Happy Wednesday!  It’s officially hump day!  I love Wednesdays!  Its finally the middle of the week and I love my Day 2 schedule!

In any case it’s time I tell you about my time with Ashley of V.A. Photography! This girl is amazing!  I got to sit down with her for hours and talk about dreams and logistics.  I asked her about packaging and quality of work, marketing and more!  It was such a relief to ask the questions I’ve needed answers to in order to put my mind at ease.  I’ve been thinking about this dream for so long and am not sure when I became scared of it.  Sitting down with Ashley made me realize that I can do this, even if only with small steps at a time.  She is so positive and willing to give so much.  I feel lucky to be blessed with so many supportive people in my life who can dream my dreams and push me to be better each day.  I get to see this at school every day when I work with my colleagues and last Sunday when I met with Ashley I felt like I had met a new cheerleader.  Not only did she help me realize some practical solutions and gave me great ideas moving forward but she also gave me the courage to bring my dream to a reality.

I’m not sure when we become scared of our dreams.  When we are little we feel fearless as though we can do anything, be anything, and we dream impractically.  I remember wanting to be a tap dancer, an astronaut (who is afraid of heights and gets motion sickness…), the next Julia Roberts, a photographer,  an architect, a teacher and so much more.  Part of me feels like the world should be like it was when we were little, full of options and no fear but I’ve come to realize there are small blessings in fear.  I’m a little afraid of this dream because I know how much it would mean to me.

One of my cooperating teachers after spending time with me learned that I’m the type of person who so passionately loves my dreams that the thought of failure will hold me back.  When my placement was done he framed a quotation for me that states “Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear.”  This will always be one of my favorite quotes.  To me it means, your dreams are bigger then the fear that could hold you back.  You have to put the fear aside and know that it is there because this is important to you.  Where would I be if I had chased myself away from the classroom out of fear of the first day of school?   If I had let the fear of my first year, my first real lesson, the fear of failure keep me from doing something I love.  

Well now I’m applying this dreamer’s mentality to photography.  My time wish Ashley made me realize that I wanted to try this more than I wanted to sit and hope for it.  She gave me the confidence to publish the Facebook Page and the website.  I was so nervous but can’t begin to express how blessed I feel to already have 142 likes, some of which are from people that I have not personally met (if you’re reading this, hi! I’m Alex, nice to digitally meet you :))  If you are seriously considering having a coaching session with Ashley, take it from me and just go for it!  It will be worth it!  

Here are a few pictures from our first session together (that got rained out) and a sneak peak from this past weekend.  To see more make sure to check out her blog 🙂