171: Balancing Work and Family Life: Failing at Perfection
Mar 26, 2024
Catherine Guidry: Wedding Photographer + Educator
There comes a point in life when the plates we juggle begin to wobble , threatening to come crashing down. As a wedding photographer and mother, I've danced on this tightrope, balancing my lens on love-filled ceremonies with the unscripted chaos of raising two tiny children. The heart of this episode lies in a raw and open dialogue about the challenges and triumphs of managing a career while nurturing a family. From the inception of the Wedding Photography Society to the evolving landscape of time spent with my little ones, I am chatting through the imperfect art of living fully in our roles without losing our sense of self.
There comes a point in life when the plates we juggle begin to wobble , threatening to come crashing down. As a wedding photographer and mother, I've danced on this tightrope, balancing my lens on love-filled ceremonies with the unscripted chaos of raising two tiny children. The heart of this episode lies in a raw and open dialogue about the challenges and triumphs of managing a career while nurturing a family. From the inception of the Wedding Photography Society to the evolving landscape of time spent with my little ones, I am chatting through the imperfect art of living fully in our roles without losing our sense of self.
I'm on another drive, so I guess this means it's time for another podcast episode. I find lately this is about the only time that I have to podcast. I've been just trying to keep up with all the things and I thought that actually might be a really great topic for this episode. I've been trying to keep things loose, trying to keep things real. Someone DM'd me recently on Instagram and said hey, I loved it, keep it real. So here I am doing that.
Speaker 1:
It is a very interesting season of our lives. We are at a point where we now have two small children One is three and then one is seven months. You know, when I started my business, I was 22, I think something like that, maybe 23. I am now 38 almost, so it's been about 15 years and life has changed so much since starting no-transcript. You know, some people start their business before children If they have children. Some people start their business and then they have children and we are definitely in the second camp and I can say that it has been a very, very interesting time of my life because I am still so incredibly passionate about wedding photography. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1:
I started the Wedding Photography Society, our membership community, because I just wanted a place for people to talk about weddings, get information, become educated and meet up, which, if you're not a member, I highly recommend checking it out. It's the Wedding Photography Society. You can even do thatcom. But I just I love it, I love it, I love it and it's such a unique career and I feel like we're all in the same camp. You know, we're working weekends. Sometimes we're working weekends away from our families, but you know also, now I am a mom and that has very quickly become like, I don't want to say the biggest part of my identity, but it's like wedding photography was always my identity outside of. You know my family and, I guess, my personality, my husband. It's like now I'm a mom and it's just, it's such a beautiful thing and you just can't help but love or I can't I'll speak for myself like I cannot help but love being a mom to my kids and it's just been a very interesting time of my life because it's the first time that I've ever been challenged so much with how I'm spending my time.
Speaker 1:
What am I doing every second of the day? I mean, right now I um, I don't do a lot of family photography, but I drove three hours away to photograph my best friend's newborn and family session, and I'm driving back home, uh, to new Orleans right now, and so that's why I'm able to record this. But it's like, as I'm on the road, I've spent about I don't know somewhere between five and six hours on the road today, and it's just, you really evaluate your time so much more. I used to drive all the time and I would listen to podcasts and never really thought a lot about what I was doing in that time. I just was like, oh, this is cool, you know, I'm on the road listening to podcasts. Now it's like, well, this is six hours that I could either be at my computer making money, I could be editing for my clients, I could be shooting a session, or I could be with my family, and that's very real and that's something that, if you are a parent, you probably can connect and identify with. And if you're not a parent, then maybe you're not there yet, maybe you never will be, and that's okay too.
Speaker 1:
But for me, I just never thought as much about time as I do now, and I was always a pretty efficient person. So when I started thinking about what I would chat about in this podcast. It was really just to share that. It's not always, I don't know, easy, clear, the words escape me, but I've always felt like I kind of had it together and I think that's why I, in the last episode, decided I was going to take a different route for the podcast and just be a bit more transparent, because I feel that right now, more than I ever have in my life, like I really feel like I'm not, I don't have it together.
Speaker 1:
You know, I I am really truly trying my best, but I find myself lately feeling like I'm failing at things and I've I've always been like a hardcore perfectionist. I've always really strived to like be the best and do the best and blah, blah, blah, make A's you know, I don't know whatever. Like if you're a perfectionist, you're probably like yep, yep, I get it. But I truly feel like lately I've been failing a lot. I feel like I've been failing as a friend, I've been failing as a wife, as a mother, I've been failing as a photographer, as a leader in our community sometimes. And I'm still working my absolute hardest, I'm sleeping the least amount I've ever slept before, but I still feel like I am not able to juggle all the balls in the air and, to be honest, it's hard for me to feel that way and to admit that out, but at the same time, I know that it's okay, like it's going to be fine.
