Accepting Our Own Truths

Waking up to obvious realities

Oftentimes, the conversations and experiences I have in therapeutic situations are deeply insightful. The insight I want to share today has been obvious to me for years but I never thought to surface it in any other places besides my coaching practice. It’s about hard truths and pivots.

I’ve been a photographer for 8.5 years. I used to talk about photography with such a glowing report, but it wasn’t until years into my profession that I realized most of that glow was a demonstration for other people - not myself. Someone would say, “That’s amazing that you can do something you’re passionate about or that you love for a living.” I’d often respond, “Yes, it’s crazy. I know not everyone is as fortunate. Photography is such an amazing passion, I can do so much with it.” I’m making up my response for the sake of this example. My point is that I would mirror other people’s enthusiasm for my craft as a profession.

It takes time to learn yourself, even though you are yourself.

With over a decade in photographic practice, I’m not sure I’d say I love photography (at least not like you see in others). I absolutely enjoy it. But it’s not the photography that gets me. What’s important here is that there is a shame associated with doing something that people revere or excites them but then not caring as much as they do. There’s shame in appearing as an artist but not feeling as though you’re completely an artist at heart. Were there times I was in love, yes. Were there times I wanted to be an artist like many of the photographers I’ve admired and studied, absolutely. As humans we grow and evolve though. Justin at 35 is not Justin at 25. Feeling that shame kept me from introspectively reviewing how I felt about photography until how I felt finally smacked me in the face.

Typically, these awakenings happen at the intersection of things like growing confidence, caring less about outside validation, and probably some other things as well. I’m currently able to admit what I love about photography: Photography gives me another language that I can speak to communicate rich ideas in observable frozen moments with the potential to evoke an emotional response. That’s it. The rest of photography, what I’m actually addicted to, is doing the business of photography. (Post edit note: I do love connected with people through portraits because it’s a challenge to my introversion.)

This was cemented for me over the last couple of years as I’ve started building businesses outside of my photography profession. I thought a full-time job would leave me remembering why I love freelance so much - it didn’t. I’m an entrepreneur - it’s not about the full or the part-time nature of things at all. It’s about building, creating value, doing deals - making 💩 happen.

If you’re unmotivated to do a thing, it’s probably because you aren’t well-suited to do the thing in the first place.

Quick disclaimer - well-suited doesn’t mean you’re not capable. Instead, think of it as your subconscious actively playing its role. I have spoken to hundreds of people that have come to me enthused about embarking on a creative project, looking for a role in a new industry, or trying to learn a skill outside of their full-time job. Making up a statistic, 70-80% never do the thing they tell me about. Of the 20%-30% that do, maybe half of them never return to that thing they were so excited about. That’s not doom and gloom. Life is an internship. We’re meant to try things, learn something and move on.

The whole point of being excited is to help catalyze yourself into the next step of action. But, you don’t have to get married to these things when dating is perfectly fine. A lot of people I coach get married to things because committing to things prevents them from quitting and framing it as failure. If you need to hear it - Quitting is not indicative of failure. Quitting is great! (Like drinking just do it responsibly.) Here are some quick notes to sum how I’m thinking about what you’ve just read above:

• Enthusiasm and excitement often become surrogates for love. This is why getting excited about a creative project and then never following through feels so crappy. Try to give yourself more credit - you’re not buying, you’re just trying things on.

• Framing is a bigger deal on our psyche than you can see in the moment. Nobody loves to fail but not everything is a failure. Or another framing, failure is only bad if you fail the same way every single time you try. If you’re learning something then failure is a great learning device and will ultimately help you evolve.

• Nobody is watching. Seriously, people are mostly self-absorbed. As in, we all have our own problems, our own responsibilities, lack of time….on and on. You can build publicly and fail privately if you want. I mean you can do it all publicly and again, no one will care. I get how heavy perception and validation is but if you walk through the fire once you’ll see it doesn’t burn like you expected.

Look, I planned on writing this newsletter 3-5x a week. On average, I’m hitting about 1.5x a week. I guess publicly that’s a failure, but it’s also a signal that I’m doing a lot and that I can learn from overcommitment. Instead, I should be communicating I’ll give you my richest thoughts or I won’t write at all. Who cares about quantity when you’re getting quality golden nuggets? Amirite?

Happy Friday!