Hey there, wellness entrepreneur. Welcome back. Today, as promised, I’m getting into my end of year review so you can learn from me, shorten your learning curve, also you can help more create some more time freedom in your schedule, create a bigger impact, a legacy to leave behind, have the wellness business of your dreams, and you can shorten your learning curve by learning from my mistakes and understanding what I’m going to do differently and how I come up with this analyzation as well.
So in this blog, we’ll get into my end of year review, we’ll go over the importance of doing an end of year review for yourself, how to do it, what happens when you don’t do an end of year review, also you can be prepared and have 2025 be your best year.
Importance of Proper Evaluation and Review
So when you take time to do a proper evaluation, you get clarity on what’s actually working in your business. So if you have a tight week, if life circumstances happen, which they will for next year, we have to keep the doors of our business open. So not that we’re big corporate businesses like Target, but if you think how any business that is big size has started, it’s always by consistency.
So one of the ways to stay consistent in your business and keep the doors open, build trust with your audience so they know that you are reliable, when they pay you, they’re going to get certain results or they can budget and plan.
I have people that budget and plan to work with me six months, a year, or sometimes just three months ahead of time. But when they know that you’re going to be there ready to serve you when they’re ready, then they look forward to working with you and that trust is built and they actually plan for it.
But what can throw you off that consistency is when life circumstance happens, which they will, and you don’t have a plan of your bare minimums, which you’ve heard me mention in previous blogs on things that you know that work in your business that keeps your business afloat and keeps clients coming in the door and systems in place that allow you to serve your client clients.
So you don’t know what’s working with all that to develop those systems if you’re not evaluating what is truly working in your business and what’s bringing in clients and why are clients choosing to stay with you and how you can get them results and even try to take yourself out of the equation a little bit more.
And when you do an audit of your business of noticing what’s working, where you’re spending your time or where you did spend your time in 2024 and what was the best use of your time and what didn’t work and you have data objective measurements to support all that, then you’ll have clearer confidence in your decision making for 2025.
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So if you have an hour or a tight schedule where you really need to get things done because you want to have a busier client roster, you know exactly what to focus on, where to spend your time, and where to spend your resources. So if you are gaining more profit, if you are getting more clients, you’ll know what to take home, what you want to invest back into the business when you notice and evaluate where your weak links are or the gaps in education you have to get you to that next level, then you’ll spend your money more wisely because you’ll be investing in actual programs and coaches that can help you to get to that next level because they’re fulfilling a need that you have, a gap in your knowledge that you need to get you to that next level.
You’re not just spending money in hopes that it’ll work, you’re spending it very intentionally. An evaluation will also force you to take a bird’s eye view of your business for both last year and for 2024 and a bird’s eye view at what you hope to accomplish for 2025.
So you can actually map it out tentatively, see what launches you might want to do, when you might want to take vacations, in an ideal world, right? It always changes when we get into it. Your quarter four, when you’re planning your quarter four at the end of quarter four of 2024, the quarter four of 2025 might look differently how it actually plans out or reality what actually happens in the end, but you can still strive for what you hope to achieve.
If you don’t have that big picture goal or a loose tentative plan from the beginning, then it’s just a lot of guessing and hoping and going through launches willy-nilly or changing offers, changing plans because you didn’t have a road map, you didn’t have a path or a system to follow from the very beginning. And that can lead to a lot of lost time and energy which can feel really frustrating in your business.
And another benefit which is huge for evaluation is the self-awareness. Self-awareness about you as a CEO, where your mindset blocks are, where your, again, knowledge limitations are, where you get distracted, and your business awareness. You can have a deeper connection to your business. You won’t take things personally. You’ll be able to greater separate you and your business and you can evaluate your business from a CEO perspective. And all of this knowledge is such power, such power.
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Mistakes I see When Entrepreneurs Try to Review Their Business
Here are some mistakes that I see happening when people, entrepreneurs are trying to review their business. They’re just rushing through the end of the year reviews or skipping them entirely thinking that they don’t have the time. That is a big mistake because this review will save you so much time and all that knowledge that I mentioned for next year. So please, please, please don’t skip it.
