Every year I write a year-in-review post. 

This year has been a year of duality. Some incredibly amazing things have happened as well as some incredibly hard things.

I’ve had moments where life has felt so hard trying to support my kids whilst also growing my business and then moments where we finally achieved breakthroughs and paths forward for them.

I’ve also been dealing with my dad having skin cancer removed and then finding out it had spread to nodes and then an organ. We still don’t know how his treatment is going to go but I’ve had some hard months worrying about him and my mum.

I certainly feel like as a family we are ending 2023 in a better place than we started but also we are living with a renewed sense of appreciating the time we do have with each other because nothing is guaranteed.

I had some amazing moments both personally, and professionally in 2023 including:

• Traveling to Bali for a solo writing retreat
• Having a couples trip to Bali (our first ever overseas trip without kids)
• Singing a publishing deal with Hay House UK for my Business Astrology Oracle Deck in the most easeful and synchronistic way
• Hosting a beautiful retreat in Tulum, Mexico, and ticking off a bucket list item to visit the Chichen Itza Pyramid complex and then cool off in a divine cenote!

2023 was a year where I needed to focus on lots of behind-the-scenes work. Things that were not sexy but were much needed like:

• Moving all my programs over to a custom-designed membership site (literally hundreds of videos and resources!)
• Writing 21 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and 1 policy so that I can outsource effectively to my team members
• Writing marking guides for my Certification Assessors
• Writing and creating a module every two weeks (on average) for my Level 2 Advanced Certification
• Writing a 5-week Advanced AstroBranding course
• Writing creative briefs for the redesign of the Oracle deck and providing feedback on designs created.

Interestingly in my solar return chart for most of the year, the sun was in the 12th house – which I feel was reflected in all the behind-the-scenes work.

For me, 2023 was simply about doing the work (both the fun and not-so-fun work)!

The energy of 2023

Numerology

I was in a personal 7-year which can best be described as a year of introspection for a higher purpose. It can feel like being in a contemplative cocoon or being a hermit.

And whilst I was quite active traveling in 2023 with three overseas trips, I also spent a lot of time alone working behind the scenes. I didn’t feel a strong drive to be externally focused, to be out in the world, or to be hugely visible.

I’ve just recently moved into a personal 8-year which I’ll tell you more about in my 2023 year ahead blog.

If you want to find out what year it is for you and how you can best work with it check out Your Soulful Year.

Astrological Transits

In 2023 I was initiated into a healing journey that was overdue but that I was avoiding. 

I should have known when in a meditation the word “Heal” came up for my word of the year – not what my ego wanted it to be!

My major astrological transits in 2023 were:

• Neptune square MC/IC – this transit involved my career and home domains as well as marriage and partnerships. There was certainly a Neptunian flavor to the year when I decided to abstain from Alcohol for most of the year.
• Saturn trine Venus – I had three direct hits of this transit in 2023 with Saturn over my 6th house of day-to-day health and routine. To achieve everything I did in 2023 I had to remain very focused, disciplined, and consistent. 
• Neptune trine Uranus – I feel that this transit related to the publishing deal with Hay House, a partnership with a spiritually oriented publishing house that appeared somewhat out of the blue and unexpectedly.
• Saturn square Sun – this transit activated my 6th house and 3rd house, While it might seem like a bad transit it was really about staying consistent and disciplined to work on all my 3rd house projects this year.
• Chiron square Moon – This transit started in 2023 but will continue into 2024 so what this means is that whatever I think it is about is probably not the whole story. It involves my 11th and 7th houses and I feel like it links back to the theme word that came through “heal” for 2023. 
• Uranus trine Ascendant – I went through a significant identity change in 2023 as Uranus over my 8th house trined my Ascendant. I’m on my way to becoming a published author, and I’ve been transforming the way others see me through my lifestyle decisions. Sometimes this has meant feeling like a lone wolf or an outcast.
• Jupiter conjunct Chiron – This is another transit relating to my theme word of Heal for 2023. I had to face some of my demons and heal the part of me that only feels confident when in party girl mode (very Jupiter!). 

If you want to understand your major transits then check out my Year Ahead Reading.

