I often get asked the question “If I take a wedding planner course will I be able to make a living?” and the other popular one is “Will I get clients if I take a wedding planning course?“
There’s no simple answer to this question.
Of course, to be successful in any industry or business you need to undertake the relevant training and education. Just as you would if you wanted to be a hairdresser, lawyer or anything else.
You also need to continually invest in ongoing education so you can upskill and get new knowledge.
But will all this education guarantee you a successful business or a job at the end of it? Probably not.
I can almost hear you all gasping in shock and horror at what I’ve just said. But before you spit your dummy out just hear me out.
As you may or may not know, my daughter Summer, was a competitive figure skater until a couple of years ago. She represented Great Britain and spent many years getting to a competitive level.
Six mornings out of seven I found myself shivering my backside off at a freezing cold ice rink. And that was just the start of it.
By the time she was 11 years old she already knew what she wanted to do when she is older. There was no question in her mind that she was going to become the next Olympic Champion in ladies figure skating.
What has this got to do with being a successful wedding planner?
Everything!Because at 11 years old my daughter understood that it didn’t matter how many lessons she had with her coach. Or how many times she showed up at the rink and how many hours she practised.
The key to success was really wanting it and being prepared to never give up no matter how hard it got.
She was prepared to give up play dates with her friends in order go to bed early so she could get up for training the next morning.
She didn’t care how much it hurt each time she fell out of a jump she got back up and tried again.It was grit, determination and plain hard work that got her to international level. And of course there was a dash of natural talent too.
When I watched my daughter skate I couldn’t help but admire her. What a role model she was for anyone aspiring to be something in their life.
Talent on its own won’t get you anywhere.
You can be the most creative person alive, but if you aren’t willing to put in the hard graft you won’t succeed.
If you’re not prepared to knock on a few doors, make some phone calls every day and put yourself out there, how can you expect to win?
It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter that you can create the most gorgeous table centrepiece if you aren’t willing to knock on a few virtual doors.
You can be the most efficient wedding planner in your area but if you aren’t prepared to shout about what you do then what’s the point?The moral of this story is that we can all learn from my daughter – even me.
If she, at the age of 11, was prepared to work hard and fight for what she wanted then we should take a leaf out of her book. She didn’t expect it to just fall into her lap she knew she had to work for it.
She also knew that to reach success she had to endure the failures. And there were many of them. But never did she let those failures dictate her future. She let those failures be the motivation to never give up because next time she’d succeed. So the next time you think about giving up remember Summer. if she can do it so can you. This blog post I wrote last year on mindset may help you too – The Mindset of a Successful Business
