Year note - 2024
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
I can’t quite believe it’s been three since since I started Joy and left permanent employment behind. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Maybe it’s because I like threes. Maybe it’s because I’m 40 next year (did I mention that?!) or maybe it’s because I’m finally feeling like I can do this.
There’s something about having three years worth of quantitative data to look back on. It starts to feel a bit more real. When it’s right there in black and white that your business is working it’s hard to argue with.
Putting the numbers aside I think it’s actually more of a feeling. One of the things I’ve felt more of recently is secure in my identity as a business of one. Every year I question whether I should grow Joy but I finally feel happy and committed to remaining solo. I refuse to use the words portfolio career or solopreneur though so don’t make me!
I also feel like I’m growing and developing. This is something that’s sometimes hard to feel as a freelancer. It can be like you’re just living the same year on repeat but with slightly different projects. But having three years to look back on has helped me reflect on how it was in the early days and compare to how things are now. I think this mainly relates to how I’ve dealt with challenging situations a lot better recently. But I can also see how my skills have developed and evolved over time and how my commitment to self reflection has allowed me to continue to prototype my business based on following my interests and strengths.
I’m really starting to love the creativity of running a business. This isn’t something I expected but I have really enjoyed dreaming up ideas for things I can offer and testing them. There’s been a few wins and loses but that’s part of the process and I’m looking forward to sharing some new plans for 2025.
But first, a rundown of the last year.
Visiting stroke wards across the country
Highlights
I’ve really enjoyed the recent mix of projects I’ve been working on with ROS, Rape Crisis and the NHS. Moving more into the co-design space feels right and doing more work in person with both frontline staff and people with lived experience has been humbling and rewarding.
Spending time on stroke wards was a particular highlight, especially when I facilitated an adhoc journey mapping session with 10 people in a 2 person office. The dedication of NHS frontline staff is mind blowing especially considering the state of hospital food!
I worked with 11 mentoring clients through my new mentoring service this year, many of which had multiple sessions. It’s been a real joy to work 1:1 with people and support them in their service design work.
In April I pushed myself out my comfort zone at a time I really needed it and it paid off. I went on a residential writing retreat with a bunch of strangers who became friends. I read my writing aloud for the first time and found a way forward with my Substack.
I started writing more personal pieces and had great engagement especially on the piece I wrote about choosing not to have children.
I went paid on Substack and a lovely handful of folk now pay me for my words.
I actually met Emma Gannon this year (twice) refer to last years year note when I pretended to have met her!
I was invited to speak at a fantastic event at The Health Foundation and Lee and I delivered our talk about designing inclusive healthcare services. You could literally feel the trans joy in the room.
I took a long break during the summer and enjoyed a mix of writing, downtime and time with friends and family.
I found a lovely new co-working space where people actually speak to each other.
Bringing trans joy to The Health Foundation
Learnings
There’s been a couple of challenging situations with projects this year but I’m proud of how I handled them. Honesty and leaning into difficult conversations being key, as well as trusting others to help you.
Walk n talks have felt hard this year because of the market. I’ve spoken to a lot of people struggling to get into the industry and I had a disappointing response to my call to arms on LinkedIn around this. More on this later.
I feel like I’ve spread myself a bit too thin and that doing too many things is maybe diluting my offer and reputation a bit. I’m wondering if it’s time to double down and become more known for something other that being open on LinkedIn. Incidentally I enjoyed Matt’s (anonymous!) essay on this.
I experimented with taking a course to understand what it would be like to work as a psychotherapist. I quit. The learning being, consider the timing of experiments like this!
Going paid on Substack has been both a highlight and a learning. Ultimately I feel like it’s changed how I write, and not for the better. It also caused a massive tax headache and has slowed the growth of my free subscriber base. This is something I’m reviewing as we move into the new year. More on this later.
I’ve had fewer enquiries for both talks and consulting work which makes me think I need to reach out to people more and look at submitting to conferences when it comes to talks.
I let me Fridays off slip for a period of time which I didn’t enjoy. I have also rarely been using them to write - which was the original intention.
And finally, a look back at my goals for 2024. In a nutshell I had a bout a 50% hit rate and I’m totally ok with that. I didn’t start a community or run a new event series. Despite how I excited I felt about those ideas this time last year I think it comes back to not wanting to ‘run a thing’.
My goals for 2024
From a work perspective 2024 has felt really good, especially the second half. I feel like I’m in a period of really enjoying what I’m doing, meaningful work with good people.
From a personal perspective this year has been another challenging one. Reading back over my 2023 year note I recognise how mixed up I was then. It’s a bit all over the show and so was I. Little did I know there was more to come.
