Are you taking care of yourself? As wedding photographers, we are gearing up for the busiest season of the year and I want to make sure you’re feeling all the self-love and appreciation that you truly deserve. In this episode, I’m sharing tips on ways you can show up for yourself in both your business and your personal life during this final quarter of 2022. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!

Review the Show Notes:

Prioritize Your Calendar (2:06)

Update Your HoneyBook Or CRM Workflows (4:16)

Prepare For Your Mini-Sessions (5:01)

Make A Favorites Shopping List (8:07)

Arrive 30 Minutes Earlier To Your Shoot (8:55) 

Clean, Organize, And Tidy (12:18)

Add Exercise To Your Daily Routine (13:44)

Affirmation Cards, Journaling, And Meditation (14:52)

Clean Up Your Friends List (16:05)

Invest In Your Education (17:55)

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Green House

Amazon Favorites Shop

Fall Family Photo Outfit Inspiration 

Review the Transcript:

I am so excited to switch gears and chat about a buzzword these days self care. Now I know it can be a little cliche or woowoo to talk about this. But as the temperatures are dropping and the leaves are falling for many, it’s time to get nice and cozy, snuggle in with a hot cocoa and enjoy the holidays. But for us photographers, it’s game time. We are gearing up for the busiest season of the year and I want to make sure that you’re feeling loved, appreciated, well prepared and excited for this really crazy season.

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at quiannamarie.com/podcast. Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready loves though.

Now before I roll into the super fun self care tips for our daily lives, I first want to share some business self care tips to help us kind of put our mind at ease but the good game plan for these crazy workloads this fall, because I know I could tell you oh it’s make time to enjoy a bath once a week or don’t forget to grab drinks with your girlfriends like these are all things that we’re going to chat about later in the conversation. But if you’re anything like me, I know that you can’t relax like you physically cannot check out unless you know your business is well taken care of and in a space to release and to actually enjoy your life. So like I said, before we get into those like personal tips and hacks for you know, reducing your stress, I definitely want to go over things you can do in your business now that’ll help prepare for super busy season. Number one, prioritize your calendar. Map out this last stretch of the fourth quarter of the year and mark off your off limit dates. Are you working on the weekend of Thanksgiving? I vote no.

But I’ve done it for years in the past and before and especially to help accommodate for large generation family photoshoots. Trust me, I’ve been there. So don’t feel guilty if you are taking on those photo shoots because your families are begging you to open up that Sunday afternoon or that Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend. Like I get it I’m totally a people person. I’m a people pleaser. But decide if you’re going to do that. Now not in a state of rush or of scarcity or someone trying to guilt trip you into doing it. If that feels aligned with you offer it but please, please, please decide now like before October 1, okay, so you don’t feel rushed. make those decisions. Take the time now to mark off your sacred weekends and leave room for magic. Not just rest days, but fun days for you to plan gift wrapping parties with your sister holiday baking days, but the kids snow trips the cabin or just having an actual day off to catch up with laundry, start putting yourself first babe, make time for friends. The holidays will be here before we know it plan a Tuesday night happy hour with your girls or neighbors do it just to celebrate friendship and catch up and laugh. Once again, I’m sure you’re a lot like me where a lot of times my social events are aligned with my business.

So I’m always thinking all if I go to this event, or you know this friends gathering or go meet this new neighbor, who has a neighborhood a group of girls getting together, I’m sure someone’s looking for a photographer, right, like that’s just always in the back of my mind. So I just want to give you some grace and just remind you that it’s okay to simply have fun, just to have fun. We all need more laughter in our lives. And so you need to be adding these times and these events to your calendar. Now. Don’t let this week don’t let this month or let this season or entire year slip away without you making time for you. Number two, update your HoneyBook or CRM workflows, are you adding new services, finding yourself typing out the same email recently over and over and over again, now was a great time to reset before the chaos of the season. So go through those email templates, those workflows, even those deliverables, so go through your pixie set or your cloud spot or whatever you are using to deliver your images brush up on those on those like delivery emails. We can always use a little fresh, you know add a little call to action.

