I am officially registering to run the St. Louis Rock and Roll Half Marathon.  It will no longer be me wanting to run a half marathon but me committing myself and my money to run a half-marathon.  In addition to blogging about this, I am going to actually post it on Facebook and tell all my friends, family (and those people on my Friends list who I am not quite sure how I know) that I am going to run a half marathon. Wow, that makes it real!!

Now understand, I have the option of waiting to register until I am closer to the race date to see if I can really do this.  I can justify waiting to make the commitment — I have never run 13.1 miles!   I don’t know for sure if I can do this so maybe I should wait.  Trust me, if there was a medal for procrastination, fear and excuse making, I would win GOLD!

But something changes when I actually make the commitment official.  Something changes when I pay the registration fee.  Something REALLY changes when I make the commitment public.

When we originally started photographing 360 tours, we both had full time jobs and virtual tour photography looked like a great source of additional income.  Greg was the Assistant Manager of Recruiting for the 2010 Census.  For the first time since getting his degree in Commercial Photography, he had a job doing something other than working as a professional photographer.  I was working as Assistant Director of Admissions at a therapeutic boarding school.  We had a comfortable income with paychecks that came in every two weeks.

Our virtual tour business was a priority for us but honestly not our top priority.  In addition to working full time, we were remodeling a house and planning our wedding.  We started the virtual tour business with the ultimate plan of having it eventually be Greg’s full time job but for a year and a half, we had other things that got in the way.  One of those things was my fear that we would not generate enough income doing residential real estate virtual tours.  Because we had the safety net of those regular paychecks, we didn’t have to make our virtual tour business our top priority.

All that changed quickly when the Census wrapped up and Greg’s job ended.  Shortly after that the house remodel was finished, we got married at the house and then moved into a small apartment.  A month later, the school where I was working was no longer able to make payroll.  Suddenly our virtual tour business moved up the priority list very quickly and we were forced to make a commitment.

EVERYTHING CHANGED when we made that commitment.  Hotel photography was a great IDEA when we bought the equipment for our virtual tour business a year and a half earlier but Vision Quest Virtual Tours became REAL the day I quit my job and took that leap of faith with no safety net or Plan B.  Within two weeks, our virtual tour sales had replaced both of our full time salaries and there has not been a month since that our income has not been enough to live comfortably.  We just hit an income milestone that would have seemed impossible when we first started.

I hate to think of all that we would have missed if I had allowed fear, procrastination, a desire for comfort and excuses get in the way of our successful virtual tour business.  The same principle applies whether it is starting a new business or running an endurance event like a half marathon or marathon.  There is a big difference between an idea and a commitment so COMMIT and just watch how far you can go!