The other day I was thinking about all my goals for my photography business and my future in general. I was thinking about how achieving these goals seems near impossible sometimes. How will I ever do this? Will I ever be that successful? Will I ever look at my business and say “this is exactly where I want to be”? I was feeling discouraged, but then I had a little epiphany.
I forced myself to go back to the beginning. Back almost three years ago when I first started this little business of mine. There was no doubt that I loved photography and wanted to make a career out of it, but at the time that seemed near impossible. When I first started, I always knew the end goal was to be a wedding photographer. I loved everything about weddings and wanted to capture this special day for brides and grooms. However, I knew that wouldn’t be an easy task. I remember thinking, how will I ever shoot a wedding when I’ve never shot a wedding before? Who would want to hire someone with no experience? How do you get experience? This is impossible!
Fast forward three years later and look where I am now? My business has grown tremendously. It may have been a slow growth, but I have gained a ton of knowledge and am perfecting my skills. I am shooting weddings, and lots of them compared to only a year ago. The epiphany I had was that we need to give ourselves credit for our accomplishments! It seems the more successful we become, the bigger our goals become, so we are constantly seeking an “end” that will never be reached. While my goal back when I first started might have been to just get ONE wedding, once that one wedding came and went, my goal then was to shoot five weddings, then ten, and so on.
Instead of looking forward and seeing all the goals we have not achieved yet, we need to look backwards and see all the things we HAVE achieved. My next few months are filled with weddings, something I never thought would happen a mere two years ago, and I already have weddings booking in 2016! I am at a point right now that seemed unreachable when I first started, so while my current goals may seem unreachable sometimes, I need to stop feeling discouraged and remember all that I have done so far.
Give yourself credit for where you have been, what you have achieved, and know that one day in the future, you’ll be giving yourself credit for achieving even bigger and better things! 🙂
