Goodbye 2012, Hello New Year!

Saying good bye to one year and hello to the next is both exciting and refreshing, but also somewhat intimidating.  I love starting new.. I welcome change and get excited for the potential to come!  But I'm a dreamer.. which means it can sometimes become overwhelming when I want do it all!  Can anyone relate to that??   But I do love looking back.. and making changes for the good, challenging myself and stretching myself to keep moving forward!  As I was thinking about all of this, I decided to reflect on things I liked or am proud of about the past year, things I want to continue to do this next year.. and lastly, things I want to change or new goals for the new year.  So here goes..

I really liked the balance I maintained this year.  It was the first year that I tackled a full blown wedding season, kept up my photography business, while staying home with two young boys.  Whew, that's an accomplishment, right?!  I think I did really well with not mixing both worlds and protecting my time with my boys.. while also not forgetting about this little business of mine.  I love my time away, time for photo shoots and for weddings, and I LOVE meeting with brides about their wedding.  I also love my kids to death, so I want to protect both those worlds. Yay for me!  

I also LOVED my clients this year.. I am getting some awesome clients that I love working with, some that are new and a ton that keep coming back!  That's a huge success!  I am able to stay true to who I am as an artist and people seem to appreciate my work!  That's huge.. I'm SO grateful for that!

This is a little thing, but I love the computer set up I have going on.. I got pretty organized this year, technology wise.. and I love it!  It's a great set up, I have a great office, and I love working!  I also LOVE my website.  My awesome husband made it for me a few months and it's so perfect.  It works really well with what I do and I couldn't be happier!

Let's see.. things I want to keep going next year.  I want to keep the balance with the mom-world and the photographer-world.  I want to continue to blog often about the weddings and photo shoots.. and this may sound weird, but continue to have great meeting with brides.  Like I said, that's one of my favorite aspects of the job and I want to keep those priority!

And the exciting/scary part.. my new goals for next year!  I have been thinking about this is a ton lately.  I have some vague, lofty goals and some more specific, detailed goals that have been floating around in my head.  I think I'll start with the more vague goals and go from there.. sound good? :)   This is what I've got... I want to be more connected in the photography world.  There's really no excuse, but 6 years ago when I started this business, it went too fast to keep my head on straight (which is awesome!), then I started having babies (which is also awesome!) and I found myself stuck in this little Kristen world of mine.   I am really proud of my business and what I've made it, but I want to connect more.. with other photographers, other vendors, and obviously other clients.  :)  I want to support other vendors, keep my skills tight and challenged with other photographers and get to know tons of new people!  I'm so excited about that!

I also want to sharpen up my branding.. that does sound awfully vague, but I have ideas floating in my head.  I like my brand (oh that's another thing I'm proud of!) but there's a few things I want to work on... brochure, advertisement type stuff.  Stayed tuned for that!  See, this is good accountability!  

Little stuff.. just so I have it down and can check later on.. I want another camera body (woo!), I want to give more gifts to my clients, I want to give more of my photography money to a charity or mission (hmm, that's not really considered a little thing!).. oh and I also want to start an Etsy shop for some of the design work people have requested!

I'm so excited!  It's going to be a great year.  I do want to maintain a lot that I have been doing, but I definitely have some projects on my list that will keep me pretty busy!  And this is just photography world!  I have my own little personal goals that I kinda love too :)   oh no, I can feel myself getting a little stressed!  It's only January 1st.. we have some time, right?!

THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone that has made this an incredible year!!  Cheers to a new, fresh start!

Kristen