My 2023 Theme Word

My main word or more accurately phrase for the year was Soar with Awe, or at least that’s what I thought it was. I wanted the year to have the feeling of soaring like an eagle, achieving great heights and awe-inspiring achievements.

However, when I did my Akashic Records meditation (I provided this in my Your Soulful Year Program) what came through was the word “heal”.

I wanted to ignore it, but I knew that I couldn’t.

In May I went to Bali on a soul-searching solo retreat, I spent so much of that time healing my worn-down heart and reformatting my energetic system with sound healings, past life readings, massage, and slow living. 

I made lifestyle choices (including quitting alcohol) that allowed me to be more present to the healing that needed to occur. I had to work through a lot of forgiveness for past mistakes.

I lost a friendship that was ultimately harmful to me, but painful because she hit me right where she knew it would hurt. Then another person turned up in my life with a very similar energy – it seemed I had to learn the lesson of removing toxic energy twice.

But I also gained a much stronger friendship with someone much more on my wavelength with whom I can just be 100% myself and where doing yoga, getting brunch, or taking a walk feels so healing.

I took myself away in September to put my own oxygen mask on first because more of my healing had come up to be processed.

Then I found out my dad had stage IV cancer and I feel like I’ve been in what I call “pre-grief” for months now.

So you could say that my theme word heal was spot on but I’m ending the year feeling stronger in myself than I have in a long time.

Supporting Themes

My supporting themes for 2023 were:

1. Creative retreats every 3-4 months

How I did: I took myself to Bali in March, Tulum in August, and had another trip away in September. I would have loved to have done another in November but around this time my dad’s health took a turn and it just didn’t feel like the best time for it.

2. All roads lead to the certification

How I did: I did a successful launch for both the Level 1 and Level 2 and one unsuccessful launch. In the end, the unsuccessful launch served me as I needed space to focus on some behind-the-scenes structural projects to streamline the business for the next stage of growth. I’m a big believer that things happen for you – not to you and this was so true in this case.

3. Write and deliver the Level 2 certification

How I did: I seriously underestimated the scope of the Level 2 certification – what I thought would be a 9-month certification has grown into a 14-month certification. I managed to write and deliver two Level 2 courses – the equivalent of 21 weeks of study and 900 pages of content! The remaining three courses will be written in 2024.

4. Awaken my Sagittarius sun and Leo North Node

How I did: I wanted to spend the year awakening the parts of my Sagittarius nature that were restricted when covid hit as well as just being too busy in my business. I traveled overseas three times (twice to Bali and once to Mexico), I completed two units of diploma-level astrology training and have started on the third (there are six units in total) and I continued to teach and mentor through my business. 

I also wanted to allow my Leo North Node (in the 11th house) to shine despite being a bit of a hermit naturally due to social anxiety. A big part of this was realized through my Partnership with Hay House UK to publish my astrology deck and in the future a book with the option for a second astrology deck. But this is something that will be an even bigger focus in 2024 when I step more fully into my Leo North Node.

5. Focus on platforms and strategies that derive the most benefit 

How I did: I continued to focus on adding value through blogging, free training events, and staying in touch with my community via a weekly newsletter.

6. Build my beautiful community through feminine leadership, belonging, and travel

How I did: My private community now has over 80 members, this is small compared to large free facebook communities but it’s a beautiful number of women who have chosen to invest in my high-quality astrology certifications and astroBranding courses. In this community, I strive to role model feminine leadership – in other words not masculine hustle, hard sell and achievement at all costs – but rather a cyclical, intuitive, compassionate, and flowing approach to business and life. If I’m sick I take sick leave. If I need a bit more time to get a module out I explain why and I take that time. I show up with the intention of serving my community in the best possible way and ensuring that when they get access to me – or they get my content through course modules – that they get the best possible version and experience.

I try to create a community where everyone belongs and is valued, where we can show up as our true selves and learn to build the confidence to then go out into the world and be unashamedly soulful and spiritual astrologers. To claim what we do and why we do it.

