2019 New Years Goals

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January 4, 2019

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When you fall in love, the world feels new. It's as if everything is happening for the first time. That's why we love photographing weddings. Each wedding has us falling in love over and over again—it reminds us that there is wonder and mystery in this shared life we all build together. The most aspirational thing to us is rekindling that initial spark of falling in love. We want to give you that experience with your wedding photos, perfectly captured and forever remembered. It's here, in our journal, we celebrate your love story so all can enjoy it.

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Welcome, 2019 everyone!  We hope you are as pumped about the new year as we are.  There are so many things to look forward to and before we take a look at our 2019 New Years goals, we thought it best to first see how we did with our 2018 goals.  Without going into too much detail our 2018 goals were to get married, pay off our credit card debt, and grow Leidy and Josh Photography.  We did all of this (We even went to Paris!) and growing the business by a measure that far exceeded our expectations.  We are so satisfied with 2018 and are extremely optimistic about what we can accomplish in 2019 and beyond.  With that said, here are our 2019 New Years goals.

2019 Photography Goals

Honestly, we could write our longest blog post yet on just our photography goals.  There are so many new ventures and opportunities to explore we get giddy with excitement just thinking about it.  We, of course, have our financial goals and a whole host of metrics we aim to improve on and we really don’t want to bore you with the numbers.  Instead, we will share a few of our projects under development for the 2019 year.

1. Giving Back

Giving back is something the Leidy and I have talked about before we even were married.  Those of you who know us know that we truly care about putting other people first (see Why We Arrive An Hour Early For Weddings) and giving back is one of our core values.  So developing a formal charitable donation partnership for Leidy and Josh Photography was one of our earliest goals for the business.  In 2018 we partnered with WAR (Women At Risk) in Wyoming, Michigan.  While we do not talk much about it, Leidy and Josh Photography donates a portion of every profit made to Women At Risk International.  But we never intended on stopping there.  In 2019 we would like to partner with Wish Upon A Wedding and develop our own donation program.  In 2019 we plan to gift one wedding every year anonymously.  Nobody but the bride and groom would know about the charitable donation to them.

2. New Style Guides

Currently, the style guides are not in a bad place but they are about to get a complete overhaul for the 2019 wedding season.  Both the engagement and portrait style guides will be getting a whole new look and new images before the next round of printing.  These guides already provide tips on how to get the most of a  portrait session with us and in 2019 will feature some new additions.

3. New Website Features

In 2018 our website really grew in form but in 2019 it will now improve in function.  Two new features that will be added to the website in 2019 include wedding album customization/ordering and an interactive wedding day timeline.  The wedding album ordering feature will allow for our brides who opted for a wedding album to conveniently customize their own wedding album from the comfort of their couch then order it with a click of a button.  The interactive wedding day timeline will allow for anyone planning a wedding to choose the features of their wedding day and get a simple timeline.  This feature will be accessible to anyone.  We understand that planning a wedding can be challenging and we believe that this will help process easier.

4. Preferred Vendor Guide

We have a few vendors here and a few there.  Putting them all together in a formal guide with contact information will make everyone’s life better including our own!  Over the next year, we will touch base with our preferred vendors and update our guide.  We see this guide not in printed form but a PDF document that can be shared over email with brides and grooms across all of West Michigan.

2019 Personal Goals

1. Eat Less  Processed Meat

We like to read (see goal number 4) and one of the books we read was The Truth About Cancer by Ty Bollinger.  While there were many points to this book that we do not entirely agree with there was one that struck a cord.  There are many things we come in contact with on a daily basis that are known carcinogens.  Processed meat is one of those things and while we know this we consume processed meat almost daily.  As a former bodybuilder meal preparation for years been centered around the choice of meat.  So for 2019, we have decided to just eat less.  We accomplish this by not preparing meat when cooking at home.  Going out to weddings and social gatherings we will still eat meat.  But when at home we are making meals plant-based.

2. Sleep 8 Hours Every Night

Bill Clinton once said that every mistake he has ever made can be attributed to sleep deprivation.  A good night’s rest spills over into so many areas of life.  From your ability to learn, to mood, to energy, to even cancer prevention.  It is a fundamental pillar of health and there is really no excuse not to sleep for at least 8 hours.  Yes, there will be circumstances where sleeping than then 8 hours is not possible but these days are the exception and not the norm.  Since we never fall asleep immediately, to achieve this goal of 8 hours is to be in bed for 9 hours giving us plenty of time to relax and fall asleep.

3. Less But Better

One of the many books we read in 2018 was Essentialism by Greg Mckeown.  It easily made it to our top 5 list of must-read books.  There are so many nuggets of wisdom in that book that it will be one that we reread at least once per year.  One of the main concepts of the book is to find ways to spend your time and money effectively so you have more of both.  For us, this developed into how we want to approach 2019.  Spending less time on things we don’t need to be doing so we have more time doing the things we love.  Spending less money on the things we don’t need so we have more money for the things we love.  We have really achieved this financially by cutting out things like fast food for lunch and being more strategic with how we spend our money throughout the week.  By saving we will have more money for our house one day and our next vacation.

4. Read More Books

Leidy never counts and Josh read over 42 business books in 2018 exceeding his personal goal for 40 books.  Careers in medicine have taught us the importance of continuing education and we have always believed that “readers are leaders”.  We sometimes wish we had a way to quantify the time we spend studying.  In 2018 Leidy and I have both completed several expensive photography courses and an untold number of podcasts.  We plan to continue this practice into 2019 and read 50 new business books.

Bonus Secret Goal

1. Convince Leidy To Buy Josh A French Bulldog

Because just one dog is never enough.  And they look super cute in bow ties and we all know how Josh feels about bow ties. =)

2019 New Years Goals

We Hope To Inspire You

To ambitious?  Maybe!  But we are firm believers in shooting for goals just out of your reach and getting as far as you can.  And then setting new goals just out of reach.

We hope this post inspires you with your own goal.  Remember you don’t have to wait until the New Year before setting new goals.  Regardless of when you set your goals they have to be specific and actionable.  Setting a goal for “losing weight” or “learn Spanish” are very great goals, but if there is no way to measure the progress you are far less likely to stick with your goal.  A goal of “lose 15 pounds by March” or “study Spanish for 30 minutes per day” is much more objective which makes progress easier to track.  Good luck with your new year goals in 2019 and beyond!

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