Week 5 - Lessons from 2023

What a year hey?

Christmas has just wrapped up and even though I’ve just spent my first Christmas here in Dubai where it’s nice and warm which might be strange for some, as an Aussie I feel right at home 😅

I hope you’re having a brilliant festive/holiday season and if you got camera gear for Christmas I’d love to know what you got/bought yourself as I have got a few new additions to my kit (completely changed systems, bye bye Canon, more on that next year )

I won’t take up much of your time this week as I am sure you’ve got more than enough on your plate or you’re just simply looking for some relaxing downtime but I did want to cover the top 3 life lessons I’ve learnt this year. 2023 has been the most transformative year of my life by far. I’ve stepped so far out of my comfort zone and pushed myself to do and achieve more than I ever thought I could and I would love the chance to share just a few things you might be able to either resonate with or take into the new year -

When it feels scary to jump, that’s when you jump

I am a firm believer that the biggest risk you can take is to not risk anything at all. This year has been scary, to say the least. I opened up doors I didn’t realise I could open, I went in hard on my personal brand and started rejecting more and more client work, I started a new business in a different country, and I bought my first very small but still cool investment property and I spent more money on growing my business this year than ever before. I am leaving 2023 feeling like a completely different person to when I started 2023 and I put that down to nothing more than just taking on manageable risk. I’m not saying to put your entire life savings into a small crypto company that promises it will ‘go to the moon’ 😅 Still be sensible but push the limit.

Spend more time with people you care about.

Friends, family, friends that feel like family or if you’re still looking for your people, spend your time searching. There have been many periods this year where I have felt alone in a lot of different ways. This could be in regards to business, the amount of travel, being away from my friends in Bali and my family in Sydney for a lot of this year. Whenever you have the chance, spend quality time with the ones you hold closest to you. I know we talk a lot about business, productivity and creativity on here and there have been times where I have felt like I have too much on or I am going through something that my friends/family won’t understand. And time and time again I’ve been shown that even if they haven’t been in the same position as I am in now, just spending time with them, listening to their problems and issues can nearly always indirectly shine light on what I need to focus on or a solution to my issues. Time spent with the people you’re closest with is never time wasted.

Document more things.

I’m working on this one and getting better at it but still far from perfect. There are so many memories that I’ve had this year alone that I would have loved to be able to go back and re-live. Simply filming more raw moments, little talking-to-the-camera pieces that only you’re ever going to see are so valuable to look back on in the years to come. It makes me a little sad thinking about how many things I missed this year as I was rushing to just get the job done or felt like I was on some crazy timeline when I could have just taken an extra 2-3 minutes, soaked it up and filmed a little of what was going on, even just on my phone. In 2024 I want to document so much more.

And with that all said, that wraps things up for the year. I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store and I hope you’re entering this new year with a load of ambition. Many people start the new year off on a high and fail to achieve anything by the end and this is the last thing I want to touch on for the year - Ask yourself this, if you could achieve just one big thing next year, what would it be? Would it be making money with your camera? Building a new income stream? Beginning to create social media content? Whatever it is, write it down and only focus on that. Don’t enter the new year with 12 different large goals and tell yourself that you’re going to complete one per month. I’ve been there and it doesn’t work.

Alright, that’s it from me, see you early next year, thank you for your time and I’ll catch you in the next one, peace

Zac