Nicole Begley (00:00)
Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bagley. Today, Heather's taken over the podcast and she has a quick question for you. How are you actually measuring success in your business? If the first thing that pops into your mind is clients or revenue, well, you're definitely not alone. But that way of thinking can quietly trap you in frustration and keep you feeling like you're always behind. So in this episode, Heather's sharing with you why you need to stop measuring your success in this way.

And what you should actually focus on instead if you really want to start building momentum in your business. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:33)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:33)
There are so many challenges in our businesses that are helpful to uncover and then examine if you want to shift and you want to grow as a business owner, but what I will be talking about today is absolutely required. Allow me to be even more direct. You must

shift your thinking around this, or you will be perpetually stressed out, anxious, and miserable. I think we can agree that these are not good feelings. In fact, they are very negative. And when you try to take action, build a business from these terrible emotions, you will get terrible results, which just keeps you in this perpetual loop.

As I'm sharing this, I'm thinking, wow, what a positive episode. But it really is because I have answers for you. You cannot continue to measure your success solely based on clients and revenue. I promise this is one of your biggest problems and you have to break free from this thinking. I implore you to liberate yourself in this area. It is a critical requirement.

I introduced non-revenue victories or NRVs in episode 290. The title was, Is Money the Only Way to Measure Success? And then I talked about it again, well, I talked about it a lot in a lot of different episodes, but episode 378, Why Your Revenue Goals Are Sabotaging Your Business. Of course, we believe that once we accomplish a particular goal, we will feel better.

I think that that's human nature, it makes sense. And then once I figure out how to get clients, I will feel relieved. And once I do that more consistently, I will feel confident. And once I start making more money, I will be excited. And once I get to $100,000 or more in revenue, ⁓ then I'll be really happy about my business. I want you to notice how you're making your emotions conditional.

It's based on circumstance. If you've been around for more than five seconds, you know that that's not how it works. Feelings come from thoughts. Thoughts come from circumstances, events that happen. You then have thoughts and then you have feelings. It is not the other way around. And the sooner you embrace this or the sooner you stop resisting it, at the very least, the sooner you'll break free.

I was listening to an interview recently with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. By the way, that book is my top number one favorite book of all time. I have read hundreds of books. have amassed an incredible library of these types of books, and he is number one at the top. Highly recommend. But in this interview, he was describing goals and this dissatisfaction.

Okay, what he said is essentially you are constantly pushing happiness off to the next milestone and thinking that once you get there, you will be satisfied. But a better way to do this is to fall in love with the process because then you can be happy along the way and still achieve the milestones as you go. And doesn't that not sound more pleasant? He said there's this like, this is where I am.

and then there's, you know, where I want to be and there's this gap. And in that gap is dissatisfaction. But I want you to imagine that an acorn falls from a tree and it manages to take root and it becomes a seedling and then a sapling and then ultimately a mighty oak tree. And at no point in that process was it criticizing itself for being, say, a sapling.

And then when it was a sapling, it wasn't criticizing itself for not being an oak tree. It was never dissatisfied for where it was at. And certainly nobody was looking at it and saying, ⁓ man, I cannot believe you are not a full grown oak tree yet. Like what is wrong with you? What is taking you so long? It kept growing the entire time.

So it simultaneously had this, I don't think they have thoughts. It had this, ⁓ I don't know, not realization. What am I trying to say? It just knew, okay. It kept growing the whole time and it knew that it was perfect where it was at. There was nothing wrong. And yet it continued to grow. And the reason is very simple. And that's just because that's what an oak tree does. It's encoded for growth.

So maybe a healthier way to look at the journey, the process, wherever you're at, is to say, I'm perfectly happy where I'm at at each stage and I'm encoded for growth. I can be appreciative, grateful for this moment, whatever it is, and still desire to move forward. The difference between us as humans and nature

is that the sapling isn't comparing itself to the other oaks on Instagram. It's not saying, my gosh, look at how big they are. Look at how many leaves they have. Look, they're actually dropping acorns to produce more trees. my gosh. I can't wait till I get there and I'm miserable until I don't. It's not doing that. I will say I believe what James Clear says. He said comparison can be very helpful.

or very harmful depending on how you use it. It's better to compare small things, maybe pricing or marketing strategies, tactics. What could I try differently? Because this could be helpful to build skills. A better example is how you take photos. ⁓ I use this aperture because I like to shoot a very shallow depth of field or I use a fast shutter speed because I have moving objects. Those are very

practical things that you could compare and you could get better from. That's helpful to build skills. But when you start comparing big things like revenue or success, then that's a recipe for disaster. Because as the scale gets bigger, the success gets more vague because there are so many factors involved. It's just very, very nuanced for each specific person.

So he said that comparison is the teacher of skills when it's applied narrowly, but it is the thief of joy when applied broadly. I'll tell you what, I have nothing but love for James Clear. This guy is brilliant. He is one of the only newsletters that I...

read every single week. I highly recommend getting on his list. Go to his website jamesclear.com and sign up for his emails. They come on Thursdays. I always read them. I want to share a recent one with you. He calls it 321. Happy 321 Thursday. He says here are three ideas, two quotes, and one question to consider this week. The first idea, optimize for your desired lifestyle, not your desired title.

Number two, reflection requires stillness. One cost of rushing from thing to thing is that you lose the space to think. Hard work matters, but nonstop motion often hides a quiet truth. You could have used your time better. I really appreciate that one. If you never pause, you confuse activity with effectiveness. Make time to think, walk outside.

sit quietly, create space, then move again, but this time on purpose. Number three, here's a rule I find useful. You should attempt things that are difficult enough to guarantee some early embarrassment, but important enough that long-term regret is unlikely. Trying something difficult will usually make you look foolish or inexperienced. That's fine. That's the cost of learning. But if it's important to you,

then you'll work through the early failures, even if things ultimately change shape or don't work out, you'll never regret going for it.

The next section are the two quotes from others. Number one, the influential Roman poet Horace on getting started. He said, well begun is half done. I think that's good. Number two, writer Virginia Wolf reminds us that agency is not in controlling what happens, but in working with what we have. Quote, arrange whatever pieces

come your way." I think it was, might've been, I'm pretty sure, John Washington Carver that said, do the best you can with what you have. Hey, here's reality and I'm going to make this work. Okay, then finally from this email, he had one question for you. If you weren't allowed to complain about this thing anymore, what action would you have to take?

Okay, I think we could utilize that one. If you weren't allowed to complain about how you are not getting clients or making money. What action would you have to take? And by the way, if you're of my coaching clients or you're inside Elevie, I want to be able to talk to you about this so you can talk with me. I don't I don't consider it complaining.

think you're just trying to work through things. But it's an interesting question to ponder. By the way, you should join us inside of Elevate. We are making things happen. People are making money, biggest sales ever, all with shifts in thinking like this. The link is in the show notes. I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.