If I asked you right now, “Is your revenue goal high enough to pay yourself…
2025 is nearly over and at the end of every year (as part of my annual planning process) I look back over the year, review the data and then reflect on my experience and the lessons I’ve learnt. Since 2020, I have shared 7 of the lessons I have learnt. You can check out the lessons I’ve learnt from previous years here (2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020). And keep on reading to find out the 7 lessons I learnt in 2025.
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7 LESSONS I LEARNT IN 2025
Lesson 1: Loving leaning into being the Annual Planning Queen
I’ve been offering annual planning Strategy Days for a number of years and in November 2024 I hosted 2025 Visionary CEO Planning Day LIVE – my group planning events to help business owners create their annual plan. Running that event in November 2024 and then another in January 2025 really gave me the confidence on being able to use my annual planning framework at scale to help business owners plan. This resulted in really focusing on being the Annual Planning Queen.
In addition to continuing with offering the one-to-one strategy days (virtually and online), I ran an in-person 2026 Visionary CEO Planning Day and at the time of writing this tickets are onsale for the first online version of the 2026 Visionary CEO Planning Day in January 2026.
Not only am I focusing on the business owners I can help directly through my services, but I’ve also started to speak on podcasts about annual planning. And I am loving it!
You can hear me speaking about annual planning on the Making Good: Small Business Podcast here and the indie business club podcast here.
As I go into 2026, I have set my first ever impact goal – To help 1,000 business owners create an annual plan. Does this feel crazy ambitious? YES. But am I excited for the challenge? YES!
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Lesson 2: The Joy of Laptop-Free Holidays
As someone who predominantly works online, I do love the joy of having an independent location business where I can work from anywhere and everywhere. That has often meant in the past I would take workcations where I would travel to somewhere warmer (usually Spain or Portugal) and work for a few hours in the morning, then enjoy the rest of day. However, in 2025, I wanted to take some proper holidays and so for the first time since going full-time in my business, I left my laptop at home.
From that very first laptop-free holiday back in April, I was hooked and ended up going on three laptop-free holidays. Getting to this position has meant having to make some changes in my business and putting in some systems. And has it meant sometimes pulling a late night before flying out – yes!
Looking for 2026 and beyond, I absolutely will be a business owner that does laptop-free holidays and workcations, but I am determined to ensure I don’t slip back into workcations just because I think they are ‘easier’ because the reality is it is so freeing and restorative to properly take extended time completely off work.
Lesson 3: Building a Circle of Communities That Supports You From Different Angles
In March 2025, I attended Digital Women Live – Digital Upskilling Festival in Birmingham. One of the sessions was ‘How to Build Your Personal & Business Networks for Success’ by Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. In this session, Ayo spoke about building a network of communities that support your different needs and it really stuck with me and was part of the reason why I created The Unbound.
Whilst there are lots of conversation about the importance of having the right community around you as a business owner what I liked about Ayo’s session was, it made me think not about expecting there to be one community that filled all of my requirements, but choosing communities that may support one specific area. So it might be you choose a community to connect with others based on profession, location, parental status, ethnicity or sexual orientation. And the power is in building a circle of communities where depending on what you are dealing with you feel you are in a safe space to be open, ask questions and be supported.
Lesson 4: The Reality of Talking About Being Childfree Online
In September 2025, I (with Sophie Lee) launched The Unbound, a community for women without children in business. We’d had the idea earlier on in the year, and after going to an event where I received The Unmusmy Mum book I decided enough was enough, and it was time to actually do something.
Talking about being childfree online has been interesting to say the least. Firstly, I realised just how invisible childfree women are. There were women who I already knew from other business communities and from being online, but I had no idea they were childfree. So in many ways, I had been feeling more of an outsider and odd one out than I needed to be.
Talking about being childfree online also makes some people very angry. There were a number of people who challenged us for unnecessarily creating a space for childfree women and for dividing women even further when it wasn’t necessary. What I find fascinating about this is that the divide has existed for a long time. There is no denying that the experience of running a business is different whether you have children or not. That’s why there are so many communities that focus on supporting Mums. Yet the moment we create one for those without children, that is when it’s a problem – very odd!
Want to know more about joining The Unbound? DM me saying UNBOUND on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Lesson 4: Speaking as a Profession vs Speaking as Marketing
In 2024, I delivered my first keynote speech and I knew instantly I wanted to do more public speaking. However, speaking is very interesting in the business world. There are events where you are paid to speak, there are events where you’ll be asked to speak for free, and there are events where you’ll have to pay to speak. Now being asked to speak for free (never mind being charged to speak) makes some business owners mad. However, as I often say to people it might look like you are playing the same game as someone else, but in reality you aren’t.