Or when you’re reviewing your end of the year, you get lost in comparing numbers without examining the whole picture. So maybe you start to review your numbers and you’re getting really frustrated because you didn’t hit the goals and your entrepreneur friend actually blew their goals out of the water. So now you’re feeling defeated and you’re wondering if entrepreneurship is right for you. Again, that’s taking it personally and not reviewing your end of year, reviewing your year from where you started and all the gains and benefits and wins that you had this year because everyone starts their business from different places.
So you need to examine the whole picture of what’s happening for you and the wins that you actually achieved along with the numbers that you didn’t hit, that you hope to hit. And that’s another mistake is focusing solely on what went wrong instead of learning from both successes and failures.
Another mistake people make when they’re planning for the new year is just starting to plan for the new year. And because maybe they did a 2024 review quickly, they haven’t really fully processed all of the year’s lessons. So they don’t plan in troubleshooting or problem solving for those lessons or what they would do differently for those lessons. So the mistake with that is they just end up repeating a similar year. You know that entrepreneurial groundhog saying that you are 20 years in business, but it’s the same 20 years. Yeah, we don’t want to end up that way.
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Evaluating Specific Areas in Your Business
And let me tell you, even if you feel overwhelmed with all the areas of your business to evaluate, it’s better to just start. Just start evaluating on the most important areas.
So for example, you can evaluate your marketing plan, you can evaluate how selling went for you, consultations, doing a time audit, how you felt day-to-day in your business, were you home with family as much as you wanted to be? How was your energy and how was social media? Those are some main areas. And of course, revenue, that’s always a key metric. But those are the main areas to evaluate.
If you want or have more time, you can get into the deeper areas of evaluation, such as client statistics, really getting into how your client results were. I spent a lot of time doing this and I really actually am excited about.
One of the wins is I updated my workbooks right here at the end of the year and I’m excited to get out new workbooks next year. And right in the beginning of my structure and systems workbook, I have two processes, two guidelines that are step by step to walk people through the proven system to generate more clients and hit six figure plus while working less hours. And it’s a roadmap through all the portal and all the deliverables that I provide so they can stay on track.
You can also assess your client retention rates and program completion rates. If you have a six-month program like I do, or a package of 12 sessions, things like that, are people actually completing what you’re recommending?
If you have a team, you can evaluate your team. Has your VA performed the way you would hope? If you have an in-person team, have they been reviewing their own KPIs and metrics? How are team meetings going? How is the culture of your community?
You can dive deeper into your social media beyond just, “Okay, my Instagram grew by such and such followers. I have this much visibility now. I started off posting once a week and now I’m posting two to three times a week.” You can actually get more thorough in your content evaluation, determining if it’s actually converting more. You can go into your stories metrics and see if people are actually engaging with you from your stories.
DMing, are you DMing more? You can evaluate how you feel when you are posting. Maybe you started the year feeling very vulnerable or having thoughts of imposter syndrome when going to post and now you feel confident. Or maybe you didn’t know who you were talking to or what to say when you started posting on Instagram and now you feel confident in what to say. All of this is great insight. Whether it feels positive or negative, it’s all knowledge.
You can also evaluate your systems. What works smoothly? Where were their bottlenecks? Maybe people were reaching out to book a consult but you were having trouble actually booking consults. Or maybe a bottleneck was you actually got the consults book but then you were getting a lot of no’s or you were having trouble onboarding people. Or people were reaching out asking for free opt-ins but you never got that free opt-in created. Where were things uncompleted that you had wanted to complete in your systems? What processes need more refinement? What technology served you well? Have you been utilizing AI as much as you could?
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Remember, a comprehensive year-end evaluation isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about understanding your journey of 2024, celebrating your wins, and learning from all your challenges. Growth really comes from both those successes and the challenges because when you look into the challenges, when you lean into feeling whatever discomfort that may come up, you’re developing the capacity, the self-concept of an entrepreneur that can handle anything. And when you have that, then you’ll be more likely to take bigger risks, try new things, be bold, dare to take up space, show up bigger.
Time It Takes For Your Year-end Review
So with this year-end review, you could take two to three hours to do that. For me, that seems really daunting and overwhelming and it is hard to find that block of time. With all the bare minimums that I want to do like recording and scheduling out extra podcasts and e-mails and social media posts because I am going out of town at the end of the year, that just seemed like a lot. So I was reasonable with myself and I said, “Okay, if I can take 20 to 30 minutes to do this, then that’ll work.”