Get those those families to start following you on social media like what else can we do to you’re kind of worked through workflows, okay, like we just need to kind of add a little pizzazz to the Those, update those number three, prepare for your mini sessions ahead of time. Now I know this podcast can be kind of all over the place and feel like I’m talking to a whole bunch of wedding photographers, creatives, small business owners, entrepreneurs, but a lot of us are photographers. And so I’m slipping this in here because I’m talking to you, babe. Don’t let this season get out of control without getting a grip on some of these like stress causing things during the busy season of mini sessions. Okay, so one thing that I do that I have have been I’ve been having so much fun doing is actually create a video for each location that I’m shooting my mini sessions at. And the video is just a quick little like less than two minute, maybe a minute and 32nd video that kind of pans, the location. So this is a great way, especially for working with auto new clients or you’re out of new location that you haven’t shot up before. I highly, highly encourage you to do this, it literally takes less than 10 minutes to actually show up video, the little the scene of your mini sessions, go home, throw it up on iMovie. You can even do it on your phone, there’s InShot there’s video shot, there’s tons of free apps that you can video edit on your phone, if you have an iPhone, you probably already have it like embedded into your phone through iMovie or something like that. But it’s just a great way for your clients to already have access to what they can expect when they arrive to your mini session. So what I’ll do is I’ll just do a little like, Hey, this is where you park this is where you’re going to find me the bathrooms are located here.

This is what the area looks like it can’t wait to see you Bada bing bada boom. And then I always always include an actual Google address that has the exact.on it. I don’t know about you and you and your hometown. I’m sure a lot of us can relate to this. But if you were to just type in the Sona Park, for example, if I am shooting them here, like in the Bay Area back at home in California, anybody that types in both Sona Park, you’re literally going to get seven different entrances or just different locations, the addresses may be the same, but there’s just so many different parking locations, and it just can lead to so many headaches. So I highly encourage you to make sure it’s super crystal clear in your email communication with your mom’s and all your many session families that they know to click on that link so that on their phone, they’ll have access to the exact data that you have intended for them to either park or to physically meet you for the mini session. So that was a big one.

I’m not done yet. But you know, just trying to get as much prep done ahead of time, by building out your frequently asked question guide, your FAQ guide for photo shoots and weddings. You will be amazed how many new families and engaged couples will organically find you online as soon as you whip up these blog posts and these resources. So get this work done in advance. So you can just copy and paste the answers for couples that are DMing you looking for information? And yes, I know I’m a firm believer and that you need to streamline all of your email. But sometimes it is nice to just answer a quick question through DMS. So have that already canned, you know just ready to go to copy and paste and you will save so much headache. Number four. If you already have an Amazon affiliate account, I suggest making a favorites shopping list for families.

This is a great way to help your clients as well as possibly make a couple few extra bucks if they do purchase your suggestions. So I actually have a list I recently created you can check out my fall family photo outfit inspiration in the show notes to show you what I mean. But this is a great way to once again, create resources and just helpful hints and tips to help your your families and your couples prep. So whether you’re doing that for mini sessions or for your next engagement shoot, having just some type of simple guide is going to really help people feel more confident when they’re walking through target to grab last minute items or maybe just reading their own closets. But having definitely some type of style guide, it’s going to be really helpful. Number five, I give you permission and I know that sounds crazy, but arrive 30 minutes prior to when you would actually show up for your money. So your mini session your photoshoot or that wedding day. And I kind of laugh and say it’s 30 minutes before you would so if you’re already that person that kind of panics or loves to be there super early than arrive an hour earlier.

I’m not even kidding. Because you need that time, babe. It’s totally okay. It’s almost kind of like backwards engineering. Like I know some of you feel this way when you come home, and you’re sitting in the driveway and you’re sipping on your iced coffee and you just need this moment of silence and the warm car before you you walk in that door and you don’t know what’s coming at you between husband and kids family, the dog like everyone just needs you. Right?

