This week we had a Zoom meeting with a new Scandal (if you are new here, “Scandal” is the name we give to our clients and people in our community 🤗) and she inspired us with today’s blog topic.
She reached out in January asking for some information about our boudoir shoots because she wanted to celebrate herself with an outdoor session. We loved her idea so much that we decided to followed up when she stopped corresponding with us. She was so happy we didn’t give up because it was the extra push she needed to do her shoot as she had talked herself out of doing it.
Sharing this information with us was very courageous, not everyone can do it, and it gave us the opportunity to write about this topic as it is a quite common situation.
What does it mean to talk ourselves out of something?
Talking ourselves out of something refers to the act of persuading oneself not to pursue a certain course of action, decision, or opportunity. This internal dialogue often involves rationalizing reasons why it may not be the right time, not be achievable, not be worth the effort nor the money.
It can come from different reasons such as fear of failure, self-doubts, external pressure, or simply a lack of confidence.
Sounds too familiar? Of course it does! We can all relate to that choice of listening to fear and giving up instead of going after something we want. It is a defence mechanism that we all did at some point in our life!
Is it a toxic trait?
Of course not! It is a way of protecting yourself from potential arm, either it is physical or mental.
But it is holding you back from experiencing Life! By engaging in these self-talks, living a too comfortable life, and not taking any risk, you are missing out on exploring new possibilities and adventures. Which makes personal growth very difficult to achieve, and you might end up having regrets about all the things you didn’t do.
Remember that no one can live your life but you!
Boudoir photography put people outside their comfort zone
We see it with some of our clients who want so badly to do a boudoir shoot to feel empowered, to regain confidence, or reclaim their image that has been destroyed in the past. But they feel so nervous, or afraid, about showing their uncovered body that they keep pushing the experience back, or they decide to not do it anymore. And that makes us sad for them because we know that a boudoir shoot would help them to get to that level of self-love they desire.
Don’t get us wrong, anyone has the right to change their mind about anything. But when we meet someone who has this craving of trying boudoir photography, it is part of our job to reassure them and motivate them to move away from that internal fear and just go for it.
You might think that we are being bias because we are boudoir photographers, but it is more than that. We are strong believers that boudoir photography is a therapeutic tool, that can help anyone with body and confidence issues. We have experienced it ourselves, and witnessed it through all the clients we had those past 7 years.
So if you want to give it a try, you have our support, do it! Even better, do a shoot with us 🥰.
How to shut down these annoying little voices?
Recognizing when you are talking yourself out of something is primordial to challenge these self-imposed limitations, embrace new possibilities, and finally do all the things that scare you.
1. RECOGNIZING THE SIGNS
The first step is learning to differentiate talking yourself out of something you really want to accomplish from changing your mind about something you don’t want to do anymore. You might be thinking: “aren’t those the same? You end up not doing it anyway!”. Sure they sound similar, but those two points are very different and create different results.
The first one is based on fear. You give up or keep pushing it back not because you don’t want to do it anymore but because you are afraid of something (maybe you think you will be judged by others, or that it will change your life in a way that you don’t feel ready for… there is always fear behind those little voices that tell you not to do something). As mentioned before, not going after what your soul craves will create regrets because it was meaningful to you.
It is something you feel deep in your bones and it usually keeps coming back even though you tell yourself otherwise.
The second one is only a change of mind. Yes, it would have been fun to do it, but since it is not something that you need in order to feel fulfill and grow, not doing isn’t going to change anything in your life.
They usually manifest as ideas or thoughts like: “maybe I could do this” or “it would be fun to try that!”. But they don’t last long, and you just forget about them.
Once you have recognized if it is something you want to keep pursuing, it is time to do a little bit more work on yourself.
2. LET’S STOP MAKING EXCUSES
The second step is to pay attention to this universal behaviour we all have: finding excuses! Either we do it to cancel plans, to not do the work we are supposed to do, to not show up somewhere, or to not go after something we wish for, having excuses is so common that we do it without even realizing we are.
And yes, some are very valid excuses, but most of the time we just don’t want to push ourselves too much because we are very comfortable in the moment.
There are many excuses out there, but we want to talk about the 3 most common ones (otherwise this blog will become a novel 😅). Also, we are using boudoir photography to make our points clearer, obviously they apply to anything in life:
Lack of skill & confidence: this has to be first on our list because it is something 90% of our clients feel nervous about when they want to book their boudoir shoot. It is either because they never posed in their life and feel like they will be ridiculous. Or they don’t like their body and think they will look ridiculous. But most of the time, it is a mix of both: they are afraid of being ridiculous because they believe they are not good enough to try boudoir photography.
The truth: yes, you are photogenic! Yes, you are beautiful! And yes, you deserve photographs of yourself to show you how badass you are.
Money: Raise your hand if you have money blocks that stop you from moving forward in life 👋.
Little disclaimer: we are referring to people who have the savings for this type of experiences, or treat themselves with more high-end services or products. We are aware that not everyone can afford a boudoir shoot.
But for those who can, money is a common excuse people use when it comes to a boudoir session. They have the money set aside specifically for their shoot, yet they overthink the experience and limit themselves on the number of pictures they would buy even though they haven’t done their photoshoot yet. When you dig deeper, you realize money isn’t the issue. The main problem is that they deeply believe they don’t deserve to treat themselves with such a transformative experience, nor invest the money on themselves.
The truth: treat yourself like royalty, you freaking deserve it! Also, if it is hard for you to imagine spending money of a boudoir experience, remember that you don’t have to pay everything at once, and we offer payment plans.
Time: “I can’t, I am too busy!”. That is true, we all have stuff to do. But time is all we have on this planet, and you can make time for the things that are important to you. So it isn’t a question of time, it is about choices and moving your schedule around. We see it often with women, especially moms. They dream of doing a shoot, but they keep pushing that thought back because of not having the time. What we hear (based on testimonials we gathered from all those years working with women who have kids) is that they don’t dare to take the me-time they deserve because they have a family to take care of. They feel like they don’t deserve to put themselves first by fear of being selfish.
The truth: you have the right, like anyone else, to pause your busy life for a few hours and focus on you for once!
When you think about it, it is ridiculous to stop ourselves from going after the things we want in life because of self-limitations. If we were cartoon characters, it would be the same as dropping a rock in front of ourselves and not moving because of this obstacle we just made (even though we could just circumvent it, or jump over it, to keep moving forward)!
Once you understand what is the real reason behind the excuse you use, you can put back things into perspective and reassure yourself to go for it. Give yourself a good pep talk, you should be ready for the next step!
3. DON’T OVERTHINK IT
The final step is pretty straightforward: just DO IT without thinking too much about it. Overthinking is a buzz killer, trust me I am guilty of that! And such is over-planning, by the way. Wanting to feel prepared and ready is very important of course, but it can become a form of procrastination when you focus too much on it instead of doing the work.
You want to do a boudoir shoot but your inner negative voices are bullying you? Then you now know what to do: stop overthinking and book your session. You will have plenty of time to get yourself ready before your shoot, but at least you took that first step!
4. EXTRA TIP: LOOK FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
The chances to accomplish things are much higher when you tell other people about what you’re trying to do. Even just sharing your ideas, or dreams, out loud to someone can help to give you the push you need to get started on it.
Go with someone supportive and open-minded, a loved one who will lift you up! Don’t share it with someone who might crush your idea. If you are already doubting yourself, the last thing you need is another person doubting you!