Today, I'm going to talk about getting your business on track with clarity. Why does this matter?
I've talked about this in the past. I think it's so important. It's affected my own life a bunch. If you are procrastinating, if you're dragging your.
If you're not really enjoying what you're doing, if you're doing everything BUT what you think you should be doing for your business, it's almost always due to a lack of clarity.
So clarity is sort of the flood gates for everything that we create. It's what makes us feel motivated and aligned and excited and good about what we're creating. So that is where clarity is important. It really is the thing that defeats procrastination more than anything for me, because when you know where you're going, what you're doing, why you're doing it, it becomes really easy to do it.
If you've ever had the motivation to do anything, like maybe you went to a movie and watched a movie about cooking. And suddenly you're like, I am going to get that pan and I am going to try that recipe. And so you like immediately go to the store and you're just overcome with needing to do this thing and try. You kind of lose time, you get excited about it. You're very clear about the end result you want to achieve. And that's a form of clarity.
It's when we are just really set on a task because we know exactly what it is we want to do.
And I'm not saying there isn't room for creative, you know, arbitrary inspiration and doing things spontaneously.
But when you are sitting in a position where you just don't really feel like sitting down to work, don't really want to go to that photo shoot. Don't really want to send out that email. Why do you think that is? I bet you it's because there's some piece of your plan, there's some piece of what you're doing that is no longer in alignment, that is not clear.
So we're going to talk a little bit about how to get clear with some of the basic areas of your business.
The number one thing that I recommend everyone do, and this includes you, is figure out why you're doing this. Why are you growing this photo business? Why are you doing the photography stuff?
There's no wrong answer. You could do it just because you like it, or because you don't want to work at your crappy job. You could do it because you just want to make a side hustle, or because you like people and you like funny faces.
It doesn't matter why you're a photographer, but knowing your why and expanding on that and evolving that as you evolve and expand is huge.
It's like your north star. It's the sort of thing that keeps you on track in anything that you do. We have these built in north stars in a lot of places in life. Like when you're in school, you want to graduate, get a diploma. When you're in a, in a corporate situation, oftentimes you want to get promoted.
You want to get the next thing. If you're in martial arts, it's the next belt. There's always this sort of path that's laid out for us in a lot of the things that we grow up doing. But all of a sudden, you are a business owner on your own in the world, and that path doesn't exist anymore. It's not laid out for you.
So you kind of have to create it for yourself. What are the milestones you want to reach? What is the next thing you want to do? That is going to help you so much. Because even some days, if you don't want to do it, even if you're just not in the mood, you can look at your why, and you can focus again and get more motivated. So the clarity comes from a space of knowing where you're going.
One of the areas that I also wanted to touch on about clarity is just the idea of financial clarity. I think this is a wobbly zone for a lot of people and it's something I want to address. So a lot of times we get burnt out because we just keep taking stuff and taking gigs. That is a really tough place to put yourself in, especially during busy season. I think reflecting on what your financial goals are is important.
What does it look like when you're fully booked? Do you even have an idea of how much you're willing to take on, or are you just going to take on as much as you can, every single time it comes your way?
Another form of clarity in your business is to really look at your booking season. Really look at what you have time for. If it's really important to you to travel and spend time with your kids and do stuff like that, then you're going to have to share that time with your business, obviously. So figuring out when you're fully booked and what you have the capacity for is another way to have clarity in your business.
I know some people don't love the term ideal client, but I think that that's a good way to explain what you're after. It's a good way to sort of just have a starting point where you can discern for yourself. Is this someone I want to work with again? Is this someone I would clone a million times or is this somebody that I probably wouldn't want to work with again?
And it's nobody's fault. It's not everybody has to be a great client. But figuring that out early on is going to help you feel really, really clear about what you say yes to and what you say no to.
Being clear about boundaries, being clear about what you don't want to do is also a form of clarity.
The final thing I want to touch on to sort of get your brains turning a little bit around this idea of clarity is looking at your what.
What kind of photography do you want to do? Do you want to shoot a little bit of everything and just see what comes your way? There's nothing wrong with that. Do you want to be a food photographer for Martha Stewart? Amazing. Do you want to be a sports photographer that gets to travel around the world and document all kinds of thing? Cool.
What do you want to do? Early on, I think you have to try a bunch of stuff before you even know, but once you have an idea, you'll have more clarity in your business. It will eat away at procrastination. I promise it will feel really good when you get jazzed about something that you really want to do and you really want to build, and you really want to grow because you'll feel like picking up your camera and getting out there and creating it.
You'll be able to beat procrastination. At least for the time being.
