Unplugged!

Hi guys. We are officially one month in to the new decade. January seemed to have dragged on and flew by all at the same time. 🙃 Especially for me because so much happened in such a short amount of time. I also believe that my choice to take a hiatus from shooting 📸 and social media 🤳🏾 for a month are what made the month feel long. My year started off on a very different note than most for me but also on a very necessary one. Here’s why:

The end of 2019 was very overwhelming for me. I had a very busy year with work. I think I did about 6 or 7 trips back forth to Chicago for the year, 11 wedding, countless photo sessions, and that’s just with work. We also bought a house, got 2 dogs, made plans to expand our family, went to San Antonio twice to see family and were gone for both Thanksgivings and Christmas. All of this with Ken (my hubby) preparing for a 6 month deployment scheduled to leave 2 weeks ago in January. I felt like my head was spinning. I had so much to do and plan for and absolutely no focus or drive to get it all done.

So at the end of 2019 I decided it was time to take a break from my biggest distraction, social media. My initial thinking was I wanted to make the most of my time with Ken before he left to spend 6 months on the other side of the globe. I also knew it would give me a lot more focus to get done all that goes along with the deployment process, including renting out our home and me moving back to Chicago for 6 months while he was away. So I signed off and deleted my social media apps from my phone to eliminate the temptation. And to take it a step further I even blocked Facebook and Instagram on my computer as well (and before you ask YES it was that serious for me). If I am being completely honest I was kind of addicted to my phone and social media. Like to the point where tasks were taking me twice as long to complete because I’m literally checking every notification that lights my screen and every post that hits my feed. Literally scrolling my life away. And because I wasn’t focused, I always had a pile of work and a to do-list that seemed to never get any smaller. Which would result in me feeling like I could never take a day off. I was completely burnt out. 😓

But to be totally transparent, God had told me to sign off a long time ago. I just wasn’t listening. I was just addicted to scrolling. And that overwhelmed feeling had nothing to do with what was happening in my life but everything to do with the fact that I spent more time on my phone then actually being focused, productive, and present. So having to work 24/7 was not because I was that busy but because I was spending half my day looking at my Instagram feed instead of actually working. Then when Ken, my husband, would get home from work I had barely scratched the surface of what I needed to get done for the day. So instead of enjoying my husband, who was about to leave for 6 months, I had to finish ‘working’. It’s like running on a hamster wheel. Going around and around but getting nowhere.

Recently, during my hiatus, I read that the average millennial gets 2-4 solid hours of work done in their 8 hr work day because we are so distracted by our phones and social media. 😱 That stat is alarming. So while many of us are all claiming to be ‘husslin’ and ‘grindin’ we are clearly missing the mark. If most of us are truly honest with ourselves, we kinda suck at giving work (or home life) our undivided, focused attention. The stats don’t lie! This was a serious reality check for me. I run a real business. I wear all the hats. No seriously I do almost everything. I cannot run a successful business being an average, super distracted millennial. I also can not put my personal life on the back burner and neglect the people I love because I am so distracted. Every aspect of my life deserves 100% of my care and attention.

And then at the very end of my hiatus me and the rest of the world heard the news that Kobe, his daughter, and 7 other people lost their lives in a tragic plane crash. It was the saddest news I have heard in a long time. If I am being honest I am not the biggest Kobe or basketball fan. So the lose wasn’t about me being a huge fan. For me it was heartbreaking to know that a wife and mom was literally experiencing her worst nightmare. In the blink of an eye two of the people she loved most on earth were gone. My heart literally aches for her and every time I think about it my eyes well up with tears. The reason I mention this in this blog post is not to just bring up the most relevant hot topic. Honestly it is was a huge reminder that life is short. And that I do not want to spend however much time God blesses me with being unfocused, always distracted, overwhelmed, and procrastinating. I want to effectively get things done so I can spend majority of my time and energy loving on the people in my life that God has given me. This tragedy is a reenforcing what God has already been telling me.

So I finally stopped ignoring God and signed off and marked my work calendar unavailable for a month. Y’all will not believe how much I got accomplished with just that one action. I decided it was time to get organized. So I wrote out my goals and planned out my next few months on my calendar. I also created content on my website and for social media for the entire first quarter. I finished my online photography class. I booked a few weddings (one of which is at one of my bucket list venues). I created a real schedule and a timesheet to manage my productivity. I started working on a passion project that I want to launch next year. And that’s just work. I actually hung out with friends. I read an entire book (a real one with pages, not one that was on a screen). I got back into my workout routine and have been consistent. I took the weekends completely off to hang out with hubby and go on date nights. We also finally found a new church that we both like (it took 2.5 years, so this is a major accomplishment). I spent dedicated daily time with Jesus (the greatest accomplishment of them all). Oh and I got some much needed rest. And the best part of it all is that my husband deployment was canceled last minute! 🙌🏾 So my time of enjoying him before he left turned into just time for us to unplug and reconnect. Ain’t God awesome!

2020 represents a huge shift for me, my personal life and my business. I can’t wait for everyone to see and feel the improvements! Moral of the story, do what God says. Life is always better when we are obedient.