Defining Success For The Professional Photographer
How do we measure success? As far as I know there’s no ruler or gauge that we can use to measure it. Do we wake up one day and suddenly find ourselves successful?
Are there varying degrees of success? If so, where’s the point at which a higher degree of failure becomes a lesser degree of success?
Perhaps this is a “half-full” versus “half-empty” type of question.
Some people might measure their success by the amount of money in the bank, others by the achievement of awards or the attainment of goals. Others count themselves successful if they’re living life on their own terms. Is being successful the same as being happy or content?
In 1969, NASA launched Apollo 11 on a successful mission to the moon. There was no possibility of partial success in that case, only absolute success or failure. Making it halfway to the moon did not constitute a quarter-successful mission. Neither did landing on the moon itself, although that was certainly a major milestone. Success only came when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins made that wonderful splash in the ocean upon their safe return.
President Kennedy defined the terms of the mission’s success in his own seemingly prophetic words in 1961: “…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
The Apollo mission could only be said to be a success when the goals had been met.
Perhaps we can learn something from this as professional photographers in our own business if we consider the following question:
How can we hope to be successful if we do not define the goals and objectives we need to meet?
What goals are you going to set for yourself and your business? Now, at the beginning of a new decade, a new year, what will define your success? The answers to these questions could reveal the uniqueness of you and your specific business; that same uniqueness that separates you from the other photographers in your area.
Are you ready to launch your own Apollo program with its own goals and commitments?
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