Every job has stressors that we must learn to cope with. For many professional photographers, photography starts as a hobby and a way to relieve stress. When people decide to make that hobby a business, that’s where the stress can set in quickly. From difficult clients, long hours, learning how to run a business, busy schedules and beyond, you are bound to run into some stressful situations and experience work stress even while doing what you love.

Too much stress can become a killer. It has many consequences when we don’t learn to manage it appropriately and take action early. Mental health challenges, reduced productivity, developing poor habits and so much more occur when we let stress build up and take over.

Learning to cope with the daily and long term stresses of running your photography business is important to help avoid burnout, keep up your drive for doing what you love and financially support yourself or your family.

Here are some quick tips to help you prevent and relieve some stress:

Get organized

Having a good system in place to keep you and your business organized is one great way to help prevent or reduce stress. It may be a little more work on the front end, but getting organized and finding ways to streamline your business practices will help you reduce stress, have more time to focus on doing what you love, or even just create some time for yourself.

Ditch the phone and social media

Setting boundaries during the week and weekend is important when it comes to answering your phone, checking social media, and responding to clients. Set clear boundaries with business hours. Schedule yourself some time to go offline and take a social media break.

Treat yourself

Self care is important for everyone. You’re spending a lot of time and energy serving others and meeting your clients’ needs. Whether it’s taking a nap, having a night out with the friends, or getting a massage. Treat yourself.

Find what works for you

There are so many different ways to relieve stress. Many of these are things you can do easily or find little breaks in your daily routine to do. Here are some other great ideas:

Location scouting
Car drive with music
Knitting
Exercise
Crafting
Meditation
Reading
Writing

Tell us your favorite ways to manage stress in the comments!

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