Overcome Fear of Failure in Pursuit of Passions

Making the decision to pursue passion is great. It’s great until you let a deep fear become a roadblock.  In this article, I’ll talk about my pursuit of passion for photography and earning money from it. I run into my biggest fear. I hit the wall. How do I get over this fear of failure? Read on…

I’ve had some great experiences through my photography last year. I was thinking about my experiences and realized that I overcame one of my greatest fears related to starting my photography business.

The experience was overwhelming, yet powerfully positive in the long run. I want to share it with you because I believe there are a lot of you with these same types of feelings. And we all know that our fears hold us back, way back.  Fears prevent us from really living.

I have been shooting some Real Estate Photography for a local property management company and I’ve been so glad for the work. It’s allowed me to use my experience with HDR Photography to show off different properties and help the property management company build their website with pictures you won’t find on MLS.

One of my biggest fears when thinking about starting my photography business was always: “What happens if I don’t get the shots while on location?”

This thought and intense fear brought serious anxiety. Photographs can only be recovered so much if a mistake is made or missed. This is why photographers take so many pictures. I can admit that this issues and the anxiety held me back from pursuing clients and moving my business forward. I hoped, in the back of my mind, that it would never happen.

And then it happened.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and the weather was surprisingly decent. Drew from Brodylan White called and I told him I was on my way. I felt great to have put in my time at the cubicle day job, and now I had time to do something I love.

I got to the Condo Apartment Building and opened the rear door of my awesome ride – a Nissan cube. I quickly opened the camera bag to put in an extra memory card that had been sitting in my pocket and realized my wide angle lens was no where in sight.

SHIT. (I know, I’m sorry.)

There was a crazy rush of “OMFG! What am I going to do?” I had my 50mm F1.4 and my 90mm Macro. Great glass for shooting the interior of an apartment condo! What an understatement that is! Imagine standing in a smaller apartment and trying to shoot a kitchen with a 50mm lens, let alone the 90mm. You can’t back up far enough to get anything in a shot. So, what did I do?

I told myself that I can overcome this and stitch the photographs in post. I’d create an image made of 9 images to show the entire scene. I got home, looked at the images and I was instantly upset with myself. I didn’t know how I was going to work out these images. My biggest fear had come to get me. I didn’t get the shots. I had no way to go back and get them.  Drew had expressed that there very limited access. Do I just disappear? Never answer my phone or e-mail again?

What happened next though was amazing!

I surrendered to the situation. I realized beating myself up over this was not going to do anything to move me forward and out of the situation. Wanting to be transparent, I talked to Drew about the issue upfront. I said that I forgot the right lens and I would need to get back into the place, if possible.  Luckily I was able to get back in and get some great photos.  The images in this article are exact proof.  Trying to stitch a bunch of photos to get a wide angle would have been just hell.  Being upfront and saying I screwed up was real.  It happens. In my case, I believe it was a blessing because I ended up grabbing a shot of the entire window during sunset.  And the situation had to happen sometime.

I have only included the 1 comparison shot here but I’ve got more over in the post for this property (95 Baseline Rd West London) on Scott R Webb Photography (Scott R Webb Photography is my separate blog for real estate and portrait photography in London Ontario)

Tell me about your experience.  Have you overcome one of your worst fears?  Laura Roeder made a video post regarding the time she was met with her worst fear.  In  her case, I don’t believe it was a fear holding her back.  It was just a fear she always had and never wanted to hear.  I recommend checking it out because the video is only about 6 minutes long.

Leave a comment if you feel something is holding you back in pursuit of your dreams.  We need you to go after your dreams! Don’t let anything hold you back.