I ran the first Business Astrology Academy Retreat in 2023 in Tulum, Mexico and it was such a gorgeous experience and I adored connecting with members of community. It’s something I would like to do more in the future in various ways and once my travel plans for 2024 are solidified I plan to create another retreat or event to connect in person. People often tell me how they admire that I take myself away on solo retreats. Women seem to struggle to give themselves this gift, despite the fact that their partners (talking heterosexual partnerships here) go away with “the boys” on boys trips on a regular basis, – I see this with my female friends as well as hear this from my clients. So if I can help to facilitate women making this a priority then I think I’m doing important work.

If you would like help picking your word for the year and establishing your supporting themes then check out my Your Soulful Year program.

My 2023 goal review:

So I am adding these to show you that NO I do not always meet all of my goals. This is because firstly goals, and therefore priorities, shift and evolve, and secondly because my goals are always big goals that aren’t super easy for me to achieve.

The goals were:

1. Professional and beautiful members site 

Actual result: I managed to move all my programs across to a beautiful custom-designed site by the start of November. This was a mammoth task that I had on my back all year. We started the year with students spread across three platforms (Thinkific, Teachable, and the new site) and finished the year with all students moved into the new site! To give you some context this site currently hosts:

• 10 x level 1 courses
• 2 x Level 2 courses (will be five)
• Infinite Business Mentoring Program
• 2 x AstroBranding courses
• 3 x self-study courses
• 5 x toolkits
• A free business incubator

So that’s more than 24 courses that were moved across to this platform in 2023! And I didn’t outsource this so it took up about 1 day per week for most of the year. Not the best business decision in some ways but I wanted to review all content, videos, and course structure which was hard to outsource.

I wanted a site that looked beautiful and made the learning experience an enjoyable one. I also wanted a robust system that could handle a formal certification process, manage assignment and quiz submissions, and track student progress. I went with a WordPress custom-designed site with the Learndash plug-in. Some things are not perfect (there is no perfect system) and some things that I’d like to streamline even further in 2024 but we have noticed a significant increase in student completion and certification since implementing this site.

I have a list of further improvements for this site and the certification in general for 2024 – it’s a continuous improvement process.

2. Maintain a great team of 3+

Throughout the year I had a core team of three people including my administration assistant (and back-up certification assessor), certification coordinator, and community manager. 

At one stage we had five team members. I trialed for three months having an Online Business Manager – it helped me to level up but I didn’t see the benefits that were promised so at the end of the three months we agreed to end the relationship.

I also had a social media assistant for around 3-4 months, I struggled to find the right flow between myself and this person and I enjoy doing my own social media. There were some things that this is much better at than me such as stories and more interactive posts. I will consider engaging someone again but I want to be clearer on my needs and expectations and likely go with a more established agency that has a good workflow tested.

All of my current team members have completed the Level 1 Business Astrology Certification and where possible I always hire from this community who have been through the training, understand and love my approach, and have a good base of astrology knowledge – they can also offer great ideas for improvements having been through it themselves.

3. Get a publishing deal for my Oracle Deck and Book

Actual result: I secured a publishing deal with Hay House UK for the Oracle deck as well as first rights on future decks and books. I submitted a book proposal and have received feedback – basically yes we are interested but please make some changes so I am hoping to have a revised proposal accepted early in the new year for a 2025 publishing date.

4. Sell 12+ places for the Tulum Retreat

Actual result: This was harder than expected and in the end, we ran it with just 5 people. However, it was a beautiful intimate event. In the future, I’ll get my team to help me with understanding the best time of year for my majority US-based community as the timing did seem to conflict with people’s children starting or going back to school or children coming home from college etc

5. Write my Book Draft

OK, so this one did not happen! Once I had the deal for the Oracle deck I decided to not start writing the book until I have a book proposal accepted. I think this is smart as the proposal includes the structure for the book and it will prevent too much rewriting of chapters. There are some downsides to this approach but I think it will suit the way I work I have much of the content in other formats and it shouldn’t be too arduous to massage it into a book format. This goal is moving into 2024!

6. Travel as much as I can – including Bali (Twice), Tulum, and perhaps Europe.

I traveled to Bali twice and Tulum but I think I was being too adventurous to fit Europe in as well. The Europe idea came because my parents were planning on spending some time in France but these plans changed when my dad was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I am hoping to get to Europe in 2024 and do a trip combining a retreat and a visit to Hay House UK.