I want to encourage you and remind you that it’s okay to also arrive a little bit early. Do your next shoot. I used to do this and it was such a just kind of like a mental break for me and you can use that time whoever you want. I mean, feel free. Obviously I’m not telling you what to do, but I incur Due to journal read or maybe just pick up your phone and scroll on tick tock or scroll Instagram for some eye candy. If you’re anything like me being an introverted extrovert sometimes you just need a little time to chill and to help prepare you to kind of feel like in a really good space mentally and energetically before you go out and give your all to that family shoot that engagement session or to that wedding day. So it’s okay to get there early.

Hey, photographers, as our business grows, we find ourselves on a timeline. We start with photographing families lifestyle portraits, try hosting puppy mini sessions, we capture birthday parties, cake smashes, and some of us dream of photographing luxury celebrity status weddings. But what if that timeline isn’t in a straight line and it feels more like a roller coaster? Did you know that as a photographer, you can offer seasonal photoshoots? Yes, everything in life including our business flourishes during different seasons. This is why I created the greenhouse, a resource garden planted just for you. The greenhouse offers tons of education, digital workshops, guides and templates to help you confidently connect with your dream clients and shine online. Grab the link in the show notes for exclusive access of the greenhouse today. Each season, new products, freebies and education will be sprouting to help your business bloom, click the link in the show notes to gain access to the greenhouse today. Okay, let’s dive into the ways that we can take action in our personal daily lives. Like I said, I already went over ways you can prepare and give yourself some self love for your business. But now that that feels like kind of on lock, or at least you have some action items or some updates you’d like to do.

I’m not telling you to do these things because I want you to feel bad about yourself or I want you to ever feel like I’m adding more tasked you to do like I hope that when you listen to this, I hope you feel so much love. I hope you feel so appreciated and just reminded that you you are truly living out your calling. And so like I said I sometimes I hear self care things and I kind of roll my eyes and I think like, okay, yes, I know I need to do this. But I’m sharing these things, because I’ve done them recently and they truly have felt like breath of fresh air. So I hope these tips help you feel inspired, not even more flustered. Alright, so number one, this is the big sister in me, clean your desk, organize your bedroom closet and tidy up your spaces. Yes, even the veggie drawer in your fridge, your car or the landing zone in your home. Start with just one space at a time. And you’ll instantly feel the clutter in your brain can start to kind of reset and just make you feel so much more organized and kind of like slowly. And I know that sounds kind of silly if you don’t know what I mean. But I know I’m getting downloads and thoughts and ideas all the time and especially in when I’m in my creative space. And when my desk is a mess like when I have piles of crap everywhere. I’m such a Pilar like that’s my thing, you know, papers and mail and books.

And I have tons of I don’t know, if you’re a collector of like, what are those like promo gifts called, or like swag, oh my gosh, I’m a swag collector. Like I just I have these bags and I feel guilty about throwing them away or I have these gifts and I’m just like what to do with this, oh, just sit it on my desk. Once that stuff starts really collecting and just making a mess on my desk. I feel it internally in my brain and I just, I can’t let things flow. So that’s where the let things get a little flowy comes from Okay, let’s take some time to clean because you owe it to yourself for some peace. And some, just like some clean spaces, okay, because in our highest self and our highest powers we are, we are organized as much as we can be. Number two, add exercise to your daily routine. Even if it’s just a 30 minute walk or 10 minute living room workout.

Keep your body moving and your blood flowing. You owe it to yourself, babe, you owe it to yourself, your body, your mind, your soul. Everything about you needs to move. And when you shake things up, like when you physically rattle the universe and I’m talking about just dancing you didn’t you just listen to a couple of songs while your coffee is brewing and just start dancing in the kitchen with your baby daughter or with your puppy like whoever is near you. Even if it’s by yourself, just dance. Just wiggle your body get your blood flowing. That’s when you’re going to find so much clarity and you’re going to feel like you actually have the energy to get your work done and to feel less stressed. And like I said, I used to always be that person that was like rolling my eyes. Like okay, yes, I need to exercise. Yes, I need to do this. But it has nothing to do with the way you look babe. It has everything to do with how you feel inside. So mark up your calendars and make sure that you’re moving your body. Number three, try adding affirmation cards journaling and meditation to your day. Mom and I have been pulling cards almost every morning. For years, and it’s been so fun, I love setting intentions for the day and feeling inspired with an action list.

