Oh what a year 2016 was, but it is out with the old and in with the new! I am welcoming 2017 with wide open arms. While it is not the first day of the New Year, it is the first Monday of the year, so I am making today the day of new goals, big dreams and a year of balance. Balance. I have chosen this word as my word for 2017. I have never chosen a word of the year. In fact, when I first saw people posting about their future words of the year, I was hesitant. How do you choose just ONE word to dedicate 365 days to? A lot of thought went into this and I have decided that I am going to live intentionally and the word balance will lead me to this.

2016 was a very big year for me/us (because Josh is included). We welcomed Roxie, our Vizsla puppy, into our family. On September 17th, we got married! We traveled to many places, including our most recent trip to Hawaii for our honeymoon. I ran two profitable businesses, however they took up all of my time, a lot of time sacrificing being present. Hawaii was the first time I fully unplugged and it made our trip about just us. It was the best trip we have ever been on. The social media world can wait and it did. Taking these 12 days off made me realize that my life is quite unbalanced and I need to create balance, not try to find it.

So in 2017 I am focusing on my health and wellness, my marriage and family and investing more of my time into a few things instead of all the things. I have to tell you that change is scary and announcing this makes me extremely anxious (so I am applying all the stress-away from Young Living), but you only have one life so here we go. On the quest for balance, I am scaling back my photography business. While photography is still one of my passions and I will never let go of it completely, I cannot continue running my business like I have in the past.

I want weekends with my family, being present instead of behind my computer, editing all night. While I typically am drowning in editing during the busy season, I want this year and this Fall to be different. I hope to invest my time into full sessions instead of rushing through shorter sessions with time constraints to pack everyone in.  Lastly, I would love to be valued for my work instead of being valued for discounted prices.

So…I will no longer be offering mini sessions. I will also be scaling back and only offering a limited number of full sessions, so I recommend booking now! This decision did not come easy. However, setting these guidelines will help me balance my life. It will also make more time for my essential oil business, which continues to flourish. I didn’t fully anticipate my success with Young Living and the fact that my team has 3,056 people and is growing daily. But I am so grateful for it.

To my past clients, thank you for letting me document your family. I hope that you will continue to invest in me even through these changes. I know in my heart that scaling back on Dana Rose Lee Photography is the right decision in this season of life.

So 2017, I am coming for ya, so get ready! Today is the second “blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one” – Brad Paisley.