Commercializing Passion

walking the fine line between love and obligation

My first dive into the creative world came through photography, back in 2018. I did a course to learn how to use my first DSLR camera and I instantly fell in love. Having the camera in my hand was a great excuse for me to spend hours at the beach or star-gazing or hiking new trails. It also taught me pure presence. When I take a picture of something, there’s nothing else in my mind except what my lens is pointed at and how to capture it to best show its beauty. Everything about learning and practicing photography was extremely positive for my mental health.

I was extremely excited to make some money from this thing I loved to do, so I began doing some family photoshoots and attempted to turn it into a business in 2019. That idea helped me feel better about the money I spent on training and equipment. I loved every session, and as far as I knew all the people I worked with loved the experience and photos too.

It caused me a severe amount of anxiety though. I have done photos for two weddings and I didn’t sleep for at least two weeks leading up to those dates. I loved the actual work of doing weddings. I was extremely proud of the work I produced. The money was not nearly worth the stress it caused me though, so I turned down every opportunity since. Portrait sessions were a little lower stakes, but still, I felt panic before every single session I did. I still feel it.

Portrait sessions weren’t just about the joy of capturing a person in their natural essence. Doing it for money meant I was also concerned about if the images lived up to their expectations and if they felt enough value to justify what I charged for it. I felt obligated to share images online too and thought far too much about every post. I no longer shared images that weren’t to the standard I wanted people to know I could do. By commercializing photography, I changed my relationship to it completely.

I later started to sell some of my nature prints. I loved the idea of selling prints, simply because it meant people could see the image before they decided to pay for it. It felt a little freer to me, but still, I managed to suck all the fun out of that too. Nature photography felt like something I ‘should’ do and I stopped wanting to do it so much.

I’ve done a lot of work around the mindset aspect of this. I do believe it’s completely possible to make money from art and not have it lose the personal benefits of creating. I haven’t mastered it yet though. Far from it.

I decided to stop doing portrait sessions altogether recently. I haven’t been able to do many anyway since I became a full-time solo mom two years ago, but I always kept them in my mind as a source of income. I held onto the pressure to share and post online. I held onto the pressure that comes from figuring out what to charge and contemplating what people expect from working with me. I always felt like I ‘should’ be doing more with it because I could and I did enjoy the sessions themselves. I know people value my work and they value the experience of working with me. At this point, those things don’t outweigh the added mental strain. If burnout taught me anything, it’s that my mental health has to come first. I try to make it a practice to do a cost benefit analysis for everything I take on for work now (can you tell I studied accounting.) Is the money I make from this worth what it costs me mentally and physically? For photography, the answer was no.

I also decided to step down from a leadership role in the IceberGallery artist network. Again, I absolutely loved that role. I believe whole-heartedly in the network’s mission to help make pursuing the arts much more accessible. They have done incredible work already and I know it’s only going to get better. I volunteered quite a bit when I had my kids half the time. Now, and with burnout to consider, I had to take it off my plate. Again, I hadn’t done much with it for the last while. But it still felt like something I ‘should’ be doing more with. I had to take it off my mental plate.

I had an incredible meditation earlier this month that showed me the bigger picture plan for the book that I’ve been working on for the last year. I’ve been spending ten hours a day, most days for the last week and a half working on it. I am elated at the progress and I am so excited for it to be complete and out in the world. This morning, I had to check myself. This morning I felt anxious about working on it, instead of excited. It felt like something I ‘should’ be working on, not something I want to work on. Why did it feel this way? Because all the progress I’ve been making has made me start thinking about the finish line again. I’ve been coming up with potential dates for completion and feeling like maybe I should start promoting it more and getting ready for launch. This is the source of anxiety. Not the writing itself.

Walking the line between creating for the love of it, and making money from that, is a tough one to manage. I don’t want my writing to feel like an obligation. Writing is too important to my mental health for me to turn myself against it by feeling like I ‘need’ to produce something, or feeling that I owe it to the future intended audience.

I know this book will have a powerful impact. I am excited about its completion. I can’t wait to share it with everyone and to create some buzz around it. I can’t think too much about that stuff though, or it interferes with the actual writing of the thing. Writing it has to be the only consideration for me right now. I’m doing my best to maintain the ‘for the love of it’ aspects and let go of the ‘I want it to be successful and make money’ aspects.

PS. If I tell you a prospective date that the book will be ready, feel free to give me a kick in the ass about it. Help a girl out with her intent to stay present with the process 😉

For all you creative-minded/ mission-minded/ entrepreneurial souls, I’d love to hear how you manage this line between doing what you love and earning an income from it? I’ll take all the tips and brain hacks I can get.

It’s a work in progress over here, but I do feel good about the fact that I noticed myself doing it with the book again and proactively did something to stop it. ‘The work’ is working, I guess. It’s just not as quick to become automatic as I’d like.

Take care, and happy creating!

Oh, and if you have a friend who you think would enjoy content like this, send them an invite! I think the world needs more passion-led people making lots of money.

Dawn