A lot of times people blog about the things they are good at. They blog about experiences they had and share them to the world to help the next person in line. While I totally and 100% agree with sharing knowledge, a lot of the time people aren’t sharing their struggles. Today I want to share with you one of my biggest photography struggles.
In the beginning of my business my struggle was with the flow of posing. To get it to feel natural and to feel as if I am in charge, but over time that has become easier and just a part of what I do. My struggle then became managing money for a business. I graduated with a small business minor in college and still had no idea about taxes or finances. I since have figured it out and have the financial part of my business under control. It was then the huge struggle of when to say “no”. When my plate was overflowing with work, when I worked for 90 days straight the summer of 2016 (no joke), when I was crying on the bathroom floor because I wasn’t sure I could do this job anymore – all because I couldn’t figure out how to say “no”. I will be writing a more in depth blog post on that subject in the future but for now we are going to get to my NOW struggle. What I am currently struggling with as a business owner of six years.
I currently am severely struggling with delegating my time. Separating work from my regular life. It is extremely hard to put down my phone. To upload photos to Instagram and then just let it be. Not to check it for comments and instantly reply. The same with Facebook. It is SO hard for me to post the previews and then walk away from my work computer. When there is work in front of me all I want to do is WORK. Not delegating my time has let some of my relationships suffer in my life. I do not see my friends as much because I am always working, and when we do hang out, I am still sending emails and Facebook messages back to clients. I don’t think Evan and I have had a FaceTime date where I wasn’t working in some fashion and now that I am with him, I feel as if I am constantly working during times we should be spending just together. I either am sitting in front of my computer, packing for a shoot, or dead tired because I just clocked in a 14 hour day.
Delegating my time. It is a HUGE struggle for me.
When I was in Aruba I purchased a travel plan so I could still access my texts and data while international but my phone would only accept certain text messages and didn’t allow me to get data at all. AT ALL. It was a forced delegation of my time. I would bring my phone with me but of course, nothing would come through. That experience was super hard for me. It was relaxing or a breath of fresh air for me. It was frustrating and made me extremely anxious. With the daily dose of spam and photography resource emails I get along with inquires and print order emails, I knew there would be well over 100 emails for me to shift through when I finally got to internet. I knew I was going to miss important texts from my clients. I knew people would be trying to reach me and that I would seem like I was just ignoring them and that almost physically pained me. It wasn’t fun for me.
Now, usually in this part of the blog I would write about how I fearlessly overcame it and how it has changed my life forever, but unfortunately this struggle is still a very current struggle for me. I have been able to delegate my time better since being back in North Carolina AND it being our off-season, but it is still really hard to separate work and play. It is a constant, daily struggle for me – I hope I am not alone in this! I am actively trying to work on it though, and can see little changes when I am able to separate it!
So everyone, I am still living with the inability to delegate time between work and my life, please send me all your tips and tricks to help me overcome this if you are a time delegation guru!! VERY MUCH APPRECIATE ALL TIPS!
XO,
Mary
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