When I first considered being a professional photographer I envisioned beautiful, chubby cheeked children giggly at me, high school seniors that thought my jokes were hilarious, and moms that cried when they saw their precious offspring memorialized forever in the portraits I created only to hand me their money and we’d both skip off merrily.

And luckily that turned out to be true, well except the skipping off merrily, after three kids, there’s nothing merry about the way this momma skips. But then I realized that all that great stuff only took up 5% of my business. The rest of my time consisted of trying to hide the unfinished arm sleeve on the matching knit sweater mom made for her teenage son (#truestory), editing pimples, emailing, loading photos, location scouting, going to networking events, cleaning the studio, researching equipment, finding inspiration, reading business books, seriously the list never stops. So how do we figure it all out and realize that dreaming about the perfect studio is not enough?

We need goals. It sounds so simple and you are probably thinking, of course I have goals, but I would like to challenge that. I think there’s a pretty good chance your goals aren’t moving you in the right direction and if they are, feel free to stop reading right now and visualize me giving you a glorious slow clap with a proud smile on my face. Way to rock it! But for everyone one else continue on.

So let’s come up with a goal. It could be related to health, finances, relationships or whatever are you would like to improve. And hopefully you start making goals in many areas. Amazingly when someone starts finding success in one area of their life, it’s often carried over to other areas as they develop skills that create success.

1. STRONG GOALS

So first we need to evaluate if our goal is a strong goal by asking these questions:

1. Is it specific? Don’t say you want to make a lot of money. How much specifically would you like to make this year?
2. Is it measurable? Give a great customer experience sounds nice but how do you know if you achieved it? What if you were to write out a list of specific things you can do to create that awesome experience so you can check it off with each client.
3. Is it achievable? Yes, I would love my average sale to be $10,000 but when I am realistic I know the way I price my products and brand my business a $2,500 average is more realistic. I can get to $10,000 someday, some photographers do, but they also do many things different than me that help them achieve that.
4. Is it something you want? 200 sessions a year is no big deal to some high volume studios, but I’d be curled up in the fetal position crying if I tried. Don’t get caught up in other people’s goals. What do you want? What’s right for this time of your life? It’s your goal, your life, do what’s right for you and don’t worry if others appear to be achieving higher goals.
5. Does it have a deadline?  If the goal is I will talk to three business owners with no timeline, do you think you’d get around to it? I will talk to three business owners in the next two weeks about how I can serve them. Now you know when you have to do it by and it’s can’t become of “I’ll do it someday”.
6. Is it written down? Until it’s written down, it’s just a dream. Seriously, just write it down.

Now this is where we lose alot of people. “A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.” -Harvey MacKay

We need a plan!

2. BREAK IT DOWN

If you have an income goal for the year do you know exactly how many sessions and what kind of average sale you need to reach that goal? YOU MUST do this. I have it as my welcome screen on my phone so I see it ever time I pick up my phone.

I am not a runner. Nobody ever looked at me and accused me of being one. But for my 30th birthday I decided to run a half marathon. So how does someone go from being winded running a single block to going 13 miles with energy to spare? Well it started off with a lot of 1 minute runs huffing and puffing followed by long periods of walking. Eventually I was able to do a lap around the track. One beautiful Sunday morning I was out at a local park doing a 3 mile loop. I was going to run 1 1/2 miles, take a break and then finish off running. As I got closer to that half way mark, I had a moment where I suddenly realized I was running. Before any attempt to run and my body was very aware of it. I could feel the burning in my lungs, my legs and feet ached. But here I was, gliding past all the oak trees like this was my normal. Then I realized, this is my normal. I am a runner. I’ve been working really hard and it was finally paying off. I knew I could keep going. I was going to run the whole 3 miles. I started to feel it. It was tough, but nowhere near as tough as my very first 1 minute run. This was the best run of my life because I finally moved from a point of feeling all the pain but not seeing progress to seeing what I was accomplishing. Suddenly I was going for 5, 8, and 11 mile runs. I ran my half marathon, and I ran the whole time. I was slow, I want to say embarrassingly slow, but I was wasn’t embarrassed at all, just proud of all I had sacrificed and all I had gained.

My goal was a half marathon. If I had shown up on race day hoping to go the distance, I would’ve felt like a failure and probably said that I’m just not good enough to run that far. Instead I broke it down to small runs, building up bigger as my skills improved. I was able to feel mini successes along the way that help me to keep going. The hardest part of the process was the begining. Once I gained momentum, even though I was challenging myself more, it became easier.

Make small goals to help you achieve your bigger goals. Break it down using the Strong Goals Questions above until all the little task are achievable.

3. FORM A TEAM

I think having a team to help you along as you reach for your goals is vital. If you can do it all on your own, never get discouraged or lose motivation than you should be writing a book about it or maybe your goals just aren’t challenging enough. For most of us we get distracted or lose inspiration along the way. My husband and I are working hard to pay off his massive student loan debt (thank you private law school), but then fancy family vacations come along, a new car sounds wonderful and soon I think what’s the big deal, we’ll get there eventually and another year goes by and the student loan is still chilling on our couch eating our leftover pizza. We remind each other our kids can have a wonderful childhood while camping and eating s’mores. We are on track to get them paid off soon and then we are headed to Costa Rica for the family vacation we have been dreaming of. As a team, we can help refocus each other on the goals that matter most to us.

I have a group of photographers with the same goals and ambitions as I do that I talk to every week. I highly encourage you to find others to draw encouragement from. Find your people who will help you stay on track, call you out when you are wandering and inspire you to do better as you give them the same.

4. READJUST

Over my 10 years in business I have had a studio both in and outside of my home but never in a retail location. That has been my dream. We moved to the country just outside of a cute town where I planned to move my studio to the charming downtown area. I got to the point where I was building my business in this new area, getting the monthly sales that I needed to start looking for a space. I had my savings built up. I toured a few areas, started thinking seriously of signing a lease when I talked to my daughters. To my surprise they really didn’t want me to move my studio out of the house, even giving up on the hope of taking over my old studio as their bedrooms and not having to share a room anymore. I had to reevaluate what was right for my family and my studio and adjust my goals.

Our goals change. Whether we accomplish our goals and we are ready for our next challenge or life and priority have changed and so we need to readjust. Sometimes as we get going we realize we can do more than what had we originally planned, like when I kept running those 3 miles. Readjust and keeping moving forward.

Sometimes you might want to readjust because it gets too tough or you get discouraged. I would challenge you that at that moment is when you might want to lean on your support system to help you see it through.

As more time passes I see how important goals are. It isn’t about working hard all the time and not having fun. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s about living an intentional life. It’s about making sure we don’t get caught up in other people’s priorities or the busy and mundane things of life. It’s about recognizing what we want most out of our lives and helping us achieve our dreams.