As each year goes by I’ve realized just how much life is about doing the things you don’t want to do.
Taxes, bills, emails, paperwork, work, and so many other things to name a few take up so much of our time.
My work happens to be photography and Burnout is definitely something I’ve dealt with from time to time but the way I’ve always gotten around it is simple, I just shoot through it.
Instead of finding more jobs to shoot though I take time to photograph things that I am interested in which helps me reframe my vision and keep up with my editing style.
The photos you see below are of a sculpture my friend (Ian Swordly) is hand carving out of marble.
Having worked with marble countertops in my college years I understood how impressive this was but when you see the sheer size of the stone it’s pretty jaw-dropping.
Thousands of hours get put into one of these sculptures and it’s all done one chip at a time.
Not to mention you need a forklift to move this 1200 pound piece of marble.
The interesting bit here for me is the overlap between all hobbies.
You hear people say '“mastery comes from practicing one skill for 10,000 hours” which may be true but if you put in 1000 hours you’re going to be pretty damn good.
As I say so frequently on this blog consistency is the key to everything.
So if you want to get better at something be consistent and if you’re worried about burn out make time to have fun with the skill you’re learning.
With photography being my job that also means making time for personal work.
The last point I want to touch on is something I heard a few months back and it was called the “2-minute rule”.
This is a rule people use when they’re trying to form a habit but the key is to start extremely small, 2 minutes to be exact.
The person who spoke about the rule had a client that lost over 100lbs in a year by showing up to the gym for 5 minutes every day.
For the first month, this person could not exceed more than 5 minutes in the gym.
The goal here was to be a healthy and fit person and by starting with 5 minutes at the gym he tackled the biggest hurdle of his goal which was “going to the gym every day”.
Now for this guy stopping at the gym every day after work is engrained in his routine.
If you’re looking to improve on an area of your life this year or to learn a new skill try starting with the easiest task first, showing up!
All the best,
Atticus
