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Proud pup mom, type A creative, lover of the outdoors, Top Chef fan girl, and wedding and portrait photographer. Welcome to the blog!
HI, I'M RACHEL!
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Happy New Year!! I know it’s about a week late on wishing everyone a happy new year here on the blog, but this is my first day back in the office officially after taking a little holiday hiatus. It’s actually my first day as a full time / all the time photographer! Say what?! Well if you missed my big announcement on Facebook and Instagram last week, let me give you a little update!
In June I started working on Jenna Kutcher’s The Photo Lab – a course designed specifically for photographers to basically get their acts together! haha At the very beginning of the course, Jenna includes a worksheet asking what your personal and professional goals are. It asked for specific details including a date by which the goal would be complete. I gave it some thought and wrote down that I’d be a full time / all the time photographer by Memorial Day weekend 2018. Whew! That felt powerful and scary at the same time. It was great to have a tangible goal to work towards but scary to see it written down on paper. That made it real!
In August I started working within a group coaching program, where they asked us creativepreneurs to do something similar: declare a commitment that we’d be working towards within the group. Mine was to leave my day job by Memorial Day 2018. I created a plan, set milestones, created action items to accomplish those milestones, and started plugging away. I hit every milestone from August through November! Woot woot! I was well on my way to May.
Then November came. Some changes at my day job took place that I wasn’t wholly comfortable with. And I realized that I was getting debilitating headaches every day I was in the office and had been for over six months. I was stressed out, exhausted, drained, resentful, cranky, in physical pain, and dreading making it another six months until May. My business coach asked me some great questions that really got me thinking, so I took some time to journal about what I really wanted and what I value in life. The journaling was awesome, but what it really gave me was time to be with myself. To listen to what my intuition was telling me. To actually pay attention to it instead of pushing it away and telling myself I just had to suffer through and make it a little while longer.
At the end of that journaling and meditation session, the decision was made. My heart and soul knew what it wanted and they weren’t going to let my mind and ego dictate things any longer! On December 8th I turned in my two weeks notice and December 22nd was my last day at my day job. That night I celebrated with friends at my favorite spot in Arlington, Jaleo, and I haven’t looked back!
I’ve taken the past two weeks off to enjoy the holidays and my birthday, and to kind of reset after leaving my job. It’s a big adjustment! This week I’m back in the office (more like in bed behind my lap desk since my office is a little messy right now!) for my first day at work for the new year and am ready to hit the ground running on this entrepreneur life!
While I took the majority of last week off, I did get together with my friend Madison from Ascot Diamonds to take some headshots for her in the snow. More to come in a blog this week, but check out these sneak peeks that I’m just in love with!
On my first day as a true solopreneur, I’d like to thank you to everyone for your continued support! I’m excited to see what the future holds for Rachel E.H. Photography now that I get to dedicate more time and energy to this little business of mine. Have a great week and check back in on Thursday to see more of Madison!
HELLO@RACHELEHPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
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Rachel is a wedding and portrait photographer
Serving brilliant, elegant couples in Washington D.C. + Beyond
Copyright 2022 Rachel E.H. Photography | Website by Alex Collier Design
she / her