I won’t go into all this now but next year I want to write more personal pieces and this year has definitely given me some material. Writing about choosing not to have children and seeing the level of engagement I had on that piece has spurred me on to write more about things we don’t speak about enough. Watch this space.
So, looking forward to 2025, here are my plans.
Design consultancy
I feel like I’ve found my sweet spot with design work recently, as I’ve said, and I want to double down on this. The people side of service design is what I’m loving. Deepening my co-design practice and working alongside service delivery staff and folk with lived experience. My focus will continue to be charity sector, healthcare and local government. I want to lean into design justice and community development more specifically.
Goal: Deepen my relational service design and co-design practice and keep working in these areas.
Mentoring
I’ve really enjoyed my 1:1 mentoring work this year. I’ll be prioritising my paid mentoring service for 2025 with the aim of increasing my client base in this area and helping more people.
With this in mind it means wrapping a few things up. One of these things is my ‘Getting into freelance’ course. While I am happy to have supported three cohorts of this course of the last 14 months, my heart isn’t in it and I need to put my efforts elsewhere moving forwards.
The people I really want to put effort into helping are entry level folk looking to get into user centred design. With this in mind I’m expanding my offer in this space. I’ll be continuing with walk n talks but also offering CV and portfolio reviews for free and aiming to provide at least 1 design placement opportunity in the next 12 months.
Goal: Grow paid mentoring income to support offering free support to entry level folk including 1 paid placement opportunity.
Writing
This year has involved a fair bit of experimentation in the writing space. Next year I want to be more strategic.
I’ll be moving away from having a paywall on my Substack and introducing a donation model. I hope this will mean I stop slipping into ‘writing for eyeballs’ territory and can get back to my natural style of writing with the long term aim of growing a larger free following. This doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate every penny you send my way but it’s not the right time for money to be the driver for my writing.
Writing about my experience of running a business of one was what got me started in this space and I’ll always write this type of content but I want, and need, to write more about is my design practice.
I also want to push myself to write more personal pieces especially around those topics we don’t talk enough about. Things like grief and death. Adult relationships and couples counselling. Uplifting I know!
Goal: Grow to 2000 free subscribers on Substack through an increase in personal and design writing.
Speaking
The talks I’ve done this year I’ve enjoyed but I’d love to do more this coming year. I have two great talks with amazing collaborators and I’d love the opportunity to do them both a few times this coming year.
I will also be retiring my 'Let’s talk about sex’ talk. This was the talk that helped me step into public speaking as a freelancer. It also speaks to some important work I did at NHS Digital. It will always have a special place in my heart but it’s getting a bit old now so I’m popping that one on the shelf.
It’s on my mind that I now don’t have a talk of my own but I would like to spend another year speaking with both Lee and now Videha too. Speaking as a duo is helping me continue to build my confidence and I’m a firm believer that when a talk is ready, it finds you.
Goal: Pitch to at least 5 conferences.
Other
Something that’s been on my mind a fair bit recently is my sense of place. I’ve never felt completely at home in the area we moved to 3 years ago and I spend way too much of my time looking at houses on RightMove we can’t afford back in Brockley. Seeing friends start to root themselves in their communities has also contributed to this. Moving is not on the cards for this coming year but it’s on my mind. Even at the time of writing I know this is a flakey goal but sod it. Maybe it’ll drive something to happen in this space.
Goal: Start volunteering somewhere locally (or maybe in Brockley?!)
And lastly, this time next year I’ll be celebrating my fourth year in business and my fortieth year on the planet. I’d like to gift myself a sabbatical. How long and when this will be is still up for grabs. All I know is: Travel + writing + sunshine.
If anyone wants to give me a very lucrative piece of work between January-June 2025 that would be fab!
Goal: Take a sabbatical.
So that’s a wrap folks. Another year around the business sun and another retreat in Broadstairs coming to a close.
I wanted to end with a tribute to the strong women we lost in 2024. In April I made a new friend, Anabell Farnell-Watson. We had six months together supporting each other with our writing while trading life stories. One of the first projects I ever worked via Joy involved working alongside Nina Lopez, a force of nature who showed so many people how to live, while living with stage 4 cancer. And lastly, my great Auntie Margaret who lived to be 103. Another woman in my family I wish I’d taken the time to get to know.
Fun sign in the pub I always write my year note in
In good news, I spotted a fun new sign in the pub I always go to because my regular seat wasn’t available.
Have a great festive period folks. We’ll be spending Christmas in NYC and New Year in Mexico so expect some travel writing in January.
See you in 2025.