And I also brought my year-end reviews to two coaching calls, which helped a lot because they were planned calls, so knew I was going to show up to the session and I got the work done. So I sent out to do 20 to 30 minutes of the work on my own, but when I actually got into it, I think it went over a little bit more than 30 minutes, but I think it wrapped it up within 45 minutes, which is definitely doable. If you can’t find 30 minutes in your week to help you save hours of time in 2025, then that’s what you really need to examine.
What are the coming up there for yourself? And then I brought it to two coaching calls. One was a shorter coaching call, about 20 minutes, and then the other was a full hour. So probably in total, I spent 90 minutes on my year-end review, which was plenty of time. If you can’t find 90 minutes, just do the 20 to 30 minutes. You will get so much insight from it. I promise.
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My 2024 Review: My Wins and What Worked
Okay, so here’s what came out of my review. I’ll start with my wins and what worked.
I did experience my best year in business. I’ve made the most revenue yet upon recording this, and I still have most of December left. I worked with more clients than ever before. I’ve gained thousands of new Instagram followers.
I more than doubled, I think maybe even tripled or quadrupled. I actually haven’t gotten into the metrics there, but my visibility has grown a lot. I think it grew from like 12,000 and 13,000 views a month to sometimes 70,000 views a month. So I don’t know what that breaks down to, but it’s good for me. I’m happy about that. Definitely celebrating it. And here’s the best part. I’ve converted a lot of, not a lot compared to that number, but a lot for me in terms of my schedule and my revenue and the amount of clients that I worked with.
I definitely converted a good deal into clients, paying clients and just wonderful connections I’ve made on Instagram in different ways, which I’ve loved. I feel like I have a thriving client community. I’ve got to watch them work together in group formats and a couple different ways this year. I feel like more of a community on Instagram and Facebook as well.
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I loved watching my clients experience so many wins, such as really decreasing their own work time, implementing systems in their business to help them be more efficient and less overwhelmed and less stressed. I’ve watched revenues double, triple, quadruple, profits really increase with that time saved, that energy saved. I’ve helped a lot of brick and mortar businesses launch online programs for the first time and do it in a very simple and doable way. I’ve helped new businesses go from one or two clients to fully booked in a few months.
I’ve helped clients evaluate their numbers for the first time and be pleasantly surprised upon how much they’re actually making and then implement systems in place.
I’ve helped clients simplify their offers and feel really confident and excited about it and go out there and sign clients right away.
I’ve had clients, many clients. This is what really lights me up because I used to be a burnout teacher myself teaching tons of yoga classes and workshops and trainings. I’ve had many practitioners simplify their schedule and reduce classes that weren’t lighting them up or bringing clients and focus on those classes that do light them up and bring in clients and then implement ways to sell without selling when they’re showing up to a yoga class, a mobility class, a semantics class, a cooking class and actually get clients on that and work on their funnel from wherever they’re teaching, whatever they’re doing to then converting and getting consultations and converting those consultations into that simple high ticket wellness offer.
I’ve helped many wellness entrepreneurs this year really simplify that funnel and implement that funnel and have great results with it. And that’s what I really dialed in on the edits of my workbooks, which I’m really excited about.
I’ve also made some edits in the portal this year and edits on my website. I’ve done and delivered a ton of great low cost and free low ticket and free cost events, webinars, workshops, podcast episodes, hopefully like this that you’re enjoying, Facebook group presentations, so people can consume content even while they’re building their budget to work with me or even if they never have a desire to work with me, it’s a way I love to give back to the community.
I loved my schedule this year. I reduced in the very beginning of the year to half days on Fridays with the occasional overflow person I add into the afternoons on Fridays. But I would say the majority of Fridays I was able to take a half day. Mondays have been admin or an overflow consultation. I’ve ended my days by four. I’ve kept up with my self-care of going to one to three yoga classes a week. My daughter has been coming to Monday night yoga with me, which we’ve just loved.
My husband and I have started our week by going for walks Monday mornings before we start our day to connect and just review how things are going in our family. And that has just been so helpful on the personal side. And I love that I haven’t felt rushed on a morning to jump into my business and get all the things done.
And I’m actually slowing down and taking time with him. That’s another area which has been a huge win for me. Just slowing down and really noticing what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, my ability to shift my energy from being stressed and anxious or overwhelmed or frightened or fearful because it all happens no matter the stage to being confident and certain. Or if I need to process an uncomfortable emotion, I’m taking time to reflect why that might be and how I can support myself as a CEO.
