2020 has been a hot, smoldering dumpster fire, and we all know it. Between a pandemic, racial tensions, violence, protests, and a contentious election, 2020 has been the ugliest year of my life in terms of news and current events. This world has me exhausted, and it’s wearing on my creative abilities. It’s harder to create good work. How glad are we that this hellish year is behind us? There’s no guarantee that 2021 is going to be any better, but 2020 was bad enough where I am ready for New Years.

2020 OVERVIEW
I’m sitting here asking myself how badly I want to revisit 2020, but I’m committed to being authentic and real, and fulfilling the purpose of this post regardless of how much of a hot circle of trash this year was. This year taught me how to adapt, and keep pushing through regardless of everything happening. I think this year showed me that even in the midst of a difficult year for small business, I was still able to put my community first. Not that I did a great service for anyone (I didn’t), but I held fast to the value of collaborating over going cutthroat and undercutting my fellow creatives.

2020 GOALS
I had 3 goals for 2020. Connection, discipline and work. I struggled in a lot of areas of my life, but I did about as well as one could be expected to do. If I had to pick a word for 2020 it would be grace. I found myself needing a lot of grace and I found myself giving as much grace as I can humanly give. All grace considered, I did a lot of what I set out to do.

Connect with people and get my name out there.
I nailed this. I did two wedding shows. Although, as of writing this, I have only received one booking for both shows, I made my money back for both, and I did get a lot of exposure. Huge thanks to my boyfriend, Glenn, for all his love and support with both shows. I couldn’t have done it without him.

Be disciplined in doing difficult tasks with integrity.
Man, this has been a struggle this year, mainly because the world is heavy right now. I didn’t exceed as well at this one but I did better at just sitting down and doing it. One thing that made things difficult is just the feeling of being overwhelmed. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to retreat and go eat cookies. However, I am working on dealing with being overwhelmed by making checklists and taking stuff off my plate. This often means doing difficult tasks with integrity. If I can’t do it with integrity, what’s the point of doing it. This will be a goal to continue improving on in 2021.

Work 40+ hours per week, work ahead, and work on my business.
Pandemic life made this one rough, as the only thing I’ve been able to stay caught up on is client work. it’s hard to work ahead when you are constantly behind. COVID put a damper in that 40+ hours thing. It’s just so mentally exhausting that I have to make my mental health a greater priority than normal so that I have the mental and emotional energy to work what hours I do with integrity and spend that time producing quality work. This will also be a goal to continue working on in 2021.

GOALS FOR 2021
2021 is a new year, and while I’m not going into it with bright, shining expectations, I am going into it with manageable goals. The objective in all of these goals is to feel less overwhelmed by things that I have control over, and thus, be able to better cope with things I feel overwhelmed with that I can’t control. This year I learned just how important mental health is.

Work 40+ hours per week, work ahead, and work on my business.
Step one of this goal is to get caught up, by February 15th. The reason I’ve chosen this as a goal again this year is so I can reduce the stress and increase the confidence. When I’m on top of things, I feel more confident. This is one way I’m going to cope with being overwhelmed.

Be disciplined in doing difficult tasks with integrity.
The keyword here is discipline. I always do my work with integrity, but sometimes I just don’t want to do them and it feels like pulling teeth to get me to do these menial tasks. I do them, but it’s that mental effort that it takes to sit down and do it. I’ve chosen to repeat this goal because I know it will help me reduce my mental load and, thus, feel less overwhelmed.

Keep up on the basics: blog and social media.
Pandemic life killed my motivation for any of that. I didn’t think the rancid heat of this year got to me, but it did. I’ve felt emotionally worn down, and at times I just didn’t care enough to do it. I love working on my blog, and I think social media can be truly enjoyable. One outcome I plan to achieve with all I’m doing to feel less overwhelmed is keep up on basic marketing, i.e., blogging and social media.

COVID AND ELC
2020 was primed to be a great year and it started off with significant momentum. Then COVID showed up. Communities locked down in the face of the unknown as COVID burned through the country. The outbreak was declared a pandemic early in March. Iowa closed down on March 17th. Couples began rescheduling their weddings and it took its toll on the local creative community. At this point, I was going to serve the clients I’d already booked and hope for the best for new bookings. I actually found myself fortunate as I hadn’t booked a lot for 2020 and that turned out to be a good thing because it meant that I wasn’t going to be at a loss. For 2020, I took care of myself and did what I could to invest in my business. The lack of business proved to be a good thing. Instead of taking huge losses, I was able to make small gains. I feel for my fellow creatives who experienced hardships in their work because of COVID, and while I am grateful that I was able to avoid that, my heart is still hurting for all the creatives who took hard losses.

HIGH POINT + LOW POINT
The high point for this year was getting to relax in Duluth. That was so necessary, and looking back it gave me what I needed to refocus on my business instead of making hasty decisions in the name of money (like getting a job at the hotel). Relaxing up there with Glenn, his parents and siblings was just the respite I needed. Duluth was beautiful.

On a related note, my low point was unfortunately the job at the hotel. I really liked the work. I liked talking to people and hearing where they came from and why they were there. I loved encouraging people who were in a hard place. My manager was a good person. He’s the kind of guy that you might want to have a beer with. There are, however, many really good people who aren’t good managers at all. Unfortunately, this gentleman was one of them. It was just too stressful to work there and my company comes first.

BEST OF
Two things i learned from choosing these: First, I really love photos of my workspace. There’s something semi-sacred about it, a sense of home. It’s comforting. It’s a really good thing I see it this way, because I spent most of the year working from home. I miss coffeehouses. Second, I got a lot better at doing black and white photography, while also moving away from it a little. I’ve always tried to focus (haha, see what I did there) on making good photographs that are really solid in black and white and not use black and white imagery as a crutch to save a bad photo. I was very intentional about that this year. If it was a bad photo, it was not allowed to be in black and white. If it sucks, do better work.

LOOKING AHEAD
In 2021, I have a wedding scheduled for September 10 and, so far, nothing else. I hope to take on a little bit more design work this year, as well as get a little bit better at marketing. I know many couples are jaded about scheduling a date for their wedding since so many people had to cancel or reschedule this year, but I’m hoping I can book at least two more for 2021. In addition, I hope to do more second shooting next year. I love second shooting and connecting with my colleagues. I’m planning for a better year in 2021, and grateful that I weathered the hellstorm that was 2020.

Gary Vaynerchuck talks a lot about prioritizing happiness over money. Being in a position where this works for me, happiness is a metric by which I measure whether or not this career path is right for me. If I’m not happy doing it, it’s time to find something else. In the midst of a generally awful and trying year, I am still happy with my job and my career. So, with that, here’s to another year of doing business. See you in 2021, for what will hopefully be an exciting-and-not-a-dumpster-fiery-festering-trash-pie of a year.