FOCUS... it's not just in the lens, it's in your mind :)
Original Post from May 25, 2015
I have a creative mind, which means I get nothing accomplished. Ideas pop up in my head like popcorn sitting out in the hot summer sun and I usually have 50 projects going on at once, none of which get finished, and everything (and yes I mean everything) interests me. I'm highly aware there is a BIG world around me and I want want to experience it all. I have a goal list, heck mine it is even posted on a cork board on my mirror, but yet it doesn't get accomplished. It's there, eyeballing me every morning, taunting me to complete at least ONE item... but I find myself just adding to the list rather than checking any item off. I literally have a magazine cut out of one of my favorite fitness females with a motto that says Start Something and the Start is crossed out and replaced with Finish.... Story of my life! It may take me 5 days just to complete this blog, but I'm going to try to do it all in one sitting! (I've already been distracted 3 times...)
I hang up motivational signs throughout my apartment. "If you build it they will come." (I'm from Iowa... don't judge). "If you dream it you can achieve it." "Be the change you want to see in the world." "She thought she could so she did." I honestly believe all of these things. I live my life like anything is possible and I encourage others to do the same. I would say if I died tomorrow, people would come to my funeral, or at least raise a beer in remembrance of me and say, "That Annette McNamara, she was one happy positive ray of sunshine. She always pursued her dreams and lived life to the fullest. Man she really had her $h!t together. I want to be just like her." Ok, maybe not those exact words, but along those lines. I fully believe I am capable of anything I can get my mind to cooperate with. Just setting my mind to a goal is not enough. Setting the goal is the easy part. Moving toward it is also the easy part. Not turning left, right, jumping up, falling backwards, doing a cartwheel, and a belly flop, followed by a little jig is the difficult part.
Now don't think I'm complaining, or saying "Whoa is me" life is hard. I'm just stating that it would be awesome to wrangle all of these little gems that pop into my head and combine them with a business mind and take my photography as a business to an unimaginable level. I have the creative side down. The technical side, the business driving side, and the continuing education side is not so well tuned. I have come to the conclusion that I need to lock myself in my garage/studio, turn on classical music, send my phone to the baby sitters for the day and just buckle down and build my business plan. Being creative these days is not enough. Marketing, driving, creating new relationships and networking with a business intent (NOT and impersonal one!)... and building business is one of the only ways I'm going to maintain success in a career that I am also so lucky to also call my passion.
No matter how many times I have to pass my goal board and see Jeremy Cowart's face staring back at me, I will continue to pursue my dream, even if it takes me 50 more years to attain. Maybe by then I will be old and feeble and not able to focus on anything else.. but at that point I'll probably have alzheimer's and won't remember my own name, let alone what my MarkD IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII niner will do then.
(Sorry for the non-climactic let down at the end there... I lost interest after the cartwheel part!) :)