It All Starts With You.
I was sitting on frozen ground at sunrise, waiting for light that might never come. This wasn't some mindful photography practice. I wasn't being patient and zen. I was stubborn, cold, and out of options. The shoot had to happen that day. I'd driven an hour and a half. The sky was grey, flat, completely useless. Every instinct told me to pack it in.
I sat down on that frozen January field and waited anyway. Forty minutes later, the clouds shifted. A sliver of light broke through. I had maybe sixty seconds. I got the shot. Here's what nobody tells you about that moment, it wasn't the light that mattered. It was everything that happened while I was sitting there with nothing to do but think.
The Person Who Carried My Certainty
For a long time, I had someone whose opinion I trusted more than my own. They weren't a mentor. They weren't even in the industry. But they were my sounding board. The person I'd check in with before any significant decision. They'd tell me what landed, what didn't, whether something was worth pursuing. Having that external certainty felt essential. It meant I didn't have to fully trust my own judgment, which honestly felt like a relief.
Then life got complicated for them. The check-ins stopped. And I was left with piles of work and no idea if any of it was actually good. I spiralled. Started projects and abandoned them halfway through. Took photographs I genuinely loved and second-guessed them into oblivion.
It was uncomfortable. A bit pathetic, if I'm honest. Because I'd been so focused on building a business that I'd forgotten to build my own judgment. The person who stepped back didn't take my vision with them. They couldn't. But I'd been so busy seeking their approval that I'd never fully owned mine.
The Rejection I Didn’t Tell Anyone About
In my first year, I applied for a popular rural trade show. The kind where half the county turns up. I spent weeks on that application. Built up this whole vision of where my booth would be, which images would catch people's attention. They rejected me. Standard email. The kind that clearly goes out to hundreds of people. I didn't tell anyone. Not that I'd been rejected. Not that I'd even applied. I was too embarrassed to admit I'd put myself out there and failed. Looking back, the silence was the real problem. I'd been treating external validation like oxygen. One person says no, and suddenly I'm questioning everything; the work, the vision, whether any of it was worth pursuing. But the work hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was someone else's opinion of it. And I'd given that opinion far too much power.
What Sitting Still Actually Teaches You
Back to that frozen field. Sitting there wasn't enlightenment. It was me finally being too tired to run from discomfort. Because before that, I was always moving. Taking more shots, trying different angles, adjusting settings. Motion felt like productivity. But sometimes there is no problem to work. Sometimes the only thing to do is wait. My thoughts are extremely loud when I stop moving. All the doubts I'd been outrunning just sat down next to me. You don't know what you're doing. You're wasting your time. Why did you think this would work? I couldn't scroll my phone. I couldn't pack up and leave. So I just sat there with all of it. Eventually the noise quieted down. Not because the doubts were answered. Because I'd outlasted them. When the light finally broke through, I wasn't thinking about whether I was good enough. I was just present. Responding to what was actually in front of me. That's when I realised: the patience I thought I needed for the work was actually patience with myself. With my own uncertainty. With not knowing if I was making the right call until well after I'd already made it.
The Tuesday It Changed
It changed on a Tuesday morning. I'd been staring at a project proposal for twenty minutes, phone in hand, ready to text three different people for their opinion. Then I just stopped. Put the phone down. Made the decision. Not because I was suddenly confident. But because I realised I'd been sitting there waiting for someone to tell me what I already knew I wanted to do. Their approval wouldn't have changed the decision. It would have just made me feel less responsible if it went wrong.
I started making decisions anyway. Small ones at first. This image goes in the portfolio. That project gets pursued even though I can't explain why yet. This client isn't the right fit, even though the money would be helpful. Sometimes I was wrong. Sometimes spectacularly wrong. But the failures didn't flatten me the same way anymore. Because I'd made the call. I'd owned it. When it didn't work, I could look at it and think: right, that didn't work. What do I do differently? Instead of I knew I should have asked someone first.
The difference is subtle but it changes everything.
The Uncomfortable Bit
Here's what no one tells you about running a creative business: community matters, support matters, but they can't force you to pick up the camera when you don't feel like it. They can't decide which projects to take on. They can't sit with your self-doubt at three in the morning when you're convinced you should probably just get a normal job with a pension. That bit is just you. That shoot at quarter to four in the morning? You have to get in the car. That difficult client conversation? You have to have it. That creative risk that might not pay off? You have to take it. Nobody else can sit on the frozen ground for you.
So sit down. Wait for the light. And when it comes, and it will, be ready.
Listen to Episode Two: It All Starts With you →
The full story, told properly. Including the parts that don't make me look good.
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