My 2020 Year in Review: Biggest Successes, Struggles & Lessons
Heads up: I use affiliate links for my fave products. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
HIT PLAY OR READ THE POST BELOW:
Happy New Year! Before we dive into talking all about our goals for 2021, I wanted to share a recap of what went down in 2020!
video transcript:
My 2020 Year in Review: Biggest Successes, Struggles & Lessons
Last year, I did a “year in review” video and I just re-watched it - and I’m so happy that I did. It’s so great to look back, see where you were at at that point, and how far you’ve come since then. So, I highly recommend doing a year in review of some kind. Even if you aren’t going to make a video, go through all of the photos on your phone, go through your Instagram stories and really reflect on how far you’ve come this past year.
This year was stressful and challenging, and unlike any other. But it did give me time to focus on work and figure out, as well, what type of creator I wanted to be and what I wanted to put out to the world. I am grateful for that, but it wasn’t without its challenges.
In this video - My 2020 Year in Review - I’m going to share the success, the struggles, and the biggest lessons I learned in 2020. Let’s start with a quick rundown of the year.
January 2020 - Year in Review
At the beginning of the month, I moved to Panama and realized one of my dreams of living next to the ocean. When you build a business that is completely online, you can do this. You can design your life and pick where you want to live. Often, it’s not as difficult or as expensive as you would think. You can choose to do the “digital nomad” thing and travel to a few different locations throughout the year, while keeping your home base, or you can completely move as well. Since moving, I’ve never spent so much time outside in my life - even if it was simply working on the porch. I felt gratitude every single day for being in such a beautiful place.
At the beginning of the year, I changed my business name from Solopreneursidekick to just my name, Louise Henry, and with that launched a brand new website.
During this month, I was also creating my second online course, called Uplevel with Asana. This teaches entrepreneurs how to get productive and organize their business and life with Asana, so that they can hit their biggest goals. I was really excited to create something new and teach a tool that had changed my life so much. It always takes me months to bring a new course to life, so it was nice to be at the end of this process.
February 2020 - Year in Review
In February, it was time to launch it to the world. In 2019, I had learned the importance of launches and also how to run them. Seriously, if you’re not getting the sales you want in your business, it’s time to add launching to the mix. I hosted a free five-day training series, then opened the doors to Uplevel With Asana. For each new student, I did a silly happy dance and wrote their name on a post-it, and was so excited by how many students joined us. Then, the feedback started to come in. Students loved it, and whenever someone tells me that it was life-changing, I am so happy.
March 2020 - Year in Review
This was pre-pandemic, so we went on a little getaway. We drove six hours, then hopped on a boat to Bocas del Toro, which is a really cool island getaway here in Panama. We drove around in a golf cart exploring the island, worked from the Selina there, and ate some delicious food. We actually had two friends visiting us and it was while on this island that it became clear how much life was about to change, and that the borders would be closing. So, we hopped on a boat almost immediately and raced back home so that our friends could catch a flight back to Canada. Then we had to stock up on food and essentials and prepare for what we thought would be a few weeks in lockdown tops. Oh, how we were wrong! Of course, this turned into over six months.
I knew that people around the world would be impacted by this news a lot more than me. My work was completely online, and I’d been running my online business for a few years at this point. So, I decided to post thirty videos in thirty days, teaching people how to work remotely and bring their work online. This made me feel that I was at least doing something to help. I focused on making the videos, and of course, like everyone else, adopted a questionable quarantine diet.
April 2020 - Year in Review
One of the biggest challenges in running tech courses, is that tech changes so much. So, I had to spend this month updating my online course, Website That Wows, to reflect the new version of Squarespace. This ended up making it even faster and easier for my students to build their websites, so in the end I was really happy.
May 2020 - Year in Review
In May, it was time to create my next course. I had been using the software, Kartra, to run all my sales and marketing efforts and scale up my business, and I knew that I wanted to teach others how to do the same. So, again, I was glued to my laptop and spent weeks and weeks filming this course.
June 2020 - Year in Review
In June, I launched the Scale With Kartra course, and it was actually our biggest launch ever. Another really exciting thing happened this month. The business was growing quickly, and I knew that I needed to build a team to help me take the business to new heights, so, I approached one of my best friends of over ten years, Niamh, and asked her to come work with me. She said that she would give it a try and we started on a part-time trial period to see if she would enjoy the work.
July 2020 - Year in Review
In July, I finally got the puppy I’ve always wanted. I’ve been begging my fiancé for about five years at this point, so getting little Charlie was a huge deal. He’s the cutest little pup, is the perfect size so that we can still bring him on all of our adventures, and he’s so friendly that it’s hilarious. He’s a perfect fit for us and, of course, Nathan loves him.
