It felt weird writing 31/31, and timely, too. As I reflected on this past month, there were so many sentiments I wanted to talk about. My personal growth, which was tremendous. The amount I learned about my craft. The amount of new skills I acquired. The amount of spider webs I walked into, and so on.

What stood out most, though, was the word commitment. I kept coming back to it. Sure, the commitment is obvious: I committed to 31 days of content. A photo, video and blog every day. That’s 93 pieces of content in one month. It is a commitment in every sense of the word. But the word commitment feels hollow if I don’t pair it with community.

I am part of this community, and you are, too. Every day I woke up with a desire to share my life, my unfolding story, with anyone who wanted to listen. Because, at the end of the day, I am not creating solely for myself. I am creating to unleash my imagination, to understand myself more deeply, but also, and equally important to me, is that I am creating for those who feel they cannot. I am creating for those who need to feel connected, who need to feel those two most beautiful words rising in their throat:

Me too.

Thank you for your support this month. This image is a representation of how I have felt – held up by hands stronger than my own. I owe you.

—

Today is the last day to sign up for the 15 Day Content Creation Challenge. We begin tomorrow! This is a creativity challenge for any type of artist. You will receive a 52-page e-book, content creation chart, daily challenges and emails, and a supportive Facebook group. And, there is no set cost. You pay only what you can. And 40% goes to charity, so win-win! Registration closes at 5:00pm PST, and emails begin at 5:00am PST on August 1st!

I tend to be a very decisive person. I make decisions quickly and easily and I commit to them 100%. My closest friends, save for my husband, are just the opposite. It works out quite well, because they let me make decisions that we are all comfortable with. Trust me, there’s give and take. But by having those friends it has made me wonder what separates someone who has full confidence from someone who doesn’t.

I asked 5 friends to tell me if they trust themselves, and 4 of those people said that they trust other people more than themselves. I am that 1 in 5. I trust myself completely. I trust others very little. This might have something to do with confidence.

But in the end, it comes down to this simple notion. I believe that what I want will happen.

Some people see roadblocks as walls that can never be torn down. But I must ask, what in this world is permanent? What walls have we ever come across that we couldn’t get through, over, around, or take down completely? Nothing is permanent, not our successes, not our failures, not our confidence or insecurities. So why do we fiercely hold on to the idea that failure is imminent and success is not achievable?

Simple. It feels better than getting your hopes up and having them dashed.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m delusional. I say this because, no matter how far-fetched of an idea I have, I believe it will come true with such ferocity that I believe it has already happened. It’s just that time is a funny thing and I have yet to see it through.

The journey must come first,
but that doesn’t make the destination any less real.

How can we begin to talk ourselves out of giving up before we begin?

1. Remember that nothing is permanent. We are all in a state of flux and will continue to be until we die. People, places, experiences will come into our lives and leave them. Each of those things will teach us a lesson. Let them. Let them come. And know that if you want something, you must let it come when it will come.
2. Remember that timelines are arbitrary. Just because you feel, based on your comparison to those around you, that you should achieve something by a certain time doesn’t mean that you will. And if you don’t, that doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. Work harder and work longer. Let yourself fail a thousand times if you must before your desired outcome shows itself. The risk is worth it.
3. Believe that what you want has already happened. Decide on something you want to go for. Now visualize yourself in the midst of your success.
4. Believe in magic, but not as a replacement for hard work. Once you know your dream, work backwards from there. Figure out the layers that go into making the dream come true. Think of it like a cake. You see this amazing cake in a store window and you want to make one of your own. You can visualize what it looks like. You can even smell the raspberry filling. But simply envisioning it doesn’t make it real. You have to think about the ingredients that go into that cake – where will you get them, how fresh will they be, what colors will you use, what tools will best serve you? And only then, once your plan is in place, can you begin to build your dream.
5. Few people actually know what they are doing. If I have learned anything as a photographer, writer and speaker, it is that the people who are doing the most amazing things don’t have a roadmap. They have a lot of confidence, a great idea, and the willpower to see it through. Most don’t have a million followers, “industry connections” or a ton of money. Never make the mistake of thinking that you are alone in being lost. We are all lost. It’s just that some people thrive off of it.

Next time you find yourself down and out because you are convinced that you won’t be the next Oprah, settle. Remember to stop anticipating your final discovery. Remember to trust yourself. Believe. Dream. And build the foundation on which you can rise to meet your expectations.

In all of this craziness, with the year coming to a close and inspiration running deep in my veins, I decided I could use some simplicity this week for my Promoting Passion video. I recorded my screen while editing my latest picture, though it froze a quarter of the way through so I finished the video by including screen grabs of the editing process thereafter. Sometimes all I need to feel the calm is some inspiring music and the reminder that life moves at the pace we set, and we always have the option to change it. But right now, I’m going to enjoy each minute and taking home a lesson from every journey.

