2022 Annual Review: Revenue, Wins and Learnings

Last year I decided to start publishing all the behind-the-scenes and ins and outs of my business here on my blog.

As part of that I made the commitment to publish a monthly review for each month of 2022 which included all my revenue, social metrics, expenses and what I’ve been working (you can read all those monthly reviews here if you’re interested).

This post is a summary of all of those posts and a roundup of the revenue I made in 2022, what I learned during the year and some of my thoughts as we head into 2023.

Why I do these posts…

When I was first starting my business I used to find these sorts of posts from other business owners hugely inspiring. They used to help me see what was possible with my business and gave me something to aspire to.

I also try and be a role model for other women (and particularly mothers). Lots of the business posts I have read in the past have been from men and I want to try and show women that it is possible to be a mother and a successful business owner. You CAN have it all and do it in a way that works for you and your family.

But I have to admit that hitting publish on the reviews each month does make me feel a bit uncomfortable. As my business grows I worry the posts come across as ‘bragging’. I also worry that some of the business and revenue goals that I have been hitting start to feel unattainable to lots of my community - and therefore make the posts overwhelming rather than inspiring.

Whenever I talk about revenue I also worry that it’s a bit crass or that I shouldn’t be doing it (including for personal safety reasons) - so I’m definitely up in the air about whether or not I continue to publish these reviews publicly in 2023 (I will still be continuing them privately no matter what as they have been so helpful for me).

I would love to hear your thoughts on this if you feel like sharing with me - please email or DM me on Instagram and let me know :)

Anyway - all of this to say that if you are the sort of person who gets triggered by people sharing their revenue/income or things like that then this probably isn’t the right blog post for you so perhaps just jump out now.

And with that out of the way - let’s get into my 2022 Annual Business Review.

Summary of 2022

2022 has been another massive year for me - both personally and professionally.

Let’s start with a quick summary of the main things that happened…

🧠 survived and recovered from major brain surgery as well as a number of other smaller, less invasive surgeries as well. I have another major craniotomy surgery coming up in February 2023 🥺

👴🏻 moved my Dad to a nursing home and packed up his 88 years of belongings. I have watched his health decline rapidly over the past 6 months and he is now in palliative care :( This has been very challenging and I’ve not talked much about this publicly.

💸 best ever revenue year in my business with over $2 million in revenue. My goal was to hit $2 million for the year, which we did in early December, so I was very pleased with that.

💻 created and launched my Online Course Creator program and have had nearly 300 students enrol in that program so far, with some fantastic new courses launched by students.

🏖️ relaxing family holidays to Gerringong, Brisbane/Noosa and Byron Bay

🏡 more than 7000 students in my SketchUp and business courses globally

💭 created daily content for my community (that’s you guys - thank you!)

📦 moved house in December (to a rental for the next year or so while we renovate our other house)

🚗 bought a Tesla - and we like it so much we’ve actually now bought another one to replace our second car, which is due to be delivered in a few weeks

🥳 enjoyed my life, business and what I’m putting out into the world - which I think is the ultimate sign of success

Overall, given the fact that many months of my year were spent recovering from major brain surgery, I’m pretty happy with how the year has gone.

I also continue to be surprised and proud of my personal resilience when difficult life events are thrown at me.

Managing challenging situations is becoming a muscle I am forced to flex often in my life and people often message me and say things like ‘they feel sorry for me’ or ‘how sad they are for me’ or ‘how do I do it’.

But despite everything that’s going on I’m honestly as happy as I’ve ever been :) And what I always tell people is that they, too, would find it in themselves able to cope if they were thrown difficult challenges as well. The way I see it is what alternative do I have - just give up and feel sorry for myself? I’m not that sort of person.

OK with that summary out of the way, let’s have a look at a brief overview of each month this year.