OK FRIENDS, let’s be honest. This is a real post…it’s raw and it’s honest and it’s crazy in some ways to even share it, but I am. I am saying it because you may need to hear it. So please give me grace and don’t judge!

I sat down at the end of the year and started to gather my income and expense information for our taxes. It is a daunting task and I sat there crunching the numbers and this feeling hit me. DEFEAT. And it made no sense. Because I met my goals for the year. I met ALL MY GOALS FOR THE YEAR. I did all that I set out to do, served all those I wanted to serve. I captured some pretty amazing things. I went places, met people, made memories. I lived another year of this dream, but somehow in the turning dreams into numbers, I lost a piece of my success.

Now let me say that I don’t define my life by an income. If I can provide for my family while doing what I love, it is enough. But somehow in a social media and materialistic drive world, I lost sight of that. I felt like those numbers (numbers of sessions, amount of income, HUGE expenses) defined my business. But truthfully they don’t.

We play a hard battle in our heads, don’t we? One where we know things like success isn’t in likes on Facebook or instagram but yet we still crave it. We define ourselves by other’s thoughts of us. I struggle daily with listening to my heart say THIS IS WHAT MATTERS and trying to block out my head saying BUT IT”S NOT ENOUGH. We always want more. More money, more dreams chased, more time. But truthfully, we get what we get. So are we doing what we should with it? Are you taking each moment and making it matter? Loving and living happy? Are you celebrating those dreams you accomplished? Are you using the income you receive to do good things? That is what we should be asking. But instead we tend to say…I JUST NEED MORE.

Those were the thoughts circling my head as I traveled to Washington DC for THE EVENT. HEAVY thoughts weighing me down. I chose to attend THE EVENT as a fun start to the year. I love connecting with other photographers that just GET IT. They understand the crazy hours, the heart we pour into our work. They understand the frustrations (like tax filing) and the heaviness that comes with a creative job. So when I was greeted with open arms from old friends and new, it was good for the soul. I sat there listening to this panel of amazing speakers, not because of the words they share, but because of the size of their hearts and I stopped thinking about my numbers. I started remembering the HEART in my business. I started remembering how my work makes me feel. And why I chase this dream every day. I don’t do what i do for the numbers. I do it for the HEART.

Thank you to Each person that spoke to my heart on Tuesday and helped me start the year back where I needed to be.