A happy little (ok, long) story for you. Perhaps you know the main character, or even someone like her: Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved to create things. Whether it was through dance, painting, writing, crafting, or through her very first little film camera, she loved to create art and see things come to life in her own way. She was also a very organized, ambitious and determined (ok, stubborn) girl who loved to have goals, reach goals and be successful at whatever she did. Sometimes to the point where she would not even stop long enough to enjoy her success before she was moving on to the next project, the next goal. Eventually she became a teacher. She loved teaching and spent much time at her job. Eventually she realized she needed a life outside of her job and decided to take up other hobbies as well. She did interior painting, began her masters in psychology, and began to “dabble” more in photography. Not long after fell in love with it. Eventually she started getting requests from family and friends to take their pics. Although this was exciting, it scared her… now she better bring it! So she studied it, took courses, workshops and soaked up as much as she could and spent hours practicing before shoots to make sure she had it right. Eventually she had her first baby and her plate was too full, so she had to eliminate some things, but no way could she let go of photography now. It became her passion, her outlet, and her little side business on weekends. Luckily this was before social media pages so she was able to keep a pretty low profile and gain clientele through word of mouth, keeping a pretty reasonable pace and balance. But eventually her inner ambition kicked in and she couldn’t help but let it grow and see where it took her. She had her second baby and after 8 weeks old, she decided to begin “dabbling” again. It started with a few inspiration sessions, a few requests from friends, a couple cute mini session ideas. Then she truly began to consider leaving her teaching profession to pursue photography full time. So she opened the floodgates and WHOA! It took off, it was amazing, she couldn’t believe how busy she was! It felt like being crowd surfed away by success and admiration. It was overwhelming, but it felt good. And there were no limits to what she could do, what she could create, and how much she could do!! For 2 straight years she let this carry her away… she left her job as a teacher and decided to pursue photography full time, which would also allow her more flexibility for her family. But did it? No, no it did not. She forgot one very important step… setting boundaries. Ambition without limits or boundaries caught up to her. The word “no” just wasn’t in her vocabulary. She would set out to have a structured schedule with balance. But each time the calendar would fill up and when the requests kept piling in or her ideas kept flowing and she’d break that structure and end up filling her schedule so full that there was no room for life to happen. Sleep put aside and family time or time to self often became editing time. Home cooked meals became eating-out meals more often. She would tell herself and her family, it was just for this “busy season”… only temporary. But busy “seasons” just turned into busy all the time, and soon she was booking up months in advance... and booking a lot! More than she could handle. She was doing a full time amount of work inside of part-time allotted hours and using borrowed time to get it all done and play all her roles in life. Living on adrenaline caught up to her many times… but she was determined to make it work, she could not “fail”, could not admit that she couldn’t do it all. She met up with a fellow photographer at one point who asked her how many sessions she averaged per week. When she answered, her eyes went big and she asked, “You quit teaching to have more time with your family… but are you?”. This caught her of guard. Her answer was “no, I guess I don’t”… From that point on she truly tried to make changes. She began to set more boundaries, define herself and her time more. But not enough. She was still, I guess you could say, “addicted” to the success and had a hard time saying no. She felt “no” meant letting people down and slapping opportunity in the face. Then along came her third pregnancy. What a firecracker! For the first time in her life, she was forced, through physical limitations, to slow down and at one point actually stop. At first she was annoyed by it… going from 60 to zero was a shocker and it bothered her that she couldn’t push through. And had it not been for the baby, she might have tried to keep going because she is stubborn. BUT, this baby was MORE stubborn… and determined to teach her a lesson. So she learned to appreciate and find beauty in the free the time to self and family, the quiet moments of snuggles without thinking of the million things to d or who was “counting on her”. She baked and did crafts with her kids, went on dates with them, had tea parties and dress up, and all kind of ‘non-constructive” things. It warmed her heart to hear her son say, “Mommy I like when you don’t’ work, we do more cool stuff”. And to have her daughter clap and cheer when she came down the stairs in the morning cause she was excited to play princess dress-up. She learned that the word “no” isn’t so hard to say after all, and people understand (and if they don’t’ they can take a hike). She learned that time doesn’t need to be filled or “constructive” to be valued, boredom could be transformed into enjoyment of life’s little things, and began to appreciate the little blessing inside her that konked her over the head to change her heart and her mind… this change will permanently carry over into her business when she is back at work again. She is able to reflect back and ask herself, “How was I doing all that? And why? Was it worth the price I paid?” She now anxiously awaits the arrival of this wonderful baby so she can spend the rest of her life thanking her for this lesson… Every “yes” automatically means a “no” somewhere else… and she and her family would not be the ones to suffer from too many “yes” answers anymore. No end… To be continued ☺
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:48:18 +0000
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