Keep Moving Forward

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long.
We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things
because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
- Walt Disney

Inspiration can hit us at the most unexpected times. I was watching Meet the Robinsons with my kids the other day. There is a scene in the movie where the main character, Lewis, child inventor extraordinaire, is forced to fix the Robinson family’s peanut butter and jelly gun. When he finally thinks he’s fixed it, they turn it on and the gun jams and peanut butter and jelly explodes all over the place. Lewis hides his face in shame and apologizes profusely. The Robinson family takes one look around and suddenly erupt into loud cheers. They explain that every time you fail, you learn something. From success, not so much. Failure is not a bad thing if you learn from it.

This was an interesting year for me. Last year, I set a lot of goals for myself to meet in 2012. And I did meet some of them. I upgraded to a full frame camera, I finally branded my business…I booked at least one portrait session a month for the entire year and I started branching out in Ventura and I met some awesome wedding vendors in the process. But there were also some goals that I did not meet. I didn’t shoot 10 weddings this year. I did not buy the lens I’ve had my eye on forever and I did not blog at least three times a month like I had planned.

I felt pretty down in the dumps for a while because things have progressed pretty slowly for me. I look at some of my colleagues and see how much they have grown and achieved this year, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t get jealous sometimes.

And then I realize how much I HAVE achieved. I have two children, and I have still managed to find time for my business, for my family, and more importantly, for myself. I think back to where I was last year, or even at the beginning of this year and I see how much I have grown, personally and professionally. Rather than beat myself up and think about all the goals that I didn’t meet, I am going to learn from it and better myself for 2013.

I have already started writing down my goals for 2013 (I’m thinking about posting them on here). Some of them are kind of scary, and I don’t even know if I’ll come close to meeting them. But I’m going to give it my all…and even if I fail, I am going to keep moving forward.

Hope everyone has a rad Thanksgiving. I’ll be out of town and probably out of touch for the next week or so, but I’ll be checking my email if you need to contact me.