I did not meet my overall financial goal but despite a challenging economic environment, I achieved financial growth of 16% (up from 11% the year before) and I continue to run a multiple six-figure business. 

Overview of 2023 Offerings

My Level 1 Business Astrology Certification, Level 2 Advanced Business Astrology Certification, and Infinite Astrology Business Mentoring Program accounted for 67% of my income and so this is where the majority of my focus will go in 2024.

I do want to restructure the Infinite Business Mentoring Program as some of the content has been broken out into smaller courses that sell very successfully on their own.

My Astrobrand Courses (Your AstroBrand Map and AstroBrand Mastery) are my next largest revenue source. In 2023 I ran my AstroBrand Map course and my advanced AstroBranding course AstroBrand Mastery once. I am planning to run each of these courses in 2024 as well as potentially write a third course (but don’t hold me to that!) so that in 2025 I am prepared to offer it as a certification.

Other ways I earned money in 2023 were:

Oracle Deck Sales and Publishing deal with Hay House

This was the most surprising and wonderful part of 2023. After doing a successful first launch of my self-published deck it was picked up by Hay House UK and I have spent the last 6 months working with Hay House to engage a professional designer and to redesign the deck for a launch date of 31st December 2024. You can join the waitlist here.

Astrology Readings 

Including Natal Chart Reading, Year Ahead Reading, or Business Chart Reading.

I keep my calendar for readings intentionally limited.

Astrology Toolkits

Astrology Toolkits are a great low-cost way to test my teaching style, resources, and learning platform. I offer bite-sized specialized training in the form of toolkits,  including Lunar Planning, Past Life Astrology, Fortune & Fate Toolkit and my Toolkit bundle.

Astrology Stand-Alone Courses

I only offer a couple of my certification courses as stand-alone training as I prefer to take students through a longer learning and integration journey however a couple are offered as self-study courses including Foundations of Astrology and Astrology Abundance.

AstroBranding clients through Pisces Creative Co

Despite loving the creative outlet that this work gives me as well as helping soulful entrepreneurs step up and become more visible by investing in their brands I am not focusing on growing this work in 2024. 

My intention is to create an AstroBranding Certification in the future (likely 2025) and at this point, I will discontinue any 1:1 astrobranding readings or brand design except for special offers and upgrades to other programs.

Astrology Retreat

I ran a beautiful Astrology Retreat in beautiful Tulum, Mexico in 2023. There are no retreats currently planned but this may change in the next few months as I am likely going to travel to Bali, the USA, and perhaps Europe in 2024 and would like to run a retreat at one of these locations.

How I didn’t earn money but would like to:

Speaking

I love to speak on stage as well as facilitate workshops at retreats; however, I didn’t do any speaking gigs in 2023. 

I’ve found that live events have not yet really returned in pre-covid numbers but I’m hoping that there are some more opportunities in 2024 in Australia (and internationally) to do this. 

If you are reading this and have an event coming up in 2024 and would like me to speak or facilitate an astrology session please get in touch!

Oracle deck sales

I had to make a decision in 2023 – to either keep self-publishing and recoup my investments in the oracle deck in 2023 or to sign with Hay House UK and not be able to sell the deck for 18 months. In the end, I took the option that has a longer term pay-off but that strategically made sense. But it has meant that people who missed out on the first launch of the deck are having to wait a long time to purchase it – I promise it will be worth the wait!

Best Moments

February – Oracle Deck being delivered and posting it out all over the world

The oracle deck was meant to arrive in January but like most independent printing processes the timeframe pushed out. But the day that the first batch arrived was epic!

March – Bali Retreat

I really needed to take this trip away and whilst much of it was hard and I was healing my heart one step at a time there were some absolutely beautiful moments with sound healings, past life readings, shopping in Ubud, delicious food, and serene surroundings. I also wrote half of my first level 2 course whilst there.

April – Hamilton in Brisbane

I took my oldest daughter to Brisbane to see Hamilton for her 13th birthday, she is pretty much obsessed with this musical and so it was fantastic to share this with her (I then said no to trying to get Taylor tickets as I thought two trips like this in one year was a bit much!!)

