Turning my passion into a career is a lot harder than I expected. I'm scared to death of being a disappointment... of failing. (Both easy things to do.)
I'm not sure I've ever put 100% into anything. I've always been the careful one. The cautious one. I don't take risks. I play it safe.
A few years ago I wanted to be a writer. I went to college for a semester and dedicated myself to it. I carried a journal everywhere. When I started skipping classes and getting bad grades, I dropped out before I could fail.
In high-school I fell in love with music and spent all my spare time playing the piano. It calmed my soul and filled me with goodness. I only had several performances before one of them went terribly awry. I was so embarrassed I just stopped playing all together.
This January I hired a personal trainer to finally lose the weight I've been talking about all these years. When things got tough I quit seeing her. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint her.
So when I considered bailing on this photography gig, I had dejavu. The fear of turning a good thing bad paralyzes me. I'd rather spend my life wondering if I'd be great instead of finding out the truth. Or at least, I used to.
I'm not sure I've ever put 100% into anything. I've always been the careful one. The cautious one. I don't take risks. I play it safe.
A few years ago I wanted to be a writer. I went to college for a semester and dedicated myself to it. I carried a journal everywhere. When I started skipping classes and getting bad grades, I dropped out before I could fail.
In high-school I fell in love with music and spent all my spare time playing the piano. It calmed my soul and filled me with goodness. I only had several performances before one of them went terribly awry. I was so embarrassed I just stopped playing all together.
This January I hired a personal trainer to finally lose the weight I've been talking about all these years. When things got tough I quit seeing her. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint her.
So when I considered bailing on this photography gig, I had dejavu. The fear of turning a good thing bad paralyzes me. I'd rather spend my life wondering if I'd be great instead of finding out the truth. Or at least, I used to.
I wanted to share one of the comments that was left on my last post because it was absolutely honest and inspiring.
"There is no single perfect job. You can find a field you love and if your lucky, but really more determined, make it your line of work. There are the ups and downs of every single thing you do. You can "believe" these things you have read and use them as an excuse not to pursue your dream. Or you can read them and understand, if you really want to combine your passions and work, it will include sacrifices, passion, emotion, sweat and tears but at the end of the day you will be working in the field you love. Just like having a baby and/or family, there are hard hard times, many sacrifices you will make, tears and frustration but at the end of the day the absolute pure love is all you feel and remember. Believe in your self and work at it. Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it."
This time can be different if I get out of my own way. I want to be the person who works hard and goes all the way, no excuses.
I could fail.
Or I could finally be great.
5 Comments:
My firstborn. My perfectionist. I remember all the way back to preschool - you'd be the last one cutting out your project because you had to do it just right. Perfect. You didn't want to fail.
I'll pray for you to overcome this obstacle. It's o.k. to fail - as long as you've tried! And then you know what you do? You try again!!
I'm glad you are going to stick it out for this one. I really think you should get some schooling under your belt - to learn all the legalities, maybe some different angles.
Charge less early on. A beginners fee.
Your pictures are beautiful. You have a gift for capturing the moment. All you need to do now is nurture that gift!
I love you whether you fail or succeed! But I also believe in you. God has blessed you with gifts!! You can do it!!
Sometimes it's easier to focus on the negative and set yourself up for failure. But... I'd say that following your dreams is a little bit like marriage. The more you put into it, the bigger the fall and heartache could be... BUT on the flip side, it could even be that much more amazing and wonderful! You'll never know until you take that first step.
Remember you have lots of friends and family that are ready to support you. If you have a photography session that was subpar in your eyes, you can offer to discount or even do a redo. There's always an opportunity to learn and grow from our stumbles and even from our leaps of faith. All I have to say is "jump!" :-)
It's hard to quit when you have raw talent, which I truly think you do!
You can do it!
I'm a person to which most things have come easy. If I encounter something hard, I get REALLY discouraged and frustrated and sometimes just give up. But I miss out on so much when I do that.
Creating something good doesn't happen without hard work. Think of the time, the pain, the effort it takes to bring a child into the world--you know far more about that than I do! :) Birthing a business is going to be just as hard, but JUST as worth it. And, just as He was there when Levi was born, so God will be with you every step of the way through this process as well. He's given you a gift: He WILL help you use it.
Here are some things I did (not that you should follow, but in case you need some sort of road map):
-gave the business to God
-took it slow (in terms of expectations)
-started with low prices & practiced, practiced, practiced
-reminded myself to not compare my path to anyone else's
-used only equipment i could afford, would buy one small piece a year, rented some for weddings
-chose a form of education every year (a workshop in an area that i could improve)
-started meeting with other photographers so that i didn't feel like i was on a solitary island
Then my question for you is 'Why do you have to know all the answers now?'
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
— Rainer Maria Rilke
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