…take a moment to savor the beauty in your life.

Create something unexpected. Do something to remind yourself how amazing the world is. Take a walk. Make a piece of art. Give someone a hug. And above all, create your dreams.

“He did each thing as if he did nothing else.”

We live in a world built on pressures; the pressure to be successful, the pressure to be happy, the pressure to be someone great. We are taught, not necessarily by our parents but certainly by other influences, that we both need to reach higher yet stay in our place. We are taught to get a stable job and work for the promotion. We are taught to seek someone wonderful to marry so that we may find stability. We are taught that we should have dreams, yet work for the good of the team. And indeed, each of these things can be individually rewarding. Yet the lessons we are taught by those who influence us, especially as we grow, are very often contradictory.

Instead of being taught to dream big and do what we need to do to achieve that dream, we are taught to dream realistically. Instead of being told that we can be great, we are told to try and be great while staying inside the confines of what is socially acceptable. Each of these paradigms is what ultimately holds so many people back from doing what they love or defining happiness for themselves.

Part of the problem is how widespread we are as individuals. We do what we think we need to do to serve others, and in doing so, very often, forget to serve ourselves. We please our parents and we please our friends and we take care of children and we help our boss, yet behind all of that is a sense of self. We are taught that we must please those higher up than ourselves, that we must obey our parents, that we must, must, must. And behind all of those “musts” is what we need to nourish our souls.

“He did each thing as if he did nothing else.” I think this quote is so powerful for two reasons. One is of presence. To be present is to perform each task as if it were the only one; to get rid of distractions and embrace a life in the now. The other reason why I love the words so much is what it implies about the man himself. In order to do each thing at such a level, one must place value on the self so as to see value in doing anything at all.

I do not believe that this quote indicates he did everything better than other people, but instead that he placed value in each thing that he did and was engaged enough to focus his energy into them. So much of our problem today lies in two places: distractions and self-doubt. We doubt ourselves because we are told to, whether directly or unintentionally. Take going to school for art. If you are someone who has done this, it is very likely someone along the way told you how impractical that would be. In my case it was deciding to be a photographer. I had no training and no idea of how to run a business, but my heart was set on it. And as a result opinions came out of the woodwork, and I was told of how practical I needed to be.

“People don’t make money selling art. You need a backup plan.”

These words are commonly spoken and meant to be caring most of the time. Yet at the same time, they inadvertently tell the person to whom they are spoken that they are not good enough, will not succeed, and should not try. With messages like this floating around everywhere, self-doubt is a disease that plagues many, and understandably so.

What if we could channel some of that Charles Dickens magic and create a world for ourselves where we did each thing as if we did nothing else? What if we made decisions that could change our lives, and do change our lives, and we lived them as though nothing else mattered? To be present, to get rid of distractions, to believe you are worthy of pursuing such goals…that is the ultimate in finding your voice and finding a story for your life.

How can we get rid of the doubt and the anxiety and the distractions? Two simple ideas: The first is that few people care about you as much as you care about yourself, and the people who might care more are the people who will try to keep you safe. You need to take risks. You need to do something scary. And those who love us most will often hold us back, in the kindest way possible and for the very best reasons. Yet we need not listen. We must move forward. The second thing to realize is that you are the only one making decisions in your life. If we place the blame on other people for offering their opinions, we are living life in the shadow of someone else. A journey in the shadow of another is a very dark road.

Every single person has an incredible, unique story and vision. That story needs to be told, and that vision expressed, and to do so is to empower others to do the same. Dream big and dream often. Find your voice and share it. Tell the story of your life through your own words. And next time you take a leap and do something important, do it as if you did nothing else. Do it wholly, with confidence and pride, and do it with love…for yourself, as much as others.

**Image by my friend Seth Cashman, who is as kind and true as he is talented.**

When an artist skips the question of WHY, it becomes difficult to answer any of the other questions. For at the heart of our journey is why we are walking, and when one no longer knows why they are walking, they tend to stop. Such is the reality of creating art. We walk and walk and walk, fueled on by passion and in turn, inspire ourselves. But when we forget why we create in the first place, the rest falls apart, too.

I recently took a journey through my portfolio, from day one until now. I like to do this a few times a year to keep myself on track, show myself the progress I’ve made, and equally to show myself how far I still have to go (eternity). While I was going through my works I remembered, suddenly and happily, why I create. It isn’t to hear other people’s reactions. It isn’t to hear a shutter click or to have fun frolicking in the woods. Those also come after the real reason why I create.