I feel a lot more confident than I can really lean into any emotion. I also feel really stable and sufficient in my business. Now that my business has been doing really well for several years, I don’t experience as much anxiety and I just have a lot more confidence in my business now. So I’m really excited about all those wins.
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My 2024 Review: What Didn’t Work And The Challenges I Experienced
Okay, what didn’t work in 2024 for me and the challenges I experienced were continued anxiety and stress about not doing enough or having enough clients or when’s my next client going to come in.
This year, it’s definitely happened the least ever in my business, but it still comes up and it’s an old pattern of mine. And as I mentioned in the wins, I am having an easier time shifting the energy and bringing back that sufficiency and certainty, but it’s still there. And sometimes because of that, I feel myself racing ahead unnecessarily, meaning I’m trying to launch things too quickly or plan things in advance when it’s really not needed right now when my business actually is simple and it’s working the simple way that it is.
And I do have a plan for you’ll hear this, what I’m going to be doing for next year. And sometimes though, my brain just doesn’t want to stick to that plan. And I want to do things in my business that actually aren’t for my business right now this year at that time. In 2024, it’d be like a 2026 plan, but my brain wants to implement it like right now urgently.
So I have to overcome that a lot. I experienced self-sabotage in many different ways where on consultations, maybe if I am busy and booked up where I kind of lean back to the person on the call instead of really leaning forward and investigating their objections and what’s really going on for them and what they might be afraid of and helping and talking them through this, although I’ve gotten a lot, lot better.
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But when I feel busy and really booked out, I kind of lean away from all that and let the client come more towards me. And that doesn’t serve my business because for sure, already like it’s December, I am taking deposits for people to work with me or pay in because they get some incentives and bonuses for people starting with me in February and March. It serves them so much because they get started on the work, they get these bonuses and incentives and they come starting with me in February, a lot more prepared and ready to go and somewhat familiar with the portal and my work. And it serves my business because now I can plan ahead and know how many clients I’m going to have coming into the next quarter. I can plan my days better, things like that. So it serves both my business and my clients.
But my brain likes to self-sabotage and say like, “Oh, I’m at capacity, I don’t have room to take on another client.” So then I do funny and weird things on consultation calls.
Another area where I self-sabotage is in social media. I’ve gotten a lot better about showing up confidently and being bolder with my messaging and my thoughts and my philosophies. However, I still rush through creating content quickly sometimes coming from a time scarcity, even though it’s just a lie.
Truthfully, I have plenty of time to do this. But I just have a tendency to either rush through creating social media content and the messages isn’t as clear or bold or as compelling as it could be. Or I still fire hose people too much in webinars and workshops where I’m just giving way too much information or in one reel. There’s just too much in the caption, too much on the text overlay of a reel. It’s just too overwhelming. That’s still one of my patterns that I’m working on is simplifying and being concise and digestible.
There were some keynote presentations and speaking events that I did in 2024 where I could have been bolder and more confident and certain. And I kind of played it small and was a little tentative in some ways.
And lastly, sometimes this is true for both my business and my personal life, I just create problems when none existed. I just make things some drama in my business or my life when there just doesn’t need to be. And I think that’s because my brain likes a challenge. I like to be challenged in learning and seeking out new information. And if I don’t feel challenged, I think I’m afraid of feeling bored.
Or another fear I have that is if it’s so good, things are really humming along simply and smoothly and efficiently that all of a sudden the shoe, I’ll get used to that and the shoe will drop and I won’t be able to handle it in some way. So I’m working on those mindset beliefs and stories, essentially lies.
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My 2024 Review: My 2025 Plans
So based upon my evaluation, here is what I’m planning for 2025. If you do follow me on social media or on my e-mail list, then you know that I’m launching the Instagram Message Makeover Clinic. It’s starting January 23rd, 2025. It’s exciting because when you want to implement and launch an online program, it’s really important to have an online audience. And there’s just so much power to generating a large audience. And Instagram is a way that you can do that for free.