May – Catching up with biz friends in Noosa

I attended a Business Conference in Noosa and was able to connect with good entrepreneurial friends in person like Denise Duffield-Thomas, Victoria Gibson, and Leonie Dawson as well as make new friends and connections – like having a great conversation with Brigit Esselmont about running certification-level programs over drinks at the bar.

May – Bali Couples Trip

This was our first trip overseas without the kids as well as being the longest time we’ve been away from them ever (5 nights). It was such a lovely time to be with each other, explore, have fun, and connect. We had meant to do this for our 10-year wedding anniversary and then covid happened so it was actually after 13 years of marriage!

July – Signing a contract with Hay House

I signed the contract with Hay House UK on the 1st July, and ever since that moment I’ve been pinching myself in awe and delight and working steadily towards this project with things like selecting a graphic designer, writing creative briefs for the cards (all 62 of them!), providing feedback on designed cards, revising the oracle deck guidebook and doing all the marketing requirements that Hay House has for me like supplying a bio, recording a video about the deck and much more to come!

August – Tulum Retreat

I traveled to Tulum for the third time (how random for an Aussie girl like me to have been there three times for business events!). The venue I had booked off a website site unseen was amazing, and a great location. Highlights were visiting Chichen Itza and having an amazing photoshoot on the beach as well as just chilling out in our amazing beach-front villa.

September – ADHD diagnosis for my youngest

I think that most people who have a child (or children) with special needs or learning difficulties will tell you that it can be such an amazing moment when all the appointments, referrals, and testing finally result in a diagnosis. For me having specific information around the fact that my youngest has inattentive ADHD has been so amazing. It also helped her to understand herself better and we have seen amazing development in her since getting diagnosed. So many women I know went undiagnosed as children for ADHD and have only found out in their 40s and 50s. They comment on how different their life could have been if they knew. I am so glad I didn’t just ignore it and that Ashley can learn to work with the ADHD. 

October – My oldest coming 5th overall and getting the coach’s award for football

It has been a challenging year for my oldest daughter starting high-school when you have generalized anxiety disorder and are a sensitive soul is not easy. We’ve had to deal with some really hard stuff this year and she has built so much resilience. She is extremely hard on herself and so when she came home one day having come 5th in her football team overall and got the coaches award I literally bawled my eyes out! She also got a broken nose for her efforts during the season!

November – Finishing moving all courses across to the new membership site

I did a virtual happy dance with my team on this one! It was such a massive task but has improved the business and the certification so much. I can say it was all worth it!

November – Getting myself on the Sagittarius card in the new deck

So I am not going to share all of the cards that have been designed and approved but I was adamant with Hay House UK that this was a legacy project for me and that I wanted to be featured on one of the cards, preferably Sagittarius as it is my sun sign.

They agreed that this was a great idea and this is the final card. My daughters tell me it reminds them of Dorothy and the yellow brick road which is kind of perfect for Sagittarius who loves to explore and go on journeys! This is a sneak peek of the currently approved card, designed by Prism + Fleur Studio for Hay House.

December – Doing some research and discovering that our certification completion rate is well above the industry average

This was important to communicate to my team as they often worry that we should be doing much better when the truth is that many people purchase programs and never complete them and that’s ok! More on that in the next section.

Big Lessons

My courses are always bigger than I anticipate

I learned this a few times a year – mainly with my Level 2 Advanced certification where I planned to run 6-week courses that ended up being 10 or 11-week courses. They took a lot longer to write and to deliver, and so I didn’t manage to write all of them in 2023. What I thought was a 1-year project ended up being more like an 18-month project.

Similarly, with my Advanced AstroBranding course, the modules ended up being much more in-depth and detailed than I first anticipated but I’ve learned to trust the creative process as well as to trust that I attract customers who will be accommodating of slight delays during the first round of a new course. It’s always worth the wait!

Underestimating time and effort to move courses across to my new member’s site

Last year I invested a lot of time and effort into creating a custom-designed membership site. For some context, I started using Thinkific for all my programs then decided I wanted a separate site for my certification and decided to create one on teachable, and then when that didn’t do everything I wanted it to (especially look beautiful!) I decided to get a site custom- designed. This meant that at one point I had students spread across three different sites – it was expensive and an administration nightmare.