If a business owner sees speaking on stage as a marketing tool and therefore they are happy to speak for free or even pay, then I have no problem with that. But that isn’t how I like to approach speaking. I’m a Strategist and Speaker. Speaking is an income stream in my business, and therefore, I focus on paid speaking gigs.
Here’s my speaking ‘wrapped’ for 2025
🎤 2 paid, onstage speeches
🎤 1 radio interview
🎤 2 live events – 2025 Visionary CEO Planning Day and 2026 Visionary CEO Planning Day
🎤 5 online training sessions
🎤 3 times a guest on a podcast
🎤 12 sessions as the host of PropelHer’s Book Club
🎤 12 episodes of the Making Good Book Club
🎤 40-something lives on Instagram and LinkedIn
🎤 250+ TikTok videos
If you are looking for a speaker for 2026 you can check out my speaker page here.
Lesson 6: ‘Soft Girl Era’
In 2025 I decided I would lean into my Soft Girl Era. After pretty much feeling like I’d been hustling HARD since starting PropelHer back in 2016, and then having a very second half of 2024 whilst grieving I decided in 2025 things had to be different.
I challenge myself to ask the question “Is there a way this could be easier or simpler?”.
And at the start of the year, I wrote down the following bullet points as to what I thought the Soft Girl Era would mean.
💖 Not taking on task engines
💖 Embracing more evegreen marketing (less launches)
💖 Less overpreparing
💖 Reducing TIkTok from 7 times per week to 5 times per week (social media free weekends)
💖 Focusing on monthly recurring revenue
💖 Look for ways to rinse and repeat
💖 Encourage repeat business – maximise lifetime client value
💖 Online over offline (so no travel etc – unless it is for a paid speaking thing or an event I want to go to)
💖 Recycle and repurpose
On reflection at the end of the year the biggest changes I made were really looking at ways to evergreen, rinse and repeat, and recyle and repupose. In 2025, I tried my hardest not to start something from scratch or create something new unnecessarily.
I focused on creating my signature talks and training, such as ‘Visibility without Virality’, which I have delivered multiple times, whereas historically I’d create a new talk or training every time.
I looked for ways to repurpose and recycle my content even more than I had previously. For example, I hadn’t been repurposing my TikTok videos but now I also post them on Pinterest, Instagram Trial Reels and YouTube Shorts.
I did create a few new offers, but these were specifically for turning new subscribers into clients or turning existing clients into repeat clients.
Overall, I have learnt that there are definitely ways to run my business that are easier and simpler, and I will keep this in mind as I go forward. However, in 2026, I’m definitely going to allow myself more freedom around trying new things and I have one major new project that I’m very excited for.
Lesson 7: Letting Go And Making Space
Technically I haven’t learnt this lesson yet, but the wheels are in motion. After 10 years I decided to close PropelHer’s Book Club. PropelHer’s Book Club was a non-fiction book club for ambitious women that I started in 2016 and met monthly. For the last decade, it has been a massive part of my life and it totally changed the trajectory of my life. I have no doubt without PropelHer this business wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t be reading this blog post.
And then since December 2021 I have co-hosted the Making Good Book Club with Lauren Tilden.
After 10 years of PropelHer’s Book Club and 4 years of Making Good Book Club I have decided that both needed to come to an end. Making this decision was not easy, but as just one woman I can’t do everything and I definitely am letting go and making space for the next thing.
Once making the decision, I have seen a number of social media posts about 2025/26 being the Chinese Year of the Snake and that involves shredding, which feels perfectly aligned.
As I learnt in 2024, not everything is meant to last forever. There are seasons in life and sometimes you have to make tough decisions and bring a season to an end. Sometimes we make space knowing it is for something else. In my case I’m not sure what is next, but I know giving myself the space is important.
That’s it. You now know the 7 lessons I learnt in 2025.
I hope reading this post inspires you to take a moment to think about what you learnt in 2025. As business owners we can learn so much from the good and bad in business. But you have to take a moment to stop and think.
If you haven’t already reviewed your year and would like to do so, you can access some of my annual planning reflection questions here.
TAKE THE LESSONS YOU’VE LEARNT THIS YEAR AND MAKE NEXT YEAR EVEN BETTER.
Reviewing and reflecting is the first part of my annual planning process because you need to understand where your business is (and why) before trying to move it forward.
If you want to grow your business in 2026 and would like some business strategy or mentoring help you can click here to check out my services.
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