Okay you guys….it’s time to get real for a little bit. Last week I shared that it’s been a year since I took the leap and went full time with my business. It’s been such an amazing journey, but not without it’s pitfalls. I had only officially started my business a little over a year earlier, so going full time was a huge learning experience for me. Most people know the basic things to think about before leaving a full time job to run a business (saving up a nest egg, finding health insurance, having a fallback plan, etc) so I wanted to share a few of the “Wish I’d knowns” with you guys.  Because hindsight is always 20/20!

I wish I knew:

It’s so much harder to say no.
I have a difficult time saying no even to things that aren’t related to my business, but I really struggled to say no to things after going full time. I think it was mostly the fear that I could possibly never book another job again as well as a sense of urgency to make some cash monay (that’s how you pronounce it when you put cash in front of money…back to my story now), but I had a hard time turning down jobs that weren’t quite a fit for me. There was one particular thing that really tested me closer to the beginning of my journey as a full time photog…I won’t go into too many details, but I was trying to really please some friends of a friend and was compromising with them on the business principles I set for myself. In the end I had to tell them no, I couldn’t do what they asked for, and that really hurt at first because it meant turning down work. It meant that was $$$ amount of money I wouldn’t be making that month. When I still worked my full time job, those decisions weren’t easy, but they were a lot easier because we weren’t relying on my photography to provide for us and pay our bills. I sometimes feel like if I say no to something, it’s going to be my fault if we go hungry one day. I know that’s irrational, but that’s a legit fear that I’ve had since going full time.

Working alone day in and day out can be difficult
When I left my full time job I was so relieved to not have coworkers anymore. At my previous job I sat in a glorified cave with three other women in extremely tight quarters and it was…let’s just say INTENSE at times. I was so excited that running my business full time meant a quiet office and lots of time to myself. LOTS. I like being by myself and am getting more and more comfortable with doing things solo as I get older (I flew to Vegas and back alone this year! Holler!) but I think sometimes it would be nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of, or someone to chat about last night’s episode of the Voice with. Besides missing social interaction, I also feel that working alone and unsupervised is not for everyone…you have to be disciplined and remember that even though you really just want to play Diner Dash on your iPad all day, you need to WORK. And honestly? I don’t know if working from home is a good fit for everyone. I think I do okay at it mostly because I was homeschooled for a few years and I learned through that how to be good at motivating and disciplining myself!

That John and I should clearly define our roles ahead of time
Let me start by saying that John is the most supportive husband I could have ever asked for. Before I left the full time job (as I was crying about having to go back to work at the glorified cave with the intense coworkers) he told me that he would do anything to support my dream…even if that meant working three jobs on top of his full time job to pay our bills! (I clearly don’t deserve this guy, but somehow he still puts up with me.)

Married photographers thinking about taking the leap. You need to work out your roles (specifically within the household) with your spouse. I think when one person is physically home all day it’s easy to come home and wonder Why are there still dishes in the sink from this morning (okay, from two days ago) when you’ve been home ALL DAY. The truth is, even though I’m at home during the day, that doesn’t make me a housewife. That doesn’t make dishes or household chores my sole responsibility. That doesn’t make me not responsible for dishes either though. It just means that we both still share the responsibility for having a clean home and a good life. We had to sit down and discuss this amongst ourselves one day. That I actually don’t always have time to go get the oil changed in the car or run our errands just because I’m physically home during the day. It was good for us to talk it out though because these are things that could cause a strain on our marriage if we didn’t talk about it! Why am I sharing the boring details of our marriage? Because I never saw this particular stuff coming and I want you guys to think about it if you’re thinking about going full time!

