It’s just about a month into 2017, Happy New Year! As with every new year, you think about new goals, accomplishments, and beginnings. When 2016 came to an end, I looked back at my photography career and realized that ever since 2010, it has been a crazy journey!  Like with many relationships, the very beginning is the honeymoon stage filled with romance, love, and passion, and as you continue throughout the years, the passion begins to die down, bumps begin to appear and hard work is what keeps it going. You can choose to keep the fire burning or let it die there.

These 7 years have been such an incredible journey and it hasn’t been an easy one!  I remember when I decided to go full time, a friend of mine asked me if I had an exit strategy. My response? “Nope, I’m all in”.  Lets just say as for my business model, I’ve been “winging it”.  I had so many goals but I didn’t have a set plan, and maybe that just comes with my spontaneous and (sometimes) adventurous personality.  Was it a good decision?  I actually wish I had a set plan, but I have learned these past 7 years have been full of uncertainty, fear, yet so much excitement and love.

Running my business without really an agenda could have set it up for failure. Yet, how many of you business owners set up an end goal with no limitations and along the way, figured out how to get from A to B to reach it? Embarrassingly, I’m raising my hand and I’m still going!

I recently purchased a Volt Planner off Kickstarter – one of my first planners in over 10 years (since college) and I’m enjoying it so far.  It has helped me plan out my days, weeks, and even set goals for my months.  For example, as of last year, I set a personal goal of reading more books for this year. I set myself a 31 day challenge for January to read 10 pages of a book a day, and since, I’ve already read 2 ½ books.  So that’s 2 ½ books read in the past 10 years!  Honestly, to a reader, that sounds pretty terrible.  But – with that, I achieved an incredible goal, to enrich myself with more knowledge.

By accomplishing this one personal goal, I am motivated to accomplish so many more.  Since the start of the new year, I began thinking about what my business goals would be. With that, I want to openly share with you my 5 top photography goals for this year:

1. Photograph a destination wedding outside of California! One of my main goals since day one is to be a destination photographer! I love traveling, and well, to be honest – I do travel to LA for photography once in a while! However, the last time I traveled outside of California to photograph a wedding was my first year in business and we went to Cabo San Lucas! I would love to travel somewhere else this year to photograph a wedding or portrait session, so if you’re thinking about having a destination wedding and/or portrait session somewhere, let’s talk!!

2. Continue photographing newborn sessions with a possibility of re-opening a new studio. Last year I photographed 10 newborns, and the year before was 8. Next month I invested in taking a small newborn class by Kelly Brown at WPPI in to increase my skills. I hope that I will photograph more newborns in the future so I can open up a new studio. For those who were a part of my journey, I was a part of a beautiful collective studio back in 2014/2015! Unfortunately, we decided to part our separate ways in early 2016 and since, I have been thinking about re-opening a new studio! I’m just waiting for the right time!

3. Begin photographing bloggers (fashion, fitness, jewelry – I’m open!). There’s something about creating relationships with my clients and having recurring business. This past year, I have also learned more about the blogging world (I’m so behind) and I want to team up with a few bloggers to help create content!

4. Be more business saavy. What is this supposed to mean? Ok, guilty as pleased, running your own business may seem really glamorous. What does “glamorous” mean? I have had some friends say, oh – “You can wake up whenever you want to”, or “work whenever you feel like it”. That is true, but it’s actually much harder than it seems. I’m only taking photos 10-15% of the time, and the rest is behind the computer, editing, marketing, taxes, and so much more. This year, I want to increase my productivity, which means I need to assess my energy and see where I need to improve processes, and I want to be using my business hours as productive business hours getting ahead instead of always feeling like catching up and feeling behind! 🙂
5. Dream BIGGER. You know when you were a really young, your imagination will run wild and thoughts of doing the unimaginable were most likely impossible?   When I started my photography career, I had a lot of dreams and it set a lot of new, amazing goals, some were the unimaginable. Throughout the past 7 years, it became challenging figuring out how to get from A to Z. So, I crossed a lot of goals off that list since then, however a lot of passions still linger. Some, of many questions still reside, like what are my next steps – past photography? Since I wanted to open up my mind again, I began to read more. This year, I want to think the unimaginable again and start turning these dreams into a reality.

Of course these aren’t my ONLY business goals for this year!  A few of my others that I’m excited about is continue doing commercial work for Atheria Jewelry and iLootPaperie.  I’m still curious about breaking into the commercial world for beauty + portrait photography which has been a goal since 2010 :).  I don’t know where to start, any thoughts?

Some of these goals seem easier to obtain than others, but it’s easier said than done! I just wanted to put it out there so all of YOU can hold me accountable for it!  I can definitely say that patience and balance have been a big part of these past 7 years, and I am wholeheartedly ready to move forward in 2017.  If you’re interested or can lend a helping hand, I’m all ears!

What are some of your goals for 2017?