Once I real­ized that I wanted to make  a career shift, one of the most sig­nif­i­cant issues I’ve encoun­tered is bal­anc­ing romance with real­ity. By that, I mean that I’ve been guilty of roman­ti­ciz­ing the idea of life as a pho­tog­ra­pher. While I rec­og­nize that life for most artists is far more hard work and strug­gle than it is glam­our, I couldn’t help but be swept into a num­ber of pri­vate moments where I envi­sioned my images in gal­leries, mag­a­zines, books and adorn­ing walls in people’s homes.  I come tum­bling back to real­ity when I return my focus to my “day job,” fam­ily, and mak­ing sure that my finan­cial oblig­a­tions are met.

I’ve been work­ing with a coach at work, and he, within three coach­ing ses­sions, pin-pointed that one of my biggest chal­lenges is that I get into my head—deep into my head — with ideas. There’s noth­ing wrong with deep thoughts, but at some point you need to move from thoughts to action. I think, to date, being in my head with thoughts about becom­ing a full-time pho­tog­ra­pher has been com­fort­able because it allowed me to roman­ti­cize the career with­out break­ing the req­ui­site sweat. It afforded me the lux­ury of cre­at­ing a pseudo-reality of what my life would, or could, be like as an artist instead of an attor­ney. The real­ity, I know, is that any entre­pre­neur­ial endeavor – par­tic­u­larly an artis­tic one – will take con­sid­er­able effort, com­mit­ment, hus­tle and endurance. I look at Carla with envy as she pur­sues her pas­sion; all the while see­ing just how much time, energy and grit it takes to even stay afloat, let alone thrive

A per­son can read all the books in the world about how to do some­thing. It is only when you put  down the books and get your hands dirty that you find out just what it takes oper­ate. Even then, it may take a num­ber of stum­bles, or even face plants, before things make sense and water finds its level. I imag­ine that it is dur­ing this try­ing time that your romance – your true love — for that “thing” has to carry you through. It’s allow­ing the flame of your romance to be tem­pered by real­ity; not extinguished.

I have so much to learn, and am thank­ful for the out­pour­ing of sup­port and advice from my fam­ily, pho­tog­ra­phers, edi­tors, friends and even strangers. One thing my coach asked me to do was artic­u­late my vision and com­mit it to paper so that I can bet­ter iden­tify, align, and adjust my pri­or­i­ties. I was look­ing through videos by my friend Gary Vayn­er­chuk, and came across a piece that really spoke to me, and tossed a dart straight into the bull’s eye of the type of focus and per­spec­tive I need to main­tain as I pur­sue my goal.