New (ALL) Year Photography Goals

It's already FEBRUARY and you know what that means!...now wait...it's NOVEMBER!!! OMG this is insane...let's do something before the year is gone altogether!!

All year you’ve been taking lots more photos - you're committed - you've been downloading and editing them, and backing up like you know you should, and going to the gym, eating lots of vegetables…you’ve been getting up early for the sunrise, taking your camera everywhere.

Yes?!...No?!…alright alright I broke my new years resolutions too.

So you're not alone…research shows that over 90% of us break our new year's resolutions…we’ve already swept them aside. Less than 10% of us stick to our original resolutions…but why?? The reason why we drop these goals so early is because they are just too big. The new year approaches and we get inspired to start afresh…it feels like a big remarkable occasion so we honour it with equally sizeable goals.

Starting a new you…getting up early, eating healthy, backing up your photos, running a marathon, quitting something, starting a 365 project, moving to overseas, get that promotion, get that shot…but January 1 comes along and we realise it's just another day…our expectations and our resolutions fall flat.

So the problem isn't that we just got slack…but that we never give ourselves a fair go to begin with…but how do we fix that?

Take a look at your big resolution this year and focus rather on the micro goals of it…think baby steps…we have to stop telling ourselves we have to run a marathon every January. Just run 1 mile each day…simple…because if I’d planned on editing one good photo every day rather than updating my whole online gallery, I would have an extra 30 great images ready to go now instead of none!

And then there is also the elephant in the room…why do you have your goals…is it because you know you should do, should be, have to, need to….that’s not going to work for long is it?!? You know it won’t, you’ve proven it every year…wake up already!

Consequences can help - if you don’t brush your teeth in the morning at some point in the day it will be embarrassing….so you drive yourself to the bathroom every morning, but it’s still a chore.

How about aligning your goals with passion…what you love…(lets not get into our failed health goals today…that’s all about self love…) lets look at different kinds of photographers…if you are passionate about your hobby or craft, it's not hard to get up early for a potentially great sunrise or go for a long drive to a location is it?…you’re just driven…no need to effort.

If you don’t love taking photos that much you’ll more likely choose to stay in bed. Yes you can ‘drive’ yourself…but it’s not sustainable over the long term. No doubt you’ve had some of those experiences where you run out of steam, run out of interest or inspiration, or totally crash and burn out on something you once thought was important.

The trick is it’s all about feeling, not thinking. Feeling passionate about something will get you to where you want to go every time. You can’t DRIVE yourself to success, you have to be DRIVEN.

Have you got some ideas snowballing in your head yet….I do ;-))