It’s been well over a month since I’ve made a post!! If you were following along you know that I was working on a challenge to complete 100 photoshoots in 30 days!! 

Well if you didn’t hear…. 

I DID IT! 

My final tally was 104 photoshoots in 30 days! And if I’m gonna get real specific .. it was actually in like 22 days because I had some scheduled days off.

Major pats on my back from me to me for this one because I wasn’t sure it was even possible! And thanks to each and every person who signed up and shared and cheered me on!! 

REAL TALK…

I promised at the beginning of this whole thing that I was going to keep up with the behind the scenes on TIKTOK about how I was feeling and just document the whole journey. Well.. that lasted about three days in because this challenge was the biggest undertaking I’ve ever committed to.

But I did keep notes and I do want to share how taking on that volume of work affected me personally and professionally.

THE UPS

I genuinely had so much fun planning out each theme for this challenge! Set design and making each one fun and unique got me so excited and definitely kept my energy up.

Being behind the camera- of course- I mean, this is my jam. Was I tired after getting into the thick of it? YES, but a funny thing happened… every time I picked up my camera to shoot- I did not feel a thing aside from the connection with the person in front of me. I think this is a super power tbh.

THE DOWNS

This was truly an experiment at the heart of it all.

• Could I do it?
• Would I burn out?
• What parts of my personal life would take a back seat?
• Would I still feel creative?
• Would I enjoy it?

We’ve established that yes– it was entirely possible!

Did I burn out? I think I did, BUT not how I was expecting. I thought I might get sick of shooting or the introvert in me might take over and just shut down when it came to interacting with my clients. Those things didn’t happen.
It was the admin side is what really had me on the edge at times. I took time before the challenge even begun to have a seamless as possible booking system so I could be hands off as much as possible on that end.

The way my CRM works is that I still have to manually send out my booking form and collect payment, so, I set it up where people could select their theme and their time and I would then send out the ‘paperwork’ and they’d have 24 hours to confirm it.

The thing is .. this system doesn’t have a way to automatically delete if those contracts don’t come back on time. I spent soooo much time following up with those that booked a time but then didn’t want to move forward .. and also didn’t tell me that they couldn’t go ahead.

This one was a major 👎🏼 because I lost so much time double checking in and having spots taken in the schedule that weren’t open for someone who really wanted it. It also made it reallly hard to know where my numbers were going to end up in relation to meeting my goal of 100!

The other admin side that kinda wore me down was fielding questions. I absolutely have no problem answering my clients questions as they come up. I knew that with this challenge their would likely be a lot!

So all my emails had allll the information that my clients would need leading up to their shoot with a note that exact location would be auto emailed out the morning of their shoot. This was helpful 99% of the time.

I learned through this challenge that most people don’t actually read their emails anymore – they skim. So when I have about 200ish people emailing, texting, dm-ing and finding my personal fb messenger to ask questions that were answered in their info … I really felt the overwhelm. This is where I could feel burn out for sure.

What parts of my personal life would take a back seat? When I wasn’t shooting, doing admin or editing — I was dead tired. My dog got out for her walks but that was it. I definitely wasn’t dating, I didn’t get to the gym for a single workout (I usually go daily) and I started ordering in instead of cooking.

Would I still feel creative? Funny enough.. I actually felt more creative. As the month went on, I had a list of ideas to run as long as my arm! The more fun and creative shoots I got in the more it inspired me for other ideas. I now have a bucket-list-bin where I will release ideas for people to snag once a month or once a quarter!

Would I enjoy it? Overall — absolutely yes! And the month flew by!! I’m excited to keep sharing images from this challenge and I learned so so much! I learned exactly how much work is my capacity to have the work-life balance that I desire. And I learned exactly what shoots set my soul on fire and with that — I’m going to do more of those!