In this episode amazing Vanessa Joy (via her awesome show “Breathe Your Passion” highlighted by AdoramaTV) aims to “make you feel really good about yourself”. With a few tips on how to make sure that the professional pursuit you have chosen is indeed the right pursuit for you, Vanessa attempts to help you reinforce your determination, success and hopefully overall happiness in life.
Let’s start with
One of the obvious, yet still most effective tips to determine your success is setting the goals, and achieving it. Your goals have to be precise, like “this month I will have 10 clients” or “this week I will produce 100 photographs”, etc.
Otherwise if your goal is too vague and doesn’t have the quantitive aspect, how can you know for sure if you ever reached it? too avoid making vague goals watch for words like “more”, “better” “higher” and replace them with a definite number instead.
Keep good records of your progress each week, month, year. Every week make it a habit to come back to your previous year’s stats and try to exceed whatever goal you had exact same week last year.
Ultimately you have to decide what it success for you.Yes, your business might look like it is successful, but more importantly what does your life look like while your business is successful? If you booked 20 weddings this year, is it a success? Or is 40 weddings per year considered to be a success? Each individual will find his own comfortable level of success to aim for. And if your number is unbelievably high – good. Break it down into several “stages of success”, i.e. if you want to have 100 clients per year, break it into “30 clients first year, 50 clients second year”, etc. Don’t try to conquer Mt. Everest right away. Learn to walk before you can run.
If you are constantly getting great reviews from your clients online, you are on the right track. This is a clear indication that your craft, your product creates a real value for people. And when you do create a lot of value for society, not only your business will be successful but your life will be filled with joy and self-satisfaction.
If you haven’t yet, hang in there. If you did, congratulations! That is a clear indication that you’ve already stepped on the right track to “make it”. We all know how hard it is to work 80 hours a week, doing hateful 9-5 and then catching up on stuff you actually like – photography. Putting in long working hours will pay off. However make sure that this workload is temporary and should last no more than 2-3 years. Nobody works 80 hours a week for decades, and even if somebody does, what is the joy in that?
Did you know that the more bored you are, the more opportunity you allow yourself to be creative and to come up with new ideas? Be successful enough to have time to be bored.
It all comes down to “why?” Why have you decided to pursue photography? Do you support your family with it? Do you crave for public recognition or fame? Being honest with yourself about your true motivation will open you up like an open book and will show clear roadmap to how to get it, like on gps.
Watch the full episode with Vanessa Joy and Adorama TV: