Chasing Balance For Photographers

We’ve all heard it, right? Balance is the key, balance is the key, and balance is the key. It’s a bit of a buzzword in our industry right now – especially amongst the busy season! We hear things like: you can’t live a life you love if you work all the time (#LessWorkMoreLife)! But you can’t be successful if you don’t #Hustle and #GrindItOut. The task of keeping those things at its equilibrium is Just. Plain. Exhausting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in a conference room, listening to a speaker talk about balance, only to be dismayed when I couldn’t quite figure it out. Or I sat in that same conference room and let people feel like I had it all together and was rocking at balance, because I really thought that I was, when my husband would tell you that my attitude would say differently –loudly.

Sure I could say no to opportunities, but sometimes it left me feeling disappointed that I didn’t say yes. Sometimes I said yes to things that I later regretted because I missed out on an opportunity to really hone in on the things that were working to propel my business forward. I especially experienced saying yes too much when I first got started, because I feared that if I said no (even to just one thing), my business would crumble! Talk about confidence right? But I think at one point or another we’ve all felt that way, whether we’re at day 3 of running our businesses or day 500!

Here’s what I found myself doing in the pursuit of saying yes to wrong things and saying no to right things: all of the things that I’m good at were taking the back- burner to things that drained me and my creativity. The things I was great at were moving slowly down the to-do list because I simply didn’t have time.   You see, maybe this isn’t the case for you, but for me, the things that I’m good at seem to take no time at all. They’re fun and exciting and I can breeze right through them. But for the things that I don’t enjoy, that I’m not good at, they seem to take forever, am I right? Plus, can I be really honest right now? Doing things I don’t like to do really just makes me grumpy.

So let’s try putting that into a cycle… things you hate doing + things you hate doing – things you love doing is an equation for serious burnout and it certainly doesn’t equal better balance in your personal life!

Because when things at work are stressful, it carries over into your home life.

Even if you’re extremely intentional about closing shop at 5PM when your husband gets home, or at 3pm when your kids get off the bus, if you’re feeling burnt out, you’re probably going to close down begrudgingly because the list of things to-do feels a mile long. How many times have I said, “I just have one more thing to do… It’ll just take a minute!” (Morgan can tell you… like 800000 and it never takes just a minute!) Or maybe you’re so excited to just be done your office hours in an hour, that you waste it away, just wishing that the clock would speed up and switch to 5PM already. Both of those scenarios are so unhealthy and both of them are something that I’ve experienced multiple times in my four years of business. But here’s the thing… I didn’t take the risk of being a small business owner to stare at the clock wishing I could just be done. I did it because I wanted to pursue a job that I love and work with people I love and find joy and purpose in what I am doing. I also didn’t become my own boss so that I could overwhelm myself to the point that I couldn’t focus on anything but work. As my friend Abby says, I’m pursuing this business so that I can lead a life that I love – not working away my life.

I think so often when we look at balance, we think of it as something that needs to be in our structure. If we have the perfect regimen and workflow for things we think that balance will just magically appear – it really is like a unicorn, right?! But here’s the thing that we forget… being present is so different that just standing there. Going through the motions is so much different than finding joy in what you’re doing!  So I want to ask you, yes you! Where are you today?

Are you present, or are you just standing there?

As my friend Jen Hatmaker (and by friend I mean, we’ve met once in real life so we’re obvi BFFs, right?!) says, balance is a magical unicorn. It does not exist and we will kill ourselves trying to find it. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to seriously take a look at our lives and our businesses and check in. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t practical and real things (that sometimes seem too far on the brink of obvious for us to utilize) that we can do to take a step closer. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be present instead of just standing there. Because I promise you, we can say yes and no and not throw off the equilibrium so drastically each time.

So next week, I’m going to share a few of my strategies for saying yes and saying no, and when you can just say “I don’t know.” I hope you’ll join me friends… because it matters.  See you then!

Posted:

July 8, 2016

comments +

  1. Sarah says:

    I definitely understand the balance struggle. It is currently the the main issue that is holding my business back! I think I worry about it so much that my balance gets even worse! This is very insightful Lauren, it makes me feel like I’m not the only one!

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Wife, mama, wielder of light & joy, and capturer of moments.  I thrive off of conversation and genuine connection.  In between wrangling our kiddos, and hanging my husband, you'll find me dreaming up my next idea or creative endeavour.  It's these things that culminate to give my imagery a warmth and joy to them - the greatest compliment I could receive.

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