I was responding to a thread in a forum that I used to be a part of and the question was “What are your goals for this year?”.  Mine were a little bit extreme. I wanted to shoot 30 weddings my second year in business AND get my work published in print! Yes, at 20 years old I was a little naive… but I was a dreaming BIG! Someone responded to that post about shooting 30+ weddings in my second year and said “Yea, good luck with that”.  I ignored it…. but when I only shot 20+ weddings my second year,  I felt a little bit embarrassed that I hadn’t met my own goal. So from that moment on, I think I subconsciously refrained from openly sharing my hopes for the future because it was SAFE that way. If I never posted about what I was secretly hoping for, I would never be embarrassed if those things never happened! There are two problems with this:

1. Secretly holding on to your dreams often leads to insecurity. When you’re the only one that knows about your dreams it allows for self doubt to creep in and talk you out of the crazy big plans that you have for yourself. (This is especially true for women)

2. We need PEOPLE to make our dreams happen. If you keep your dreams to yourself, you’re crushing your chances of any opportunity to make those dreams come true!! For example, I have a dear friend that was bold enough to blog about wanting to shoot in London. She just happened to post that dream at just the right time because a friend from high school emailed her and asked her to shoot her European wedding!!

We need to TALK about our dreams because bottom line, we can’t make them happen by ourselves.  So today I’m overcoming the fear of failure and I’m just blurting out some crazy ideas I have for Michael and I and our business!! Some of these things may NEVER happen. I may even CHANGE MY MIND about some of these things and you know what, that’s OK… it’s not the end of the world. I would rather share my dreams openly than just sit on them for many years to come and grow resentful that I was never given an opportunity.  A very wise friend of mine told me recently that if I don’t reach out and make things happen, the only opportunities I’m going to receive are the through the connections I already have. Basically, I’ll stay in the same place if I’m just waiting for something to fall in my lap! Yikes! Sometimes the truth is hard to hear but I’m so thankful for Jasmine’s advice and that’s part of the reason I’m making myself share this post!!

So what are some of our dreams?! Welp, here we go!! :

1. I want to shoot a wedding in Italy!!! More specifically, VENICE! Can you imagine a bride walking around the streets of this amazing city?! GAH! Michael and I honeymooned in Venice and I remember walking the streets for the very first time and thinking “This is my dream wedding location!”.  My images are full of color and every time I saw an amazing old door, I wished that I had a bride there to stand in front of it!  I would love the opportunity to shoot anywhere overseas but Italy is very high on my list!!!

2. We want to pay off our house as quickly as possible. This desire stems from our Dave Ramsey training! How amazing would it be to mortgage-free right when our kids are reaching the high school age when they’re starting to cost us more money! We’d REALLY love to pay it off before we have kids but I feel like my mother is cringing at the idea of us waiting 7+ years for grandkids! So maybe that’s a little too far fetched. But basically, we want to be smart with our money and use it wisely so that we’re setting ourselves up for success in the future.

3. I want to take coaching on the road. There it is… I said it. We would love to do this before we start thinking about starting a family. There are already some plans in the works to offer something that we’re calling “Coaching Huddles” around the country and we’re still praying about when and where to offer these sessions!!

4. We have an unwritten bucket list of places we would love to travel to before we have kids! One of those places is HAWAII! … and we’ll be vacationing there this December!! We’re SO excited!! So the other half of that dream is to shoot a bride and groom IN HAWAII! So if you and your hubby are interested in getting back into your wedding attire for a shoot on the amazing beaches of Hawaii on January 3rd, email Michael for pricing and more info!! Michael@katelynjames.com

5. Australia. Oh gosh this is hard to post. It’s hard to post because this is a BIG dream that would take A LOT of coordination and planning to bring to life. Everything we do, we pray about… and we’re definitely still praying about this one. We have received inquiries in the past about taking workshops and education to Australia.  The reality is that those that follow us in Australia will probably never have the chance to attend a workshop or coaching session unless we come to THEM. So! We’re putting feelers out there for potentially teaching in Australia within the next year. We’ve had several friends do this in the past and I know it’s so much work but if it happened, it would be worth it! If you’re interested, email Michael! Michael@katelynjames.com 

Whew!! There it is! Those are some of our BIG dreams that I have been privately hoping for and dreaming about for quite some time.  If I don’t accomplish ANY of them, that’s ok! But I’m 100x more likely to accomplish at least some of them because I simply SHARED about them! That’s a huge weight off of my chest and a great way to start off a new week! Happy Monday everyone!!