Learning to value yourself is a lesson that is not easy for most people. Today I had a friend request on Twitter from an amazing photographer and author. First of all, my first reaction was, “Why would someone of his caliber even bother wanting to follow me?” Then I logged onto his profile and saw the most fantastic photographs from all over the world, but instead of marveling at his talent, I felt inadequate and small. At that moment I was ready to just give up on myself because I felt, “What’s the point, I’ll never even be in his league.” But as my wise friend Janet always used to tell me when I started comparing myself to others and coming up short, “Stop looking over the fence at other people’s yards.” I have to remember, I just started back with photography, after many years of just using a point and shoot camera. That negative thinking would prevent many people from writing, blogging, playing tennis, skiing, or anything if they compared themselves to the pros. I must realize that my work has value and I am a valuable person. Even if I don’t make a red cent on my pictures or my writing, it is a creative outlet for me and I must remember that I am valuable.
Category: Uncategorized
Loser
The only loser is someone who never even tries–that is my belief. I’ve been taking the steps to submit some photos to a stock agency. I say “steps” because I signed up for a course where they walk you through the process, step by step. So, rather than just submit photos I think are great, I am doing research to see what types of photos are accepted. I started to get negative earlier in the day because I see that there is a “test” involved in one agency. My automatic response (from years of negative conditioning) was, “Oh, I won’t pass the test and I won’t be able to even get out of the starting gate.” Then I said to myself, “Well, why even try at all. I’ll fail just like I always do.” Then that progressed to, “You’re just a loser.” My question is why do some people give up before they even try? I think it comes down to belief in yourself and that quality is the reason some people become an “overnight success” in the entertainment field after years and years of toiling away and just never giving up. That is the key to success in anything: perseverance, no matter how many rejections you receive. You have to take those rejections and turn them into positives by learning from them. So many people avoid rejection by just sticking with the tried and true–never taking chances. This way they never “fail”, but it has the exact opposite result; they never succeed. Yes, the only “loser” is someone who never tries, but also someone who stops believing in their abilities after a few rejections. You hear stories of well known authors who received so many rejections that probably anyone else would have just thrown in the towel and quit. But they refused to give up. So, to me, the only loser is a quitter.