And I’ve really been spending the last two years learning from different coaches and different programs specifically for Instagram. And I’ve learned a lot. And I can’t wait to share it with everyone. I’m going to continue to slow down and be more mindful and really evaluate what I’m thinking what I’m feeling, noticing if I can support myself in any way or shift the energy so I’m stay in high value cycle of thinking as one of my coaches says, then continue updating workbooks and materials for my one to one. And this Instagram Message Makeover is appropriate.
I will be raising my prices for my one-to-one services some time next year. My existing clients whenever I do go to raise my prices, just so you know, I will give you an extra round at your current price. Because I love you so much, I really do. So you know, it really is the best time to start working with me now. That was a shameless plug. I’m going to relaunch the Instagram Message Makeover probably in the spring at some point. And this what I’m going to do differently is slow down for this launch and really plan it out further in advance. I’m excited to do that.
I’m going to consider offering a practitioner type training. I don’t know if it’s going to be a one-to-one mentor mentorship intensive where might just offer it for a limited time where you can do a two-hour, one-to-one session with me and get beefed up on practitioner skills, whether it’s utilizing the yoga wall or yoga props or learning how to get clients results online if you’re used to being a manual practitioner. Or if I’m going to do a weekend or a day practitioner type training, I’m going to think about that a little bit more.
And I want to try to get CEU credits for it as well. I want to continue offering free workshops and webinars as I normally do. I also want to offer more paid low ticket workshops this year to help people generate more revenue before they come into my world at a higher ticket price. I want to continue growing my audience, especially on Instagram. I also have been growing my audience. I did not spend as much time there, but they’re still growing on Facebook and LinkedIn as well.
I’m going to continue to refine my messaging and my content and all those platforms and my e-mails. I’m going to continue refining and trying to make more valuable content on the blog and on the podcast. So if you have suggestions, please send me a DM on Instagram, ignite ur wellness business, I’d love to hear your suggestions.
I’m going to continue focusing on getting my clients results, more specific results help them save more time in their business, help them implement more systems in their business to be more efficient so they can be more present, relaxed and energized at home with their families so they have more free time with family, help them to get more profit and revenue quicker, help them grow their online audience faster, help them launch their groups, help them transition online for the first time. I really want to dial in on helping my clients get all these results.
So coaches and masterminds, I am planning on attending for next year so far and I have already invested in a few of them I’m going to continue with my year-long all comprehensive business mastermind. I’m also continuing on with my Instagram mastermind.
Must Visit: Instagram Messaging Makeover Clinic
My husband and I are continuing on with our relationship counselor. I’m continuing on with all the self-care team members that I have to care for my body and my health and continue on with my Lynch syndrome and cancer screens and checkups.
I am considering hiring a one-to-one life coach this year and there’s one other mastermind that’s mindset kind of specific that I’m considering and working with next year as well. And of course for me sometimes group programs, masterminds and coaches come on my radar and I realize oh my gosh I didn’t even realize I had that gap in my knowledge till I got to know them better or someone introduced them to me and I’m like yes I definitely need that and I scramble the finances together and I actually do it.
I just remembered one challenge that I didn’t mention. I got hit this year with a bigger tax bill than I anticipated which is good news and bad news good news because I did so well. I got hit with my biggest tax bill ever and so next year I want to plan for that a little bit better because it did eat into my savings of programs that I wanted to invest in.
And another win is this is a family win it’s a materialistic one but it’s I’ve been working for it for a long time or saving for it just thinking about it. The McLean family, we did get a new car, we got the RAV4 hybrid. I just love it! It’s so much fun! It’s got a moonroof. I just feel like luxury every time I get in the car so that was super fun.
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Conclusion
So there you have it! Benefits of doing a year-end review how to do the year-end review, some strategies to implement even though it was vulnerable year-end review.
It really has been a wonderful 2024! I can’t wait to work with all of you in 2025 I’m really seeing the podcast this year has really grown in terms of visibility and listeners and shares so thank you so much for all you loyal listeners and especially if you are sharing it with your friends, it is so appreciated looking at those numbers really does keep me going.
I think of you when I’m creating the episodes. It’s been a pleasure and I hope to continue doing this through 2025, creating more valuable episodes for you and I’m really looking forward to working with all my clients in 2025 and all that’s to come.
I’m wishing you a very abundant and happy happy new year. I’ll see you next week! Bye for now.
Important Links to Visit:
Instagram Messaging Makeover Clinic
6 Figure Lead Generating Workshop Framework
How to Build a Legitimate Online Wellness Business
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