So then the big job started transferring all courses to the new site, this also ended up being a much bigger job as I wanted to review each video (hundreds of them!), rebrand all the modules, and review the way each course was set-up. 

This project took me all year and I spent on average a day per week on it. 

The lesson is that these projects are always bigger than expected and to think long and hard before changing platforms again!

Venus Retrograde

I’m an astrologer who takes retrograde periods with a grain of salt. I still launch during mercury retrograde if needed. But this year I attempted to launch during Venus retrograde and it was a bit of a disaster. During Venus retrograde our receptivity is impacted – it’s a good time to connect with past clients but not a great time to attract new ones. Money doesn’t flow as easily either.

I really should have waited out Venus retrograde and focused on what I could offer my existing clients rather than trying to attract new ones.

During this time I also made some big investments in my business like hiring an online business manager and outsourcing the writing of my book proposal – none of which ended up being great investments in the long run.

Not listening to my own intuition with the book proposal

I decided to outsource the writing of my book proposal that I wanted to submit to Hay House. Now this in itself was not the worst idea – I’d never written one before and I was busy with other projects so getting someone to manage the project and get it done was in itself a smart idea.

The issue came when the proposal writer had suggestions for the structure and content of my book that intuitively didn’t feel right to me but I went with what they suggested assuming they knew better what a publisher would want.

In the end, Hay House came back saying that they were very interested in the book proposal but that certain sections felt out of place and not what they wanted to see in the book – the sections that, had I listened to my intuition, I would have pushed back on and not included!

The lesson is don’t outsource your intuition!

Balancing team support with business expansion

I think for most growing businesses there is a delicate balance between investing in team support which helps to grow your business by allowing you to focus in your zone of genius and investing in other services, ads, training, and projects that will grow your business.

I had to learn what my business could reasonably support at this stage of growth and that’s a team of me plus 2-3 team members – not five which I had at its peak in 2023.

Being realistic with completion statistics

My team expressed concern during that year about whether we were doing enough to support students completing their certification. Did we need to check in more? Did we need to hold additional sessions? Offer 1:1 support? Make the certification tasks easier?

All of this comes from a very good and caring place.

But it also comes from a lack of experience with what actual completion rates are for online courses let alone certification- level programs.

So towards the end of the year, I decided to test what I intuitively know after having taught online programs for nearly 14 years and I did some research. 

A 2018 Columbia University’s Teachers College study on edX and Coursera courses shows that Certificate programs have an average completion rate of 15% or less. A recent 2019 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology revealed that over the past five years, online courses recorded an astronomical average dropout rate of about 96%. This high dropout rate has not improved in over six years. Research shows that only 35% of people who sign up to certification level offers actually want to certify – in other words they are signing up to learn and take what they need but not to get the formal recognition of the certificate.

I then reviewed completion rates for the Level 1 certification which are currently sitting at 24% – in other words out of the students whose certification period has ended 24% have actually completed their certification requirements and been certified. This is nearly 10% higher than industry averages. As a team, we are very happy with how well our certification is performing but there is always room for improvement and my aim is to increase this completion rate to 30% or higher in 2024.

One of my most important tasks is investing my time in writing Standard Operating Procedures

I’m at a point in my business growth where I need to have a team that is autonomous and empowered so that I have time to focus on projects like writing my first book, completing level 2 courses, and getting the business astrology oracle deck launched.

To do this I need much better written policies and procedures so that I can easily outsource tasks and free up my time.

Writing how you want things to be done and documenting how your various systems and platforms work is time-consuming initially but releases you from having to do this work permanently. Any business in a growth phase needs to do this!

In 2023 I wrote 21 SOPs and 1 external policy (with an accompanying internal policy) and I intend to write a heap more in 2024 so that I can continue to keep freeing up my time and outsourcing tasks that are outside of my zone-of-genius work.

Business Success Secrets in 2023

I like to see every year that I am in business as a success – and you should too! So here are the things that I think had the most impact on my year.

Blogging

Blogging is still an amazing traffic generator for me and my web traffic has grown by 30% in 2023.

