving the new approach, fresh pair of eyes and untainted lens that I’ve come to develop. I don’t have a solid answer to this chapter of my life. I don’t think anyone ever has an answer. At the time, I needed to detach myself from the business side of photography and the hiatus did me well. My personal projects are definitely igniting that flame again. I’m not quite ready to take on full time business but my options are open AND I must iterate that what I do take will be screened with a keen eye.
So it’s time that I put together a list of the things that I loved and didn’t love about the business. I would have done it sooner but I think if I did, the results would have been more heavy in emotions and probably not sensible at all. Here goes:
What I love about photography as a business:
• meeting new people
• crossing paths with all sorts of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met and the hope of forming new relationships
• being able to provide a service/product that people can turn back on and really cherish
• being creative and exploring it and seeing the end result
• traveling, exploring new places, especially historic homes
• getting to write (blog) and put together a visual story about people
• having flexibility to create my own schedule
• getting to have lunch dates with friends
Dislikes:
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• NUMBER 1—being alone for too long (feeling disconnected and out of sync)
• sitting in front of the computer editing
• giving up Saturdays
• missing out on friends and families life events/milestones
• putting myself down when researching the market/trend
• getting into a mode of resentfulness and jealousy because of other’s success (comparison)
• comparing my self-worth when my schedule is not filled with bookings (contradicting myself)
• falling into depression when I feel like I’m not being myself
• working from home but being distracted with a million other things
• feeling pressure to make income to sustain the business
• feeling bad when asking my husband to sponsor/financially support my business
While a lot of my dislikes has a clear solution—having to even think about the kind of emotions the business stirs up in me and replaying all the ways I could have handled an interaction, an email, a phone call—how I could have ‘said’ things differently puts me in a black hole every time. You might recall that I’m an expert at running away when it’s uncomfortable. I’m definitely a pro at burying it and playing victim, not seeing my own accountability. But eventually we all must deal with our skeletons.
Another truth I’ll likely struggle with all my life is the reality of social media. It is not real! Shocking isn’t it? It’s hard to grasp that we all select the content we want to portray. And even if we put out some of our dirty laundry, we still craft our sentences carefully. My biggest issue, my love hate relationship, is for sure, social media—and the business relies heavily on social media. I promise y’all, I’m not having episodes of unfollowing people because I’m not interested in the individual . I clean out my feed because I am easily persuaded by telling myself this lie: I should be living that kind of life. I will forever be the kid, eyes gleaming at the colorful wrapped candy paper wanting what’s inside because surely it’ll be sweet and heavenly.
I’m a little past the beginning steps of taking care of my emotions and working through them. I’m not ashamed to say that therapy plays a huge part in that (do what you gotta do sista). The other part was just changing the way I was living my life. Forgive me if this sounds redundant but it does mean reevaluating and creating healthy boundaries in your relationships, mainly the toxic ones. Even if it meant cutting them out all together. The most important was SELF-CARE. Folks, my self-care journey has been a solid 2 years of putting it into practice. And it’s going to keep in that direction. You cannot change anything around you until you change your mindset and start loving yourself.
The past year I’ve also been learning how to recognize my distress signal and trying to understand my trigger points. Y’all…I get bent out of shape and kind of whacko when I feel unappreciated and taken for granted. I can seriously count beyond both hands the number of times I’ve acted like a fool and later filled with remorse. But instead of talking it out I ran away. No one wants to deal with themselves when they’re in an uncomfortable position. Here’s where the contradictory part comes in, whenever I felt like I was a terrible human being, I would drive it deeper and tell myself I was selfish for feeling the way that I was feeling. I was selfish for wanting to be appreciated and selfish for wanting people around me to show their appreciation (Hello Guilt). Well I’m here to tell you there is nothing selfish about it. Unless you’re a narcissist and you need it to feed your ego, that’s probably a different story. It’s very normal to want to hear words of appreciation and have appreciative gesture bestowed upon you, a thank you note (mailed not text), maybe coffee and chocolate—anything. It lifts your spirit. My love language is not words of affirmation (though Vu is) but instead I am about quality time and acts of service! Bingo—the art of understanding your emotions! I’m not saying I need these appreciative gestures to validate my self worth, but it feels good and YES after a lot of time and effort you put into helping people you just want to know and FEEL appreciated. Can I get an AMEN—anyone?!?! Anyone? INFJ’s are some of the most complicated and contradictory people on the planet. And guess who is an INFJ now? ME!!! Over the past 3 years my personality test is more dominant as an INFJ. This isn’t old news (the wacko self that appears when feeling unappreciated). I’ve shared this on instagram plenty of times and will continue to share it. Because it’s a character weakness that I’m always going to be working on. It’s an area where I have to consciously be forgiving and gracious of myself because I, myself, YOU, yourself deserve grace. I’ll end this here. It’s a continuation of chapter infinity. This list is a good reflection and I’m hoping I can figure it out with grace and love.