I create to find beauty in darkness, to shed light on the life of death; to pursue my own vision of the world and project that, as strange as it may be. I am in love with creating because I am in love with my imagination. I care so little about cameras and lights and technology, but I care infinitely for my ability to astound myself.

We all have the opportunity to be amazed by what we do. It doesn’t have to be the finished product that we love, or even the process of doing it. For me, it is the simplicity of being able to create. It is knowing that I have the power to express myself, change myself, and grow. It is knowing I have the power to, possibly, do the same for someone else. I have a voice and a message and a way of relaying that message to the world.

My art is an extension of myself, a third hand that serves my thoughts and dreams to the world. It is dark and I happily use the word creepy, yet it can also be whimsical and sad and surreal. These words do not define the process, simply the end result. What we are is more than what everyone sees when the process is complete.

We are amazingly powerful.

Do not allow yourself to be defined by where you are now, but instead by where you are going.

The journey is dark, yet when a shining light brightens a dark room it seems more powerful than the same light added to a bright room.

Any light, no matter how dim, will guide you through the darkness.

When you realize that light must come from within, not from those who may walk beside you, you are infinitely powerful.

We possess the strength to move forward, try harder, dream bigger, and do the things we wish for.

You might feel like you’ll never figure out your style…

…or feel feel inferior if you use your bathroom light because you can’t figure out how to turn on the fancy one…

…or you may give up on lighting completely and take a chance on the midday sun…

…you might create your first big print and only then realize all of the editing mistakes you made…

…or you might get a deal to have your artwork on a book cover, only to realize you lost that file ages ago…

…You might be really proud of an image one day, and then look back and cringe years later…

…You might look back at your work and think you were drowning…

…but that would be the biggest lie of all. You were jumping higher than you thought…

…you weren’t watching time pass, you were living it…

…and when you look back at your journey there are no mistakes to be found, only lessons…

…no failure, only success at living your dream…

…and yes, there were growing pains…

…times when you felt vulnerable, naked, and exposed…

…and times when you needed to protect yourself from the harshness of the world…

…yet dreams are always worth carrying, no matter how heavy they seem…

…You are more powerful than you know…

…and can fly higher than you ever imagined…

…and in the end it won’t matter if you were the most talented, but instead the most fulfilled…

…for you are on a journey that only you can experience…

…and every moment of it, the ugly and the beautiful, is perfection.

The biggest mistake there is to make is to believe the lie that you are not good enough to seek happiness, fulfillment and bliss.

Make your journey one for the storybooks. Live it.

But then I got older, and I thought a lot more about what it means to truly be a leader. It doesn’t mean that you have people following your every move, or that you speak in front of big groups of people, or that you make epic speeches like in the movies. It is a solidarity with oneself, a resolve to do what makes your heart sing, and the confidence to move forward without following someone’s footsteps.

We are all leaders and we are all followers. What matters most is not whether you are predominantly one or the other, but if you are leading yourself. The rest will follow.

How often, in your own life, do you choose the road less traveled? How often do you give yourself permission to go where no one has gone before, or to do something out of your comfort zone. It is easier to follow because it is safe. We find security in knowing that someone else has been through what we will go through. Yet someone had to be first. Everything starts with something. Don’t live your life with someone else’s decisions.

Take hold of what is dear to you. Lead yourself through the unknown and trust in your instincts. Know that you have the power to pull yourself up should you fall, the ingenuity to break new ground, and the love of self to know it is worth it. The greatest things in this world are achieved through personal exploration. Do what you love because you love it. Don’t search the internet for an instruction manual. If you should fall, you will get back up. Falling is not failing, it is a lesson learned on the way to success.

Move bravely on your journey, and you may soon find others following in your footsteps.

There comes a time for everyone to feel as though they lost the path they once walked and instead are falling into an endless abyss. There are times when we suffer and we feel so greatly we think we might collapse from the weight of it. There is not way to categorize suffering or happiness or darkness or light. There is only our personal experience, our personal triumphs, and how we see the world once the feeling has passed. We are all different, and the weight of our experiences grows or lessens with us.

Whenever you are feeling like the world is too heavy, or that the path you walk is getting harder to see, know this:

The world did not create a path for you to walk softly; you create your own path to walk passionately.

No one has given you heartache or happiness; you respond to those feelings and your response defines you.

It is not the job of another person to provide for you; it is your job to fulfill yourself, and in doing so, to fulfill others. 

There are endless amount of criticism; your job is to provide goodness.

Others will try to bring you down; it is your job to lift them up.

The world will send enemies to challenge you; remember that mutual hatred requires reciprocation. 

The darkness in your heart can feel eternal; you must believe that nothing lasts forever.

The world can seem like a dark place; give it a piece of your heart as often as you can so that your presence may light it.

—

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