2021 - What a Rollercoaster

January the 1st - I got my gold embossed notepad out, got my fancy fountain pen out, listened to my favourite band (Deaf Havana, I am still a little rock chick at heart), lit my most expensive candle and I was ready to reflect and set 2022 goals! This is usually my favourite time of year, I love reflections, I do reflections and intentions monthly so I'm usually pretty good at it. I love setting goals and I love stationery, really, this exercise is my dream. Sometimes it takes me the whole day, pages of notes but this year…. It was over pretty quickly.

?I got my pen out and wrote….

1. I made an incredible human; the birth was empowering and beautiful.
2. I?empowered an incredible team to grow the business and hit a dream revenue target.
3. I spent time on the beach, I got in the sea.

?I looked at the page and got super emotional. For some reason I wanted to see a page full of highlights, a page full of things I am proud of, usually I have pages and pages - but I had 3 things - and truthfully that really got to me. I'd love to say that immediately I changed my view, looked at the list and realised that “Wow they are 3 pretty amazing reflections,” but honestly it took me writing this to really see how incredible those 3 achievements are.

It's engrained in me, and a lot of us that more is better, work more, do more, achieve more but if the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that the little things, the things that really set your heart on fire and grow others are the most important. All 3 of my achievements from last year do that. One of them very literally.

The main thing for me. that I will not shift on is, am I being a person, a leader, a Mother and partner that I am proud of? If the answer is yes, then the year has been a success!

?Reflecting on the year a little deeper here are my top 2 learnings, yes that’s right just 2 that come from my top 3 achievements.

1. Don’t live to work, or work to live -?work whilst living!

?For many years I lived to work, all I was, was Charlotte the entrepreneur. I worked all day, thought about work all night. I forgot how to have fun outside of work! Over the last few years, I have shifted that slightly but until I got pregnant, I didn’t realise how unproductive my working week was. It's amazing what a little human kicking your insides and draining your energy can do to productivity - I worked harder, smarter and more productively with a few extra naps, shorter days and I had a much more rounded life. There isn’t such a thing as work life balance in my view, but work life integration. It's all part of your life – so you have to find a way that allows you to be able to do both at the same time.?

?2. Get out of the way when you aren’t very good at something.

?We're taught, mainly at school, that we need to be good at everything, we must get A's across the board, from Maths to Music. But in real life that’s rubbish, a musician does not need to be good at maths at all to build a successful career and life. As a business owner, at the start, you must do everything. This means it's very easy to keep doing everything and micromanaging. What I learnt more than ever this year is, when I get out of the way, (in my case go have a baby 5 weeks early when I haven't finished my handover) people are WAYYYY better at a lot of things than me.?

I've spent a lot of this year building my role based on my strengths, and then empowering my team to work to theirs. I have built an A team to grow the business and guess what - we grew revenues, skill sets, learnings and developed as people. My best advice to you is to speak to others, reflect on what you are truly really good at, what’s your secret sauce? Name it, build on it and make it what you do 80% of the time. Get out of the way of everything you aren't good at or are holding onto because you usually do it and create your role/career based on what you shine at – hand the rest over to everyone else.

?My final note is to say thank you and send a lot of love and appreciation to everyone who supports me and Inkpact on our journey. From my partner, family, friends, team, to our scribe tribe, investors, clients and those who simply wish us well (and like our social posts). It's a huge collective effort to exist in this world and to run a scaling business. To all of you incredible humans I am deeply thankful because even though it's a rollercoaster I really do truly love my life and business.

?Let make 2022 a year of living, love and lots of delight!