T H E M O N T H LY
#ISSUE 13
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SEPTEMBER 2019
A NOTE FROM BETSY: HOW I BALANCE IT ALL “How do you do it all?!?” This is the question I probably receive most from photographers in the early days of trying to balance EVERY. LAST. THING. And lucky for you, today I’m going to unveil the answer in ONE EASY step. The struggle is real: You’ve got the camera to learn, the clients to manage, the marketing and endless social media to-do’s, not to mention your own family, spouse, kids, friends, and maybe even the demands of another full-time job. Anyone else tired just reading all that?
So how do I balance it all? Grab your notebook… I don’t. Anticlimactic, wasn’t it? But it’s the truth. The reality is, none of us CAN balance it all. And I’m no exception. There is always something left undone. It might be dishes, a perfectly clean house, unwashed hair, an email that gets delayed longer than I planned, a homework project that gets 50% parental effort, a photo that gets “good enough” white balance instead of perfection, you name it. Truthfully, sometimes my kid needs my personal attention more than that client needs 20 minutes of skin retouching. And sometimes spending 5 extra minutes crafting a supportive email to a disgruntled client goes further than me having those minutes to clean a sparkling kitchen sink. Balance is a unicorn. It’s not real. What REALLY matters is being able to adapt to fluctuating priorities. Erwin McManus said, “It’s not balance you need, but adaptability.” And boy is that the truth. So the next time you start to panic that everyone else is “balancing it all” while you’re dropping the ball left and right, just find where it is you need to adapt. You’ll be happier AND more productive. I promise. Betsy