Very few people jump right in to running a photography business full-time. The vast majority start out slowly, doing photography on the side while they maintain their primary income from another job. That can be a particularly stressful time, but as this excellent video essay details, with the right mindset, you can become more intentional and focused and achieve your goals sooner.
Coming to you from Chelsea Nicole Photography, this insightful video essay discusses how to change your mindset when you are working to build a photography business. Without a doubt, when you are trying to balance a budding business, a full-time job, and all of life's other demands, it can feel like there is never enough time for anything. No one is claiming there are not a lot of demands on your time, but if you constantly stress about how much there is to do, you are unlikely to find fulfillment and motivation. Rather, by learning to refocus your mindset on the most important things, you will probably find that not only will your focus become more precise, your motivation will increase, and your stress will decrease. It's a simple mindset shift that can be really helpful. Check out the video above for the full rundown.
Managing time has always been a struggle for me. It's even worse now with a 3 month infant.
I think the most important thing that even I have to remind myself is that business should come first and foremost over pleasure, leisure, and those zone out periods where you just want to do nothing. Once you put business first, you need to set a specific goal for that day or that next hour.
As I get older I think I have more and more ADHD and I love having 10 projects I'm juggling at any one time. The problem is this causes me to not complete many of these projects and I feel overwhelmed a lot when every day those same 10 projects on are my plate (and the others I've added during that time).
I'm working hard now to try to commit to just a few projects and see them through before adding another one. Sure, it means less things are actually getting done but it also means I'm focusing on only the most important ones instead of filling 10 mins of dead time with another little task that probably won't be revisited for a week later.