August 2020 - Year in Review
In August, I figured out another way to make building your website even easier. I switched Website That Wows to be template-based, to make the process as “fill-in-the-blanks” as possible, so that you can quickly and easily launch your website. We did this update and then launched it.
September 2020 - Year in Review
In September, Niamh came on full-time. This was a huge deal. She’s incredibly smart and talented, and having her on the team has made such a big difference already.
October 2020 - Year in Review
In October, lockdown had subsided, and we were able to explore a little bit here in Panama. We discovered a surf town called Venao and loved it. During this time, we launched Uplevel With Asana again, and hit a big milestone that I’d been working towards for years. Here’s a picture of me crying happy tears because of it!
November 2020 - Year in Review
In November, I decided to do another thirty-day video challenge. At this point, it was clear that I really needed to add another person to the team, and so we set out looking for a customer support specialist.
December 2020 - Year in Review
In December, we found Taylor. She is amazing. She has the best, bubbliest energy and fit perfectly with our team right away. It’s been fantastic to have extra support in this area so that I can focus on growth.
In this month, we also launched Scale With Kartra, and we moved. It was so awesome to be able to go from this office space to this. I believe your work environment is so important, so I will always invest in upgrading it. Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to talk more about this. This office is still a work-in-progress - I have some things I need to get and I need to get a proper carpet - but I’m absolutely loving this space so far.
So, we ended the year with a strange Christmas of just Nathan, Charlie and I, and then we finally took a proper break.
Now I just want to recap and go through the good and bad of this year.
The Good
First things first. I was shown a lot of support from you guys, so thank you so much for that. Whether you joined a challenge or an online course, or you were here watching, commenting, and liking these videos - I really appreciate it. We have such a kind, supportive community online and I’m super proud about that.
Next, we nailed down our launch strategy, which allowed us to grow significantly and welcome more students than ever before.
This year we hit huge milestones, which just a year ago would have seemed absolutely crazy to me. Because of this, I spent a lot of time working on my mindset and challenging limiting beliefs. This is an ongoing process and something that I’m going to continue to work on in 2021. A big thing that helped was investing in outside programs and coaching, and so I’m also going to continue with that. We are so lucky that there are so many programs designed specifically for entrepreneurs like us, so I’m definitely planning on investing in more of those in 2021.
Next, something that was really good, was that I learned about team growth, and I realized how much of an advantage this gives you in growing your business. I was really hesitant before and thought that it brought more challenges than benefits. I was completely wrong on that. It has really allowed us to grow the business way faster and easier than if I was trying to do it all by myself.
This channel grew. We started the year at around 15,000 subscribers, and I believe we’ve ended this year with over 80,000, which is awesome.
The Bad
Now let’s talk about the bad, because there was a whole lot of that as well.
The first thing that comes to mind is the amount of self-doubt that I felt. I was constantly worried whether things were good enough.
The second thing was probably my biggest mistake of this year – and that was hiring too slow. So, new rule - as soon as you feel as though you are overwhelmed, too stressed out or that you’re dropping the ball, act on it. I let myself stay in that overwhelmed state for way too long, and it would have been a lot more beneficial for us if I had just taken action sooner. It is hard, because it will feel like a bit of a risk, because you’re doing something slightly before you’re ready, but that’s when you need it most. You have to be preparing for the growth that you’re going to experience. I definitely dropped the ball, which didn’t feel great.
There were a lot of growing pains, because we did grow so fast, so all of our systems, processes - everything - was challenged, and so now we are definitely going to start things off this year with refining and strengthening all of our systems that we have in place. So that’s something that we will be working on and, of course - for all of our students - any and all systems that we design and create, get added into our programs.
Probably one of the biggest negatives of this year was the absolute exhaustion that I felt a few times. I was too tired to look at anything – things like my Inbox and my DMs completely overwhelmed me - and I would spend three days in bed watching Criminal-Minds-style YouTube videos. That happened quite a few times. This is definitely something that I need to work on – managing my energy, figuring out how I can make showing up online even easier, and how to lean on my team even more. That is what I’m going to be focused on for the beginning of this year.
So, 2020 – it’s done. It’s over. Onto bigger and better things. I hope you are feeling excited and optimistic for this year and everything that is going to happen for you. I will be here on this channel, putting out as much helpful content for you to help you grow your online business, or start it, if you’re just getting started.
Thank you so much for watching my videos and for all the support that you showed me last year. I’m excited to grow with you in 2021.
GET YOUR FREE ROADMAP HERE:
Save time & mental energy by setting up Asana rules!