End Of Year Reflections & Revelations [Vlog]
I started this year deep in burnout.
Three years of hustling, churning out endless content, live-launching and stacking up eye-watering screen time on social media had finally led to burnout.
I couldn’t force myself to do one more launch or social media post. It was scary. I was depressed and I needed to make a change.
I hit pause on my business and started offering my services to other business owners.
It wasn’t just me who was feeling disillusioned by the never-ending cycle of live-launching, and the hustle on social media.
Very quickly I became booked out, helping other business owners to set up the systems I should have set up in my own business. I was building sales funnels and creating evergreen marketing strategies that meant they could take a step back from relying on social media and launching - and create a more sustainable income.
This year has been amazing in so many ways, I’m so grateful for the changes and growth I’ve created in my business, and I’m grateful to my brilliant clients. And It’s been great to make more time for socialising, fun and adventure in my lifestyle too.
But it’s also been an incredibly overwhelming and stressful year in so many ways as well.
In this video I’m sharing my reflections on the last year, and my big lessons from 2022.
Watch my 2022 in review
This year I've really discovered my people pleasing side come out. I’ve experienced that struggle to say no, and struggled to manage my capacity. As a result, my freedom friendly lifestyle has taken a back seat.
I've done so many things this year lifestyle-wise that I haven't done in the last few years, which has been amazing. But in the day-to-day I just haven't been getting outdoors as much as I’d like. I feel like I haven’t been in touch with nature as much or experienced the shifting of the seasons this year which is one of my big values.
So, I’m making a video series to hold me accountable to making time for my freedom-friendly lifestyle, and overcoming toxic productivity.
2022 in review - challenges
It's been a big year in my business, and personally as well. So I’ve been looking forward to doing my end of year review.
I took some business pals through my Reflect, Review, Re-focus process on a retreat I went on a couple of weeks ago. It reminded of just how powerful this process was.
I settled down to do my end of year review, and there was one very obvious recurring theme that came out of it.
I feel like I knew this subconsciously before I did my end of year reflections, but the process really brought home the fact that my BIGGEST challenge this year has easily been people pleasing. That real fear of saying no. That real fear of letting people down.
I’ve put so much pressure on myself this year to do an exceptional job, and to not ‘let people down’ or ‘disappoint people’. Way more pressure than my clients have EVER put on me.
It’s that people pleasing that’s led to the overwhelm and stress I’ve experienced so much of this year.
Before 2023 arrives, I need to re-evaluate my time, my capacity, how many clients I want to work with at a time and what work I want to be doing with those clients to deliver my best work. And I need to communicate all of this and set those expectations with my clients before the new year.
It's really interesting to me that all of the struggles and challenges in 2022 really boil down to people pleasing.
One of my big goals for 2023 is going to be to work on my self-worth - because that’s where the people pleasing stems from. Believing that I need to please people to be worthy.
Boundaries always boil down to self-worth, and really believing that you're worthy of those limits you want to put on your time, ebergy and bandwidth.
2022 in review - wins
Obviously I've just jumped to the challenges. But there have also been so many wins to celebrate too.
I wrote a long, long list of my wins, and as I kept going through the Reflect, Review, Re-focus process I kept coming up with more and adding them to my list. In the end I had 21 really meaty wins to celebrate from last year.
It's been such an amazing year in so many ways, here’s a taster of some of my wins…
Having my best year financially and making my income with ease (AND without using social media, almost at all)!
Making new friends - in business and in my personal life
Shifting my business and finding new fulfilling work that fits my strengths
Working with brilliant clients who I’m so grateful to for being totally dreamy to work with
Taking time off in the summer and going on an adventure
Being kind to myself while I recovered from burnout
Systemising my business and templating as much as possible so it works efficiently
I'm really I'm really glad I took that time to sit down and reflect. It’s been really powerful to find clarity, use the lessons of the past 12-months to guide me forwards and get re-focussed for 2023.
If you want to do your own end of year review, I’ve created a mini course that takes you through the steps I followed to reflect on my year and set intentions for the year ahead. Click the banner below to find out more about my mini-course - Reflect, Review, Re-focus.
I'm excited for you to dig up your wins, lessons and uncover big aha moments that will help you guide you forwards.
Intention setting for the year ahead
I've been doing a lot of journaling and thinking about planning for next year.
There are some key themes that keep coming up, and funnily enough they are all connected around the theme of overcoming toxic productivity and people pleasing, to create more freedom in my life and work. The key themes that keep coming up are…
Nature, outdoors
The thing that just keeps coming up is nature, outdoors, freedom and adventure.
Getting more nature, seasonality, outdoorsiness back into my life, and focussing on creating my freedom-friendly lifestyle needs to be a priority in 2023.
I want to do more wild swimming, more wild camping and go on more adventures - all without feeling stressed or guilty about not working.
Income
This year I’ve had my best year financially, but it’s come at a cost to my time and mental health (because of the people pleasing, stress and overwhelm).
I’ve been so busy helping my clients set up more efficient, automated, passive, clever systems in their business that I haven’t had the time or energy to do this in my own business. So that’s a must for me in 2023.