I have a handful of favorites for our morning routine and my Amazon favorite shop. So don’t forget to check that out too. But yeah, it’s just a great way to spark some really genuine conversation and kind of do like a self check in for yourself, in your business and your family and just your lifestyle. I’m a firm believer that you are a product of what you read what you see and like, truly what like you allow into your life. So pulling these affirmation cards and writing down affirmations alone, it has completely impacted my life. And so I want that for you, too. Like I said, like, I’m not telling you these things like to go out and run out and do them, like only do them if you feel aligned. But you should totally grab a deck and start pulling them and chatting about them calling your girlfriend’s and pulling a card for them. It’s fun, sometimes I’m gonna do this with my brother, like, he’ll be like, I need to pull a card or you know, we’ll be on the phone with him. We’ll pull one from him. It’s just, it’s just so fun. So definitely add that to your daily life too.

Number four, clean up your friends list. Okay, what I mean by this is take some time to evaluate your energy after you spend time with friends. Do you leave a friend’s house feeling depleted? Like all they wanted to hear was gossip and drama? Do you feel inspired with a full cup like a full cup filling your soul while sipping a cup of coffee with a co worker.

Take note of how you feel after spending time with people and plan your next visit accordingly. I know we can’t always pick our family. But even now we can create boundaries that help us stay sane and happy. As Natalie Frank states, if it costs me my mental health, it’s not worth it. So take that with a grain of salt. Like I said, like, I feel like some of us, you know, we’ve just we’ve had the same friends for a long time. And I’m not saying like well ditch your friends. Like that’s not what I’m saying at all. But just kind of regulate how often you’re spending time with these people that really don’t light you up, or that make you feel like magic or the sunshine or just make you feel so loved and accepted for who you are, but also challenge you to to learn and to kind of have those hard conversations. So clean up your friends. And that’s not just your friends in real life, but also on social media.

If you are constantly being triggered by people, I know that there are some features now where you don’t actually have to unfriend somebody you can technically unfollow them and they don’t even know. So that’s a great way for you to not even see the crap that they’re posting or you know, to feel a certain way. And it could even be like toxic positivity. Like you just see some girl and you’re like, how is she is she living on credit cards like or her parents paying for all these things. Like, if that just creates some type of jealousy.

I am all for like, you don’t have to see it. Okay, so protect yourself at all cost. Number five, invest in your education. This is one of my favorite self help means. But check out some of your favorite industry leaders and invest in their workshops, courses and programs, research upcoming conferences and educational opportunities in your industry. Investing isn’t always about money. Okay, so I challenge you to invest your time into listening to podcast to learn and enrich your mind. But podcasts are also great for simple entertainment. I know so many my friends that love true crime, podcast, pop culture stuff, and there’s even some fun racy ones about sex and relationships. Like there’s literally a podcast for anything.

So take some time, do some research and just find stuff that makes you happy. I love that good balance of learning, but also having fun, pick up a book to read or attend the University of YouTube. Keep up that balance and you know, like just kind of juggle that like relaxing and learning and so you feel productive, like you actually are soaking up things. But don’t forget to laugh. Don’t forget to watch crap TV just because it’s fun. And it’s just a great way for you to veg out, okay, you owe it to yourself to love yourself unconditionally, exactly the way you are, while still loving yourself enough to improve just a little bit every day. At the end of the day, we must calibrate our heart, mind and soul.

And remember why we got into business in the first place. Yes, there’s this joke that full time photographers left their nine to five to work 24/7 But after a couple of years of grinding, hustling and working their butts off, it’s time to work smarter. Fill your cup before you start pouring into others. Marie Kondo the crap out of your daily life, not just your closet, if something sparks joy even as small as bringing home a $10 plant, do it. If you find joy in bringing the candle in the kitchen while you make pull apart chocolate chip cookies, do it. If taking a nap feels aligned. Tell your person that Quianna said go take a nap. Honor your body and wellness so that others know how to treat you as well. Looking forward to sharing more about this during our busy season so we can all Feel a breath of fresh air together and not only survive, but thrive during this busy season, sending you love and light from Arizona Bay. Keep on dancin. Love you. That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie weekly. Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancin.