2024 Review and 2025 Goals

2024 was a shit show from start to finish… let’s talk about it.

Jan 09, 2025

Hi Friends,

I don’t know where to start really but 2024 was one of the worst years I’ve ever had both professionally and personally. With that being said, it also opened the door for me to really take a look at my life objectively, what I’m doing, and how I want to be better going forward.

I say “better” but I really mean more aligned. Not to sound too woo woo but my life (and business) has really been drifting away from me and I’m ready to tighten up the reins, especially since I’m turning the big 30 in 2025. So, let’s get into what happened last year and what I plan to change in 2025.

Grief is hard

Running a business while dealing with grief is quite literally a shit show. At the beginning of 2024 my uncle unexpectedly passed away and everything around me kind of just stopped. Everything was going smoothly and then things jammed on the brakes all at once. I was so angry and upset at the beginning of the year that I quite literally couldn’t focus on client work and it took me a while to get back into it - even then I didn’t really want to work on projects, communicate with clients, or do any marketing. There didn’t seem like a point really. It took a couple of months of doing absolutely nothing but the bare minimum (which I really needed) to finally come out of whatever fog I was in. Around August I was finally ready to jump back into the deep end and start working again.

I started this newsletter as a way to get my thoughts on the internet in a format that felt like less pressure than Instagram. I really like Substack and think it’s working for me at the moment but when I came back to my business and really looked at it, it felt disjointed from what I really wanted to be doing.

It felt like Sweet Daddy Designs didn’t fit the vision anymore so I started outlining what I wanted out of my business and life and realized I just wanted to show up as me on the internet. I felt like SDD was somehow a block before people saw me as the brand and person so I needed to change that, but more on that later.

Money was low

At the beginning of 2024, I started working on one of the biggest projects I’ve ever done (for transparency I think it was like $18K). It was a really good project, I liked the client, and the brand aligned with my values well. But when shit hit the fan I checked out, hard. When that happened I was not motivated to do any work whatsoever so my client experience slipped heavily and I think that affected the project in the end but luckily for me this client was really easy to work with and pretty much approved every design on the first pass through.

Outside of this large project at the start of the year, I had few project leads and was only booking clients every so often. The previous year I hit burnout pretty bad after the twins were born and took a 6 month hiatus. So that on top of the shitty start to 2024 had me grasping for straws, literally. I took on any project that I could to pay my bills and dipped into my savings a lot (shout out to past Melissa for throwing money into an account for a rainy day).

Again, in August I really started to come out of the fog and analyze what it was that I wanted and how I could potentially get there. This is when I started working on my rebrand.

The Rebrand

I’m really attached to the name Sweet Daddy Designs because my business is named after my great-great grandfather. However after the last couple of years, I needed something that better suited me, the brand strategist and creative person behind it all. After thinking about it for a long time I decided to transition my business into a personal brand. Here are a few reasons why:

I want a full-time job. As much as I love my business, doing everything all of the time is exhausting. I would really like a consistent income with benefits, and after reading Wilda and Lydia’s insights on taking full-time work, I’m willing to give it a try. In doing so, I need to create a portfolio site that showcases me and not just my business.
I want to be known as a brand strategist. Right now the “designs” part of my name is throwing people off and feels unsettling even to me. I think changing my business name and becoming a personal brand will help me avoid the “So, do you have a team or is it just you?” question. This will also let potential leads know that I’m the person they want to work with when thinking of strategic branding.
I want new visuals. I mean duh, what’s a rebrand without a new logo or two huh? My brand has always been about being the rebel child but I think over time I got comfortable with my brand. With the name change though, I think it’s time to show up online with a little more oomph if you will. If you want to see the process for how I do this let me know and I’ll take you through the steps when I’m finished.

Even though I knew I needed a change, I had a transition period where I couldn’t figure out if this was the right thing to do or not. But shoutout to my community, The Designers’ Cohort, because they kept me sane this year and helped me figure out my life.

Community Is The Backbone

Running a business is a hard thing to do, but running it alone is stressful as fuck. So I’m really grateful that I had The Designers’ Cohort and its members at my back to help me when I needed it, they were my anchor this year. Not to get salsey or anything but being able to run ideas and thoughts through other designers and business owners that get the position that I’m in was a lifesaver. While I’m there to offer everyone in the group feedback and resources they’re also there for me as well. Some of the things they helped me with this year include (but aren’t limited to):

Letting me rant when client projects went off the rails and I wasn’t in the right headspace to reply/see things clearly.
Going over the pros & cons of my name change.
Offering their opinions and thoughts on my new branding.
Giving me ideas on how to make some cash when I needed it.
Helping me plan my services and goals for 2025.
Giving me some grace when I wasn’t as active at the beginning of the year & couldn’t plan our annual retreat.

Having the group as a failsafe was something I appreciated and really needed in 2024. Going into the new year, we had a big planning call to discuss what we wanted out of 2025 and I was able to actually take the time to plan what I saw for myself in the new year and