Something that has never worked for me is setting money goals. So next year I’ll be focussing on the impact I’m creating for my clients, and the people who just read/ watch or listen to my content rather than the income goals.
People pleasing, toxic productivity
One of the big things that came up in my end of year review was toxic productivity. This year it’s all been work work work work work, and seeking validation through my work (hello red flag)!
When I’m working with clients I avoid saying no. I avoid what I perceive as conflict. I strive to keep everyone happy - at a cost to my own time, energy and head space.
2023 has got to be the year when I overcome toxic productivity and stop people pleasing. This is a deeply ingrained trauma response and it’s going to take a lot of self-work to unpick.
Which brings me on to…
PLANNING FOR THE YEAR AHEAD - INTENTIONS & LETTING GO
I used to be such a prolific planner. I used to love planning out every single detail, and that worked for me for quite a few years.
But since burning out at the end of last year and recovering from burnout throughout this year, goals just haven’t been working for me in the way that they used to.
Instead, not really having much of a plan and following my curiosity really helped me to have a lot of success last year.
So, this year I want to set loose intentions, rather than solid goals.
In this video, I'm settling in to do some planning for 2023. I always love this in-between week, between Christmas and New Year, to do a lot of planning and decluttering.
Join me for a planning sesh, new year dip in the sea and a fire-side chat as I share my intentions for the year ahead.
Watch my planning & intention setting vlog
a new approach to planning
In this video, I'm settling in to do some planning for 2023. I always love this in-between week, between Christmas and New Year, to do a lot of planning and decluttering.
I used to be such a prolific planner I used to love planning out every single detail and that worked for me for quite a few years. But since burning out at the end of 2021 and recovering from burnout throughout 2022, goals just aren't working for me in the way that they used to.
My 12-week plans that I always used to make just stop working for me. I guess because of the burnout, I just didn't have the motivation.
Even six months/ nine months into my burnout recovery, I would get that itch again to make a plan again, but having a plan just wasn't working so well for me.
Instead not really having much of a plan and being really fluid with how I was doing things, and just sort of following my curiosity really helped me to have a lot of success last year.
This year I want to set loose intentions rather than solid goals.
For my planning I like to use a big A3 Sketchbook. I always find my brain works best when I do something on paper first, when it comes to planning.
I start by mapping out my planning in my sketchbook and once it’s all making sense to me, I put a more detailed plan into my project management tool - ClickUp.
my plans & intentions for the year ahead
Ok, I've done my 2023 planning which sounds massive but I've kept it so loose this year.
I have this big picture goal and ultimately that is to have a freedom friendly business and a freedom-friendly lifestyle.
What that means is to have a business where I'm doing work that I absolutely love and it's set up in a way that it can run itself as much as physically possible. It needs to be set up in a way that never leads back to that burnout that I experienced at the beginning of this year.
For my planning, I started with my intentions for next year, which came out of my Reflect, Review, Refocus process, and then set them into more specific clear goals. Then I've made what I call a napkin plan, which is a rough breakdown of what Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 looks like.
Overall, I can group my intentions for the year ahead into three areas:
ONE: Freedom friendly lifestyle
More Adventures, more nature, more getting outdoors, more making time for all of the stuff that I want to do and not just working working.
Really overcoming that toxic productivity tendency that I have.
TWO: Boundaries & Self-worth!
Boundaries, working on my self-worth. All of this is going to help me create time for that lifestyle stuff, say no when I need to really be boundaried about what my capacity is with clients.
There's a lot of work around my self worth, this is what it all boils down to - really understanding that I'm worthy of those limits on my time and energy, and keeping some of that for myself.
THREE: Growing my business & income
Getting booked out with agency clients to build sales funnels and evergreen marketing strategy.
And to develop my suite of courses, MY OWN evergreen flow, my evergreen marketing strategy and making sure that I'm really strengthening how freedom-friendly my business is by creating these more passive income streams.
I say passive, butttt it’s clearly not passive because I would say that's the biggest goal that I have this year in terms of that's going to take the most work!
my marketing plans & intentions
A big part of my plan for this year is to continue finding easeful ways to do marketing in my business.
Marketing feels like a biggie for me at the moment because it was the marketing that really drove me to burnout. It was burnout from the constant churn of marketing content that I was creating, rather than the actual work I was doing, and so marketing feels like a big thing at the moment to get right because I don't just want to hop back on that treadmill of creating content that is going to just take me back into burnout.
So I've broken down my evergreen marketing strategy into these three sections.
First of all at the Discover section, (this is where people are discovering my brand) and looked at what channels are really lending themselves to that Discovery phase.
Then I've looked at the Nurture phase, and looked at what marketing channels are lending themselves to helping me nurture my audience.
And finally I've looked at the Convert bit where people become customers, and looked at the channels that really helped me with the conversion piece.
And then I looked at what the roles are for each of my marketing channels, and how often I'm going to plan to create that content for each one.
how I'm feeling about my plans for the next year
I feel good for having done my 2023 planning and I feel good about doing it really loosely and leaving it quite open because that's worked well for me this year.
