This is not a “three step system” or “my favorite things” or “how to” kinda blog post. BUT I think this story needs to be told and this needs to be encouragement and inspiration to someone out there who is too embarrassed to put “photography” behind their name, or for someone who has no clue where to even begin to grow a business. Of any kind! Not just a photography business. This is for every single person with a dream they feel is out of reach. 

First things first:

SET A TIME SENSITIVE AND MEASURABLE GOAL

My biggest advice for when you are starting a new project, business, or idea, is set a MEASURABLE goal in a specific amount of TIME. So for me, when I first started.. I set a HUGE goal for me and put a timeline on it!  This goal seemed SO out of reach and absolutely ridiculous, but Thomas pushed me to set my goal HIGH! So.. The goal was to book FIVE family mini sessions by the end of the month! So I had one month- to promote myself, put my name out there, and hopefully and prayerfully convince 5 different families to PAY me for my photography services.

I wrote this down in my planner, wrote about it in my prayer journal, and spoke it into existence to my husband. Yes. I said this out loud and then did the scariest thing I’ve ever done… I put “photography” behind my name. Brittany. Bruce. Photography. Holy crap. It looked ridiculous. It sounded stupid. And I was like OMGGG what the heck am I doing? People are going to make fun of me.

Which leads me to my next and final point.

STOP CARING WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF YOU

I was MORE scared about the crap people were going to say about me and my “ new little business” than actually screwing up a session! I was making up these stupid scenarios in my mind of people talking about me and making fun of me at their dinner table conversations. Or I would visualize the texts between people sending the eye roll emoji with a screenshot of the first time I put Brittany Bruce Photography on an image and shared it on Facebook. Y’all I was TERRIFIED.

Why?! I really don’t know, and looking back I am embarrassed that I thought so highly of myself that people actually cared to talk about me in the first place. How stupid. It was something that I was insecure about and had to literally pray satan out of my head and my heart because I KNEW this was what I wanted and needed to do! Can anyone relate?

So..Back to goal setting…

As I wrote before, my goal was to book FIVE family sessions in a month. I prayed over that goal, asked God to open doors, give me wisdom and courage, and prayed for patience and for grace if I didn’t achieve this goal. Well my friends, God is good, and when you add HIS power into your goal setting, you get results you could NEVER dream possible. Within TWO weeks, I booked 54 family sessions. Not just 5. I booked 54. Thats ten times more than I wanted. And two weeks before I wanted to book them. It was insane and I will never ever ever forget that number. Fifty-Four. I sometimes say fifty-four to myself anytime I feel self doubt. (which EVERY creative goes through by the way)

If you’ve made it this far in my story of goal setting and fear- then you need to know, that because I prayed through the fears and silenced the made-up scenarios in my head, I was able to grow my business, raise my prices, and was ultimately able to save enough money to build our dream farmhouse. We then felt confident enough financially to responsibly have another baby. So sometimes I think back about that time I was SO freakin scared to start a photography business… And IF I would have listened to the voices in my head.. I would still be living in our old house, and we would have probably not been able to comfortably have our fourth baby. Which yall.. have you seen her? Shes freakin adorable. 

So, friend, PLEASE please please do the thing. Start the business. Set the goal. Write it down. Tell someone who will SUPPORT you and ENCOURAGE you. Ask God to take over and to put His hand on this to help you because, Martha, as awesome as you think you are, you can’t do this alone.

Set your goals high. Silence the fear. And bathe it in prayer.