Speaker 1:
I hope that people can give me grace, I hope that my family will still love me. I hope that my kids will understand. I hope that our community will still believe in and see the value that we're providing, even though sometimes, like I, may lose my voice and have to reschedule. Sometimes, like I, may lose my voice and have to reschedule, or you know, whatever the situation is or our clients get that, I've been pretty good about keeping deadlines, but you know, just understand that maybe I don't have like a sneak peek available like I used to all the time. I mean, I always had a sneak peek available on Monday and I can honestly say that we shot a wedding two weeks ago and they still have not received their sneak peeks and it's not. I'm not proud of that, I'm not, and it's gonna be hard for me to even post this, if I even do share this episode because, like as a perfectionist, it's hard to admit that you're failing. However, I think it's also important to meet you, the listener where you are and to be very real about that and not to kind of hide behind the veil of perfectionism all the time.
Speaker 1:
This has been a big part of, like, my personal growth. Um, I started seeing a therapist in 2014, I guess. I saw her once a week. I had to go through a few therapists to find one that I really connect with connected with, um, you know, because sometimes you'll go to therapy and they will impose their beliefs or religion or ideas or whatever on you, and this happened to me a couple of times until I found someone that I really felt was the perfect fit and I went in at the time thinking, thinking we wanted to talk about this, but then we ended up talking about the other thing, and then the other thing, and then the other thing, and before you know it, you're like, oh my gosh, there's so many things that I didn't realize about myself, about my life, and I also felt like there was a lot of negative perceptions I guess that I had about therapy in general, perceptions I guess that I had about therapy in general. But it was really cool for me to realize that it's really not a bad thing and everyone, every single person on this earth is a human being that is not perfect and we all have things that we want to work on and do better at and strive for, better at and strive for.
Speaker 1:
And one of my biggest realizations was that I really struggle with perfectionism. And since then I have listened to, you know, podcasts. I have been really honest with my partner, my husband, my spouse, brad, about where I am, who I am, and he has been so great in helping me work through those things. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this stuff. I guess I feel like I'm going down a rabbit hole. I'm like I'm going to regret this, but you know, I just I want to be real. I want to be very real and as a professional and someone who really, really, truly believes in things like you know, doing a good job and pleasing your client, and a lot of the focus of this podcast is about business. It really is and I want it to continue that way. But also I want to be really open and transparent about what is going on and what goes on behind the scenes of the person behind the camera, behind the business.
Speaker 1:
Maybe you're not a photographer, maybe you're in another industry, but like we are real people running businesses and we have feelings. And guess what? Sometimes, if you're you know a parent, you're going to have a sick child. Or even if you're not a parent, you're at some point in your life going to get sick. And, um, you know, up until my oldest daughter was born, I never missed a wedding before was born. I never missed a wedding before and I had to experience what it was like to explain to a client who had booked me 18 months in advance that I was not going to be able to photograph her wedding. And that was really hard. Even after going through COVID and all the things that we had to go through during that time with the business, it still felt really kind of wild to experience that and heartbreaking in a lot of ways because I felt like I was letting someone down, even though I was being there for my, for my daughter.
Speaker 1:
And so you know, if you're someone listening in, I just kind of want to meet you where you are or where you might be or where you were, and let you know that things aren't always perfect and running a business is really hard Figuring out where to allocate your time, especially if your plate is really full, you might not always have the support that you need. Our families do not live near us, and that has been incredibly challenging, not just from an emotional standpoint, but from a logistical position as well. I can't call my parents or my brother or whoever like when I'm in a bind and say, hey, can you help me out? Can you X, y, z? It's like no, we're on our own, and a lot of people are in that camp too, and so I just want to let you know that you're not alone. We're all just trying to figure it out. We're all just doing our best. If you're looking for a community, I would love for you to, you know, check out the Wedding Photography Society, especially if you are a wedding photographer.
Speaker 1:
I think there's a lot of people there that are in in that same boat of of trying to um figure it out and doing a really dang good job at it. If I must, if I can brag on them, I think there's some people that are absolutely killing it, and um know that we're we're trying to continue to just doing a good job and and showing up in all the ways and all the capacities, and we're just thankful. We are very grateful. We're in a very, you know, amazing position and our hard times are, they're just temporary and they're seasonal, and thankfully we're we're in a good place in life, um, and I truly believe that community and um, friendship and camaraderie makes the hard times so much more tolerable and easy, and so, um, I just appreciate you for tuning in, for listening to me work through these ideas out loud.
Speaker 1:
I kind of feel like past two episodes I've just been like journaling a little bit I'm not even 100% sure where the episodes are going and like I'm cool with it. I'm cool with it, I'm cool with this, this, this new place of life that I'm at, and and maybe you know you'll listen to this at some point and be like, oh, she's really all over the place and and I am, and you know what. That's fine, that's fine, I'm accepting it, I'm embracing it, I'm thankful, you, I'm thankful for this season of life, because it is hard but it is beautiful, and I truly think it's about the journey. It's about the journey that we're on and one day we're going to be like at the end of it and be like dang. That was really fun and exciting when it was happening and now it's just boring and I miss that.
Speaker 1:
So anyway, thank you, I'm here with you, I'm walking alongside of you on this journey of life, of business, of entrepreneurship, and if you do have anything specific that you would love to hear me chat through or talk about, feel free to shoot me a DM. If you enjoy this random journaling that I'm doing here on the podcast, let me know. And if there's something that you would love to To talk through, just shoot me a DM and I appreciate you. Have a great day.