It's been really interesting because I think a lot of my goals are lifestyle this year. My BIGGEST goal is lifestyle too, which is new for me because usually I am totally ob-sessed with my business and that's all I think about, it's all I do. Hence the burnout probably!
But this year I just really want to make this Freedom Friendly Lifestyle that I want to create, a reality.
I've got much more freedom than I used to have. I've got the freedom I dreamed about when I was in my corporate job, and now it's time to really take advantage of it and grow on that.
In terms of business this year one of my big goals is to make my business more Freedom Friendly as well and make sure that I am doing all of the things for myself that I do for my clients. Building sales funnels, making sure there's an evergreen flow that takes people from discovering my brand to working through my content getting on my mailing list and finding their way through to the most relevant product for them. And making my business efficient and streamlined.
So that is a big thing for me this year and just to continue templating everything and automating as much as possible because otherwise… burnout!
But rather than leave it there, I wanted to bring you on the journey with me as I moved into the new year…
NEW YEAR WOBBLES & FRESH ENERGY
It’s a new year! Hello 2023.
And with new year comes goals and intentions…. Annnnd then a whole load of overwhelm!
On one hand I’m coming into 2023 with fresh energy, feeling re-invigorated and excited for what lays ahead.
On the other hand the first month of this year has had some wobbles too.
Join me as I navigate a January of excitement, but also a few wobbles along the way!
Watch my New Year wobbles & Fresh Energy vlog
New Year - 2023
My New Year started with a trip to Cornwall.
Usually I’m a stay at home kinda girl but this year I took a trip to Cornwall with a friend and it was a really lovely way to mark the shift from one year to the next.
We did some sea swimming, ate lots of good food, hung out in lots of good pubs and some gentle walking - and that really is about it!
I've come into this New Year genuinely feeling excited about the year ahead. Which is a relief TBH because last year was totally different!
A year ago I was completely burned out. I couldn't motivate myself to do ANYTHING in my business and I didn't even want to think about doing any marketing, content creation, writing, podcasting or video or… ANYTHING.
I just didn't want to, and couldn’t force myself to do it!
Whereas this year I'm feeling really excited about doing all of those things again.
Other than feeling this fresh energy and following where that curiosity takes me I'm really not putting loads of pressure on myself this January. I'm easing gently into the new year and that's what what feels good.
Emerging from burnout
I think I might finally be emerging from burnout - PHEW!
A year ago I realized that I wasn't just depressed - I was burned out!
It took me quite a while to figure that out though. It was on a walk with a friend that I had the lightbulb moment. I was saying 'I just feel really down, I just have no motivation.’ And she said ‘are you sure you're not just burnt out”. And that was exactly the case .
I wasn't even burned out from the work I was doing. I was actually burned out from being stuck on the marketing content hamster wheel.
I was burned out from being ever-present on social media, from being stuck on a hamster wheel of creating content that only lasts 24 hours, from getting stuck in this launch cycle.
I’m now feeling like I'm actually ready and excited to get back to content creation and I’m really keen to follow the things that feel exciting to me this year, rather than thinking right - I've got to do the weekly podcast, I've got to do the weekly email.
I really want to follow the things that feel exciting to me and that I feel motivated to do. I feel excited to do more with video, more with my blog, and more with my email.
The jury is still out on social media. I'm still not excited to get back there. So I'm NOT going back there in a hurry.
With this motivation and enthusiasm for content creation again, I sat down to do a marketing content ideas session.
New Year Wobbles
I’m easing gently into the new year because the whole ‘new year, new me’ thing is just as exhausting, isn't it?
I mean, don't get me wrong. I've done my reflections and I've done my loose planning - but that’s it!
This January, I’m being really really kind to myself as I break into the new year because I think it's the only way to go to be honest!
New Year wobbles
I've been speaking to a lot of people, and I've definitely felt this myself, - the New Year freak out.
It happens when you get back into work and you're start to think - OMGGGG there's so much to do, I need to get on with all of my goals!
The other thing I've been really freaking out about is ‘I don't have enough clients!’ and then the next minute… ‘I have too many clients’.
I never seem to reach that perfect spot. It just flip-flops from ‘okay I need to get some more clients on board - let's reach out to those people that have contacted me…’ and as soon as I hear back from one or two people who want to book in I'm like ‘oh my god I've got too many clients, I'm overwhelmed’.
Ohhh New Year is just exhausting I think, isn't it?
Overcoming toxic productivity
I'm really trying to stick to my intention of getting outdoors more this year, and not get sucked into working all-the-bloody-time!
But something I’ve realised is… this vlog I started, which I started for fun, to give me accountability to go on more adventures and work less… kinda, well… became WORK.
As a toxic productivity pro I thought to myself - I could do this vlog-thing every month, every week!
But this last vlog felt waaaay too much like work. The spark had gone. So that’s it for me and vlogging for the time being. Perhaps I’ll do one at the end of this year, but for me, that’s me and the lifestyle vlogging over and out.
But I’ll be sharing my business-focussed videos over on YouTube so make sure you’re subscribed to my YouTube channel to catch those.
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