(We still make a pretty good team! Photo by Katelyn James)

It’s a lot harder to have a work/life balance
When you work a 9-5 job there’s a distinct separation between work time and free time. Pretty much as soon as you walk out the door from work at 5pm, you know you’re on your own time. So you don’t look at your work email, or try to start work projects, or walk back into the office and sit down at your cubicle to do more work. When you work from home and your business is your main source of income it’s really hard to not feel like you should be working all the time or end up working late into the night. I have done this a lot. There have been nights where I worked til 2-3 in the morning because I just felt like I needed to finish whatever I was doing before I stopped. Checking my email on my phone is a compulsive habit. I do it when we’re out with friends. When we’re riding in the car. When John and I are just hanging out and watching tv. It’s incredibly hard for me to put down my work and move on to the other part of my personal life and honestly it’s been way harder since I left my ft job. I thought it would be a lot easier since I’d have more time to work on the business during normal office hours, but to be honest with you guys, it’s gotten way worse. Like I think my vision is worsening because of how much I look at screens!

My feelings about my business intensified
I went through a time this past year when I was really depressed about my business and myself. I was comparing myself to so many others and feeling like I didn’t measure up. I did this when I was a part time photographer/full time cave slave, but it got worse when my business was my only job and I was spending literally 90 percent of my time knee deep in it. It’s SO EASY to take it personally when potential clients choose another photographer, or inquiries aren’t coming in as quickly as you’d like, or if you have a situation with a client. I think part of that is because our businesses are based so heavily on who we are as people. If your business is based on who you are as a person and a potential client decides they don’t like that, it feels like they don’t like you and that’s never a good feeling. Part of the learning curve this year included trying to separate Katie from Katie Nesbitt Photography at times. My whole life isn’t defined by how one person feels about me or that one person thinks I like cats too much, or doesn’t like all of the detail shots I take. My whole life isn’t even defined by Katie Nesbitt Photography as a whole!

That I’d need to invest in more leggings
Ha. You totally think I’m kidding but I’m not. I wear leggings almost every single day. I just change out of them to go to client meetings and things like that. Due to these comfortable pants and the availability of snacks, I have actually gained a couple of pounds…which is something that could happen to you (please tell me it happens to everyone!!) as an unexpected and unwelcome side effect of working from home. And in case you are curious, the pounds haven’t gone to any of my good parts. Instead I look like I’m two months pregnant or like I have a beer baby. I know you guys are probably thinking, oh is she serious, is this really a pitfall? Yes! This is real life guys. The full time photographers life is super glam.

I really did have a lot more time to grow my business
It really surprised me how much extra time 40 hours a week really is. One of the best parts of leaving the full time job was being able to turn my weddings around faster and be caught up every week. And in the off season I had so much more time to network, go to conferences, build a client lounge for my pricing, toy with design projects on the side, etc. I would have never dreamed of being able to  do this much when I was part time photography/full time cave slave. My business grew so much more quickly after I left my job than I anticipated it would because I had a lot more free time to invest into it!

That everything would be okay
I think if there was an Academy Award for worrying, my name would be the one inside of the envelope and the other worriers would be sitting around trying to look happy for me as I accepted my award. Kidding. But seriously, I stayed up worrying into the night before I left my job and in the early days of the transition. I was so afraid we would end up destitute because of my decisions and that everything would fail and nothing would work out. You know, totally rational fears 🙂 To my surprise and relief, everything has worked out so far. Every time I was afraid I wouldn’t make what I needed to for that particular month, an opportunity would come up. Every time I was stressed about a situation out of my control, it eventually came to a resolution.  There have been a few rough patches over the past year, but I just pick myself up and keep it moving and everything is a okay. Things happen for a reason. I think I’m meant to do this, (at least for this season in my life) and I think when you are meant to do something, or things are meant to work out for you, they will. Things will fall into place, and no, it won’t be easy, but it will happen and all of the little bumps in the road will be worth it. I think of life like a cobblestone road. There are lots of little bumps in the road, but when you step back and look at it, it’s really beautiful and intricate, and amazing (and makes a great backdrop for pictures, is bad for high heels…I could go on and on with this metaphor. Haha).