2024 Recap: A Year of Change

As I wrap up my 9th year as a business owner, this was the biggest year of changes in my personal life and career.

In all honestly, I knew it would be a year unlike any other but wasn’t prepared for how different it would really be!

A look at the past

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If you are in the early stages of figuring out how a blog can be monetized, I recommend checking out my very first blog income report.

I took a longer than expected work hiatus

The biggest personal news in 2024 is that we adopted! After a lengthy three year process, we traveled to Taiwan in January to finalize the adoption of an older child.

In anticipation of the travel and time needed to bond as a family, I already had planned to step away from my business.

Lots of planning was done ahead of time to set everything up while I was gone. Fortunately, I’ve had years to hone my team’s systems, so this wasn’t that challenging.

This would be the first time I had ever stepped away from work for more than a couple of weeks and with almost no communication with my team.

I originally only planned to take three months away from work, but it ended up turning into nearly six months.

Burn out that carried over from 2023 into 2024

After years of prioritizing work and hustling, I starting to experience major burnout in 2023.

I was mentally tired, distracted and realized I had reached a period where I knew it was time for a break.

Having three different businesses – this blog, Diva Dog Bakery and PinterestVA is a lot to manage.

Every single one of my businesses has had so many opportunities for growth and making more money, but mentally I had reached a point where I didn’t want to take anything else on. I turned down opportunities and said no a lot!

Since starting my business, I’ve had growth every single year and increased our income, which is really amazing. But I was not feeling motivated at all about continuing to grow and didn’t care about increasing my income, which is crazy to write.

I started to take some time away from work throughout 2023.

And when we got the news in late 2023 that it was time to travel to Taiwan in January 2024, I put my work plans into action for taking time off to focus on family.

2024 was chaotic

I’m trying to think of the best word choice to use when I think about 2024. And chaos really comes to mind.

I went into 2024 with purposeful as my my word of the year and I really feel like this transferred over into my personal life, and this was a good word.

In years past, my words of the year have been words like determination, bold, expand, nurture.

While purposeful worked well, chaotic was also a good end of year word.

I always like to be optimistic because so many good things happened this past year, but chaotic really sums it up! Insert all the laugh and cry emojis.

As someone who has always been a planner and extremely organized, it all went out the window after we got home from Taiwan.

While I will save this for possibly a different blog post, all of us were in daily survival mode for a long time.

It took many months to find a new normal for everyone. All of my time and energy was devoted to finding us the right resources we needed to function. It was exhausting for everyone.

Everyday was crazy and unpredictable. As someone who likes calm and casual, it felt like the opposite on a daily basis.

Today, we are in a much better place. We were advised by many professionals and support groups that the first year would be the hardest and they were right!

How did this transfer over to work?

As I mentioned above, I spent nearly six months away from the business. After the first few months away, I did need to step back in and assess everything.

In the past, we’ve had live launches to promote Diva Dog Bakery and Pinterest VA. I didn’t have the energy or time for those, so they were skipped. For some businesses, that can be devastating.

But my business model is healthy, and skipping one or two launches out of nine years of business is not that big of a deal.

Evergreen systems and automations worked well, but can only work for so long. My students and audience needed to see me for authenticity and I had to come up with some new plans that were easy to implement.

I served my students, continued to have my team work ahead on emails, ran Facebook ads and business got back on track in the second half of the year.

Hits and misses

What didn’t work

Last year was the first year my business did not experience an increase in income since getting my start in 2015.

This was due to not have my two live Pinterest VA launches in the first half of the year.

I also had to figure out how to create a new work schedule that works best.

In the first six months, I was all over the place. I would try to periodically check in at really random times like at 11pm at night, but would be totally zapped of any energy.

I also realized I couldn’t do it all and had a hard time realizing my old way of living is not the same as it is now. It took until about August that I was able to get back to a routine of working Monday to Thursday, part time, while our daughter is in school.

What worked

However, lots of big things did happen that I am really proud of!

Diva Dog Bakery had it’s best year ever since launching in 2020. That’s pretty remarkable since I did not have a live launch at all last year.

Our Diva Dog Bakery Community is amazing. We wrapped up December by doing three weeks of giveaways to members, which was really fun.

We gave away 15 prizes ranging from big purchase items to gift cards for student bakeries, and included Starbucks drinks to everyone who wanted a free drink on me.

We had a record amount of new email subscribers for Diva Dog Bakery and Pinterest VA thanks to different marketing strategies. Facebooks ads have been solid for both brands.

Pinterest VA typically get an update every year, and this year it was a big one. I’m excited for our live launches in 2025 as it’s received really great feedback from students and alumni!

I also added a private, limited series podcast for Pinterest VA that has been so helpful for our audience that wants to be able to hear me on the go when they don’t have time to be sitting behind a screen.

I focused on TikTok videos that we repurposed on Instagram for Pinterest VA, and tested out running non-traditional ads for Diva Dog Bakery on a couple of podcasts.

Automations like ManyChat were a big part of our systems that worked.

Organic and paid social media marketing will continue to be a big part of my strategy for 2025.

2025 is the year of finding my new normal

As we start the new year, I am going to continue to find my new normal. It feels good to get back on track with my business and continue onward and upward.

Having a child really changed my priorities and my family dynamics. I have worked for so long that I want to be able to focus more time on family.

I like being able to step away from work as needed. I stopped working on Fridays a couple of years ago and will continue this in 2025.

Overall I’m excited to see where this new chapter takes me!