Staying winter busy

Winter busy is a weird thing when you're self employed & in the wedding industry. Although So Cal weather is nice year round, there's definitely a lull in weddings from November - March (even till April some years). Instead of shoots, most of our days are spent in the office catching up on our backlog or updating website info, researching advertising options, refreshing our social media, etc. I've challenged myself more this year than past winter lulls to stay on top of it. I actually want to challenge ourselves in every aspect of our business in 2015. My over the top drive is actually driving Paul nuts, haha.

This is our 5th year of business and our 4th year calling this our full time job. It's been awesome, and I love that I still have the same excitement as I did half a decade ago. The past couple years I've felt like we've gotten "comfortable." No we haven't been lazy or produced a lesser quality of work. We've never had the mentality that we've made it. Or got burnt out, we just got in routine. And not that routine is always a bad thing. With it we are consistent and sure of our abilities. But we're also not pushing ourselves, not being innovative, or open to change. And I want to change, I want to get out of our comfort level this year, stay relevant, and be better.

A lot of our friends are feeling the same in this New Year. Afraid of being left behind in this always changing artistic industry. Especially friends that are also entering their 5th and 6th year of business it seems. My thought behind why is because…Year 1, is this a hobby? What am I doing?" Year 2, "This might be going somewhere." Year 3, "I've found my way and we're really doing this." Year 4, "Fine tuning in happy place (i.e. extension of year 3)" And then you're suddenly in a place of ok, is this it? Do I want to be here and only here or do I want to evolve and invest in becoming more. When we were fresh and wide-eyed in the wedding industry we would look at industry professionals and think "How can they not see how outdated their work is?" And now after 5 years in the industry I see how easy it can be to get there. Suddenly those outdated professionals almost seem brilliant! They just cruise thru each year on their same decade old formula. Let's be real, comfortable feels good! But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. I know we have so much more room to grow. I'm both terrified and excited for you 2015!

Sorry for the rant peeps, really needed to write it all out!