You are in the middle of your busy season, so I’m keeping this short and sweet. Today’s episode is a little piece of encouragement for you to finish the year well. Consider this your reminder that rest is productive, even in your busy season.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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Review the Show Notes:
Hear this (1:02)
Rest is productive (1:18)
I want you to stop (3:37)
Make necessary rest happen (4:40)
Hear my encouragement (8:17)
Episode Links:
The Aligned Photographer Course
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business, motherhood and life myself along with my guests will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight. Welcome back to the shoot straight podcast. My friends, I know that most of you listening are photographers and therefore in the middle of your busy season. So I want to keep today’s episode short and sweet. Consider this a little piece of encouragement for you as you’re on your way to your next session or in the middle of editing some galleries. My friend, are you listening? I want you to hear this. Rest is productive. One more time. Rest is productive. And yes, I do mean, even in the middle of a busy season. All right. Let me dig into that really quick for you. We are nearing the end of the year, nearing the end of fall busy season, nearing the end of what is for many of you your busiest time of year. With that you might see it like the end of a finish line. It’s fast approaching and you may be tempted to sprint to the end. But I want to caution you a little with that thought. If you don’t have enough in you to keep going to the very end, you may very well collapse before you actually cross the finish line. Let me give you an example of this. Have you ever seen footage on TV or social media of marathon runners who literally collapse in the last quarter mile of the race, their bodies are torn up and stretched beyond their capacity. They are so close and yet they just can’t make it. Other runners or race attendees have to help these athletes up and help them hobbled to the finish line just so that they can complete the race. The same thing can happen to you. Of course, marathon runners don’t stop and rest during a race but they do fuel themselves during the race. They have intentional supplements and rations to fuel their bodies at timed increments to help ensure that they have the energy and the stamina needed to finish. In addition to intentional fuel during the race, distance runners are extremely intentional about how they train and how they fuel and how they rest prior to starting the race. Did you know that marathoners don’t do any long runs for the two weeks prior to a big race. They typically do their last long run two to three weeks before the race. And then the weeks leading up to the race they do relatively easy and short runs. This is intentional, it helps their muscles and body rest a little bit to prepare for the big day so that they have the stamina they need to complete the race well. Running through busy season is often a similar experience. Except most photographers don’t take an intentional break before it starts. Most photographers just keep their normal pace and then dive straight into busy season unrested and unprepared. So here’s where I would love to encourage you a bit. Of course, it’s too late for you to go back in time and schedule in a slower season or even time off before your busy season begins. Maybe make a note to do this on your calendar for next year. I promise it would serve you well. Rather today. I want to encourage you to stop and take a break. Yes. Even if it’s unplanned. Yes, even if you are swamped. Yes, even if you still have what seems like a long way to go. And yes, even if it means pushing some personal things aside to make time for this. That is how important this is for you right now. That is how important this is for you finishing your busy season well, before you panic and think I’m telling you that you need to take a road trip or a big weekend away. That’s not what I mean. Of course, if you have the time for that more power to you, and absolutely I am in support of that idea. But for the majority of you listening, your calendars are probably stretched super thin. So what could this look like in real time? There are a lot of ways that you can make this unnecessary rest happen. Take a full day off of work, no sessions, no editing and no computer time. Allow yourself the bliss of catching up on laundry, running a couple of errands and getting a nap before school pick up something that’s simple, allowing yourself to walk away from client’s for 24 hours can be huge for your mental game. If you don’t have time for that, maybe you commit to not editing in the evening for three days in a row. Instead, you will watch a movie with your partner or read that book that has been neglected or simply go to bed early and catch up on sleep. If that doesn’t feel feasible, your rest could look like taking two to three days and the next week and carving out some really intentional self care, book a massage, book a pedicure, and then go see your chiropractor. Allow yourself to push other things aside and put yourself first doing this several times over multiple days, but within the same week will feel really luxurious during a busy season and have you feeling so much better by the end of the week. Another idea would be to ask your spouse or partner to give you a morning off, whether it’s a school day or weekend, ask them to do all the things and all of the kid things so that you can really sleep in until like nine or 10. I know doesn’t that sound absolutely divine. They are certainly capable of packing lunches making breakfast and dropping kids off at school or daycare so that you can stay in bed and have a slow morning. Yet another way you could build unrest right now is to add whitespace to your calendar every week from now until the end of busy season that looks like three to four hours of nothingness carved into your schedule on a weekly basis. You can use that time to read nap, watch TV, walk, exercise, literally anything that fills your cup as long as it’s not work related. There are so many ways that you can achieve this rest right now. But what I hope that you hear me say is that it is intentional. I want you to stop what you’re doing. Get out your calendar and make time for this. And here’s the kicker. I doubt that in the middle of busy season you have chunks of time just lying around. Your calendar is probably overflowing. Friend, if you have a brand new photography business for maybe you’ve been in business for a few years, but you aren’t thriving. I think I can help. Let me introduce you to my new course the aligned photographer. In this self study course, you will learn practical and tangible ways to lead with your heart so you can focus on capturing your magic. In these seven modules. You’ll learn things like pricing for profit, marketing, setting goals, creating a sustainable schedule, email marketing, building boundaries, and more. Plus, there are three incredible bonuses built in to really take things to the next level. Lessons are a mixture of video lessons, audio trainings, and printable worksheets. Plus, every module has a resources page full of free things to help you take the topic even deeper. The best part in my opinion, are the live monthly q&a calls where you show up and get all of your business questions answered by me. So if you find yourself in a photography business that is burning you out, that isn’t making you a paycheck that is uninspiring and just not everything you had hoped for, then definitely check out this course. And as a special bonus just for my podcast listeners use code podcast at checkout to save 10%. And now back to the episode. That means this exercise of intentionally carving time out will not be easy, you will more than likely have to rearrange things to make it happen. And that’s where I want you to hear my encouragement in your head. When you’re canceling plans or rescheduling appointments or moving things around. And it feels too hard or complicated to make time for yourself to rest. I want you to push through and do it anyways. Rest in the midst of a busy season is absolutely crucial to you finishing your race. It is crucial to your health and well being it is crucial to your relationships. It is crucial to the future success of your business. And here’s the thing, it is also crucial to your productivity, you will come back from a period of rest and be faster and more efficient. You will call faster, your editing will feel easier and more cohesive. You will have more creativity at your sessions and you will be able to hold on to your boundaries better when someone lands in your inbox trying to squeeze in a session when you are already overbooked. finding the time to rest amidst a busy season is hard. But it is always a worthwhile cause. You should always prioritize it and make it work. I don’t want you to collapse before the end of your busy season. I don’t want you to even be crawling to the finish line. I want you to stride confidently to the end and not land in a puddle of burnout at the end of this year. And taking time to rest is how that happens. That’s it today, my friends. If this episode was encouraging to you if you feel like it would be an encouragement to others. 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I love to chat with my listeners in the DMS. So make sure you tag me so I can say hi. All right friends. We’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina gebhardt.com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight
