We All Start as Beginners

I honestly just needed to make some money.

I was a kindergarten teacher working for Seattle Public Schools and honestly just struggling to pay my bills. I remember my first year teaching, I qualified for food stamps despite my full time employment, which I mean, that’s its own story, but I just remember feeling so stressed every single day.

I had taken some photos of a friend of mine just for fun. It was my friends who got together and suggested that I start taking pictures on the weekends as a way to supplement my income.

So that’s what I did and photography became my side hustle, honestly, just a way to bring in some much needed cash.

But I ended up loving it!

Photography is fun. I started slowly adding clients and people would call. After three years of doing photography on the side, I decided to quit my teaching job and pursue photography full time.

To be clear, when I quit my teaching job to pursue photography, I still had no idea what I was doing.

I had no formal training in photography or in business. I was honestly just learning as I went.I worked really hard. I made a ton of mistakes and then I learned from those mistakes and I kept going. Now, 26 plus years later, I’m really proud of where I’ve taken my art and my business.

So why am I sharing all of this today?

I think it’s an important conversation to have – to remember everyone started where you are.

I think in this age of social media, it’s a little too easy to look at somebody who maybe has the business that you want and think “God it’s easy for them.”

I’ve learned over the years through my coaching and my mentoring of other photographers is once we start getting into that comparison trap, it can become super toxic and it will derail your confidence.

The comparison trap is going to sabotage your progress.

And honestly, it’s hard to look at your work and keep going when you start getting in that mindset.

I’m honestly so grateful that I started and grew my business before the age of Instagram. Quite frankly, I think I would have really messed with my head.

But the truth is we all start as beginners!

Every single person you look up to and admire has had a time in their life when they also didn’t know what they were doing or they felt like a failure. They felt like they had an impossible dream and it was easier for everybody else who was more successful.

I know that’s certainly true for me.

What I know now is that if you want to grow your photography business, you can, but you have to choose it.

And choosing that means choosing to do the work, to take risks sometimes, to make investments that can feel scary, It means choosing to be okay with making mistakes, and then choosing to learn from those mistakes when you make them.

Because guess what?

Mistakes happen.

So you can stay where you are or you can choose to grow.

And I really, really hope you choose to grow even though growth can be uncomfortable.

If you would like a little help along the way, I have a brand new free training, How to Attract and Book more photography clients in a super easy way.

In that training, I’m going to cover all the things – how to stand out in a saturated market, how to market yourself in a way that feels good, and how to fix your mindset.

Here’s the link to sign up!

We have a lot of times this week, so you can go and find a time that’s going to work for you.

Listen, I’m even going to invite you to set up a call for me if you want to sit down and talk.

I hope you find it helpful and I’ll see you next week.