women are crazy competitive. not in the same way that men are. women are quietly competitive. we don’t broadcast that we’re actively competing either, we like to slip in there with our success and just blow people’s socks off! why are we like that?? because we’re afraid of failure. some women are so afraid of failure that they don’t celebrate the successes of other women. but guess what i’ve learned in the past few years of owning a business…

her success is not my failure. 

photography is a competitive field. it is also subjective. there will always be people in the photography industry that prefer a more basic, muted color palette with basic composition. there will also be those outliers that love an image that the photographer merged 75 photos together and photoshopped for 6 weeks. creative fields will always be like that! there is something for everyone. but just because someone else is doing great in one area of their field, doesn’t mean that you aren’t completely killing it in yours 🙂

when i started my photography business, i was targeted…in a sneaky and very hurtful way. it damaged a relationship that can never be repaired. did i forgive that person? yes. am i going to forget how they treated me? no. i won’t. the damage is done. it’s happened more than once with this person, and it will probably happen again. but guess what? my success doesn’t mean her failure…and her success is not my failure.

being a #mompreneur {yes, there’s a hashtag!!!} can be so lonely! in the early stages of my business i was home alone, doing laundry, feeding a baby, scheduling clients, editing portraits, building albums, creating blog content and trying to figure out what to cook for dinner! as soon as my husband would walk through the door i would talk his ear off for about 45 minutes straight before asking how his day went. i craved interaction throughout the day. i have to hand it to him…he put up with a lot in the early stages of my business!!! bless him. but he was always there pushing me to keep doing what i loved.

i started connecting with other entrepreneur women who were also stay at home moms, just trying to stay afloat! i cannot tell you the number of times people have said, “you just seem to have it all together!”…i always refrain from spewing my coffee in their face after holding in my laughter! my typical response… “i’m like a duck on the water. on the surface everything is cool and calm but underneath, my little legs are working so fast!!!”. i love that i have fooled everyone into thinking that i’m cool as a cucumber and can “keep it together” on a daily basis, because i’m just trying to remember to put normal clothes on everyday and not become that mom that gets too busy to enjoy her kid’s childhood.

once i started making these connections with other women in my field i started to see that i could celebrate their successes as well as my own! in the early days, when i accomplished something…i felt the need to call my mother and celebrate and then not tell anyone else. i didn’t want to seem like i was bragging…but guess what!? i AM bragging. i’ve worked so hard to get where i am. i didn’t wake up one day and decide that i wanted to be a photographer and that i wanted to get published and conquer the world {still working on this one…}. it took years of hard work, education {online and self taught!}, training, trial and error and TONS of  tears. but i know that i am not the only one fighting this fight. there are other women out there, struggling with the same things i am and accomplishing the same things that i am…and her success in not my failure.