This is my mom. (Yeah, my dad’s there, too–more about him lata.)
My mom is so many things–talented, beautiful, thoughtful, generous…just all around incredible.
She gives me reallly great advice about so many things, including my business. I call her and tell her absolutely everything.
But she doesn’t run my business.
Sometimes we forget one of the most joyously joyful things about running our own business: making the decisions.
And when we’re forgettin this magnificent thing, we turn it into something evil and burdensome and we just want someone else to do it for us.
So we call our moms or our significant others or our dogs and ask what we should do about this situation with this client. And do you think I should offer canvases? And what should I charge for this type of session? Is it okay to blog this photo?
Then, before we know it, we’re tangled up in other people’s opinions whose opinions actually have nothing to do with our business goals. Half the time, the advice we follow comes from people who aren’t even our target market. Silliness.
Don’t get me wrong: moms give some stinkin’ great advice. I’m not saying you’re not allowed to call your sweet mother and bawl about a client that didn’t come through or ask her what she thinks about how you’re doing things. But the bottom line has to remain that YOU ARE THE BOSS.
Your mom knows a lot about life. She might even know everything about photography AND even know everything about running a successful business. (Welll….let’s go with it.) But. but. but. She does not know everything about running your photography business. She doesn’t know exactly how exhilarating photographing a fabulous wedding is for you, and she can’t know exactly how excruciating the thought is of offering canvases to your clients even though you’d probably make a jillion dollars because you hate them. She can’t decide how many clients you should take on this year because she doesn’t know how much time you need to spend with your babies for the sheer sake of your sanity.
She might have a pretty good idea about these things, so yes. Talk to her and ask her what she thinks, but forthelove:
Run your own business, deliberately and joyfully!
Or don’t. Nobody is forcing you to have this business. If it’s not working for you, get out. (Imagine that said with love. It was definitely typed with love.)
I was a little bit whining to my people the other night because as an entrepreneur my work is never done, and my to-do list is always a mile long, and I’ve thought so much about these seventy five changes that just aren’t finished yet, and bleeblahblee.
And THEN I re-remembered how freaking awesome it is that I get to decide those seventy five changes and when they get done. I get to decide when I work and who I want to photograph and how it’s gonna look and EVERY THING. It’s one of the reasons photography and entrepreneurship are such a good fit for me.
So what if you know photography is your soulmate but you hate making decisions?
First, you gotta know which decisions you hate. Is it all of em? Cause if yes, well, maybe you and photography are soulmates, but you and business might not be. You have a gut feeling about this already, I’m thinking.
But if you only hate deciding one thing, could you outsource it to someone who might be better at it than you? (album design? logo? which photo of me is the best for my ‘about’ page? packaging? Yehaw.)
If yes, cha-ching. You done. Stop reading and go hire someone to make that decision for you!
But if no, let’s keep exploring.
Do you hate that decision 100% of the time, or only on Saturdays? Only in the morning? Find your peak time to tackle icky decisions and check it off your list, babe. Better yet, be accountable to someone for what you’re gonna decide in the next 24 hours. (Start with your mom! Yess!)
If you need someone to be accountable to, I’m here for you man. Tell me in the comments or via email at brookebschultz @ gmail.com what decision you’ve been hemming and hawing over that you’re going to make in the next 24 hours!
WOOP for running your own biz with bliss!
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