At some point in your career, whether is it photography or other creative work, you might get feeling overwhelmed not being sure where to head now after all. Maybe you’re at the very start of your journey, maybe you’re an experienced one who is just visualizing your next steps, and maybe you already know what burning out feels like and want to avoid it next time for any cost.

Being in the creative industry for 8 years now I understand how hard all of the growth and building pressure can feel to you and I want you to make sure to know that – YOU’RE NOT ALONE & YOU CAN HANDLE THIS.

Let me put another reminder here – whatever self-development book you open, whatever successful story you listen to, there is always one thing you should remember – nothing happens in one night. You have to be patient. You have to try many times. You have to fall down and raise up. You have to take your mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve, not as a thing of failure. You have to stand for what you trust in. And I bet you have already listened to all of that many times, but somehow I feel this is always a good idea to repeat – maybe because this is one of the very helpful things that over the years I learned that works for me. Simply to make your business grow, your mindset has to grow first. By maintaining your mind, knowledge, and mastery, you will be able to keep regularly growing.

But what are the exact steps to make yourself even closer to keeping your mind growing? Well, now read carefully, and I will share some personal tips with you.

Be open-minded

Being open-minded is a practice that brings a great quality that can help you cultivate many directions in your life.

When keeping your mind open, you will be willing to learn new skills and approaches that will move you on. Be open to listening to true feedback and constructive criticism, and use it to improve your workflow. When making business decisions, whether is it big or small, consider all options, take time to care, and do not abdicate. Understand your customers’ needs, put yourself in their shoes, and try to see them. Work with other creatives, and keep building a community to develop new ideas and approaches.

Simply – keep your soul open. To the new opportunities, to new relationships, to try new things, to elevate your workflow, to do the next steps, to move forward, to grow.

Keep finding a good education

Learning new things is essential for staying competitive, adapting to changes in the market, and growing your business. The creative world is constantly evolving with new techniques and approaches all the time. Ongoing education can help you to stay current, expose you to new ideas, and adapt, making your business grow. And needless to say – courses and workshops are great opportunities to network with other creatives and professionals in your industry, which again will help you to build your relationships. Education is over the years best at all and an amazing way to grow your mind and business.

If you feel like you’d love to try to outsource some personalized way to grow, feel free to discover my mentoring program.

OPEN SIGNATURE MENTORING PROGRAM FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Or If you are a flat lay lover who’d love to elevate your styling workflow, join the waiting list and be the first to receive an invitation to sign up.

Track & celebrate

Many of us have a tendency to focus on the negative things that we could do better and ignore those at which we succeeded. But how can you grow by looking back instead of looking forward? And also – no rain, no flowers. You need those failures to improve, so take a moment to learn about them, and then guess what? LET IT GO. Your future customers need an updated version of your approach. But all of said now is just a kindly reminder I want you to not miss out.

So let’s get back to the point… Tracking your progress and celebrating successes can motivate you to keep pushing forward, especially during challenging times. This also allows you to measure your progress and determine how successful you have been in doing your steps to achieve those goals. And most of all important to say – you will be able to boost your confidence and stay positive and optimistic. This sounds great, right? Of course! Who does not love to celebrate? So don’t punish yourself, keep tracking, focus on optimistic things, and celebrate.

Being a big lover of planning, I start every year like this:

• I schedule one single day for a complete year overview, visualizing and planning the next year.
• I will create my zone, grab a coffee, and focus on calm thinking.
• Using the year compass, I will track back and set new specific and measurable goals.
• Then I will focus on breaking down goals into smaller steps.
• As last, I will create a system for tracking, set up reminders and review regularly.

During the whole year, I will always find time to celebrate successes along the way, whatever it is – just to appreciate myself and find little things to be happy.

Keep discovering

The journey of growth is not a circle. It’s more like a telephone cord…

You’re in your comfort zone, you will find something you have to stand for, you will have to change, you will embrace your vulnerabilities, you will get to your discomfort zone, you will let go of your expectations, you will accept it all, you will trust your intuition and right there, at this point, you will find your self-expansion. And this will go on and on. Because nothing is forever.

“No product survives the first contact with the client.”
– Derek Sivers

So yes, If you want to grow, you have to find new things, you have to discover, you have to be brave and you have to go through the whole process of discovering and understanding that moving forward is not something that is trendy last year. It’s a process of growing.

Stay true to your gut

And lastly, stay true to yourself and to your gut. Do what you love and love what you’re doing. Take time to listen to what your intuition is telling you, take time to reflect on your thoughts and feelings, and trust your experience. When you trust your gut, you are making decisions that align with your values, beliefs, and goals. You will do what feels right to you. And you will feel happy about that. Which is everything why you started doing what you’re doing. Trust…

Well, we’re at the end for now. But not for a long time. I will keep you motivated and inspired soon!

– Sabina