Finances

Continuing to Implement the Profit First financial system allowed me to invest in new business projects, build my team, easily pay myself a six-figure salary, set aside adequate tax and superannuation as well as set aside money for a beautiful solo retreat in Bali in March 2023. 

Consistency

Writing blogs, and newsletter content every week has been core to my growth.

Making strategic offers

You can only make money from your business if you have offers for people to take you up on. I have a structured plan for launches and promotions that I plan a year in advance to ensure that the business continues to grow.

Flagship Offers

My year-long business astrology certification and the mentoring upgrade brought in over 67% of my revenue (up from 50%) and has created a strong financial foundation for my business.

A consistent approach to annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily planning

I am a consistent planner, starting with annual plans ( I use my Your Soulful Year program to do this), then I break them down into quarterly initiatives (also covered in Your Soulful Year!), and then determine what I need to do each month and week to achieve them.

My weekly calendar looks like a heap of blocked-out time to make sure that I achieve everything I need to with no room for error,

This is the secret to my success – consistency and discipline!

Biggest Challenges

Juggling parenting responsibilities

My husband also works full-time and with two kids in school, this is much harder than running a business! Both my kids have had challenges this year that have required a lot of emotional and practical support.

Impatience

I’m on the cusp of a major jump in business growth but of course, I want it now dammit!

Family health issues

My dad had a melanoma in 2022 which was removed, he chose not to have his lymph nodes removed (mostly due to how he saw it impact his mother back in the 1970s…) and then it spread to his nodes, and in 2023 cancer was discovered in his liver. He is now considered to have stage IV Liver Cancer. Currently, he is not “unwell” (apart from a recent adverse reaction to the treatment) rather he is living with cancer and going through immunotherapy for an unknown period of time. But I feel like I am living in “pre-grief” feeling very worried and concerned and wondering things like – is this our last Christmas together? It’s been really hard.

Cashflow

I’m not going to lie – managing cash flow is one of the hardest things for my business to manage and I know I’m not alone in this! My business is predominantly launch-based and I’m always striving to ensure that we have a good balance between launch income and evergreen or enroll anytime products and services to ensure cash flows nicely throughout the year.

I want to make some big investments this year and do some more business travel which will require a leap of faith.

Moving past social anxiety and being more visible

I find certain parts of my business really hard. I’m confident to write and teach, I love to speak on stage and I don’t have blocks around selling. But I’m also a bit of a hermit, have social anxiety and I’m introverted. So being more visible and putting myself ”out there” is always challenging. But I know that I’m meant to (Leo North Node in the 11th house).

2024 is going to be a big year for visibility – as will 2025 so it’s something I need to continue working on and through.

What I actually did in my business this year!

• Sent out over 250 copies of my Business Astrology Oracle Deck in its first launch
• Secured a publishing deal with Hay House for my Business Astrology Oracle Deck
• Acted as a creative director for the new version of the oracle deck
• Enrolled and delivered  my Level 1 & Level 2 Business Astrology Certification
• Wrote 2 Advanced Courses equivalent to 21 weeks of training
• Wrote and delivered a new 5-week AstroBranding course
• Submitted a book proposal
• Facilitated a retreat in Tulum
• Took trips to Bali (twice!), Cairns, Noosa and Mexico
• Worked with a few select clients on premium brand identities
• Launched and delivered Infinite – an Astrology Business Mentoring Program
• Conducted AstroBrand signature sessions
• Conducted client astrology readings
• Revised my Your Soulful Year program for 2024!
• Wrote weekly blogs & newsletters
• and so much more!

What’s Next?

I just want to say two things if you have made it this far – firstly congratulations it was a long one! 

Secondly, maybe this post comes across as self-indulgent or self-aggrandizing but truly it is one of my favorite things to do each year. The reason for this is that even when it can seem like I have not done much or achieved much (a ruler archetype curse) writing this blog helps me to reflect on all the things I have done, the successes I’ve had, and the lessons I’ve learned. I always end up feeling more content, more successful, and immensely grateful and that is a gift. 

So try it out for yourself! 

So that was my 2023! Look out for my next blog that looks forward to 2024 and what you can expect from me.

From my family to yours Happy New Year – May it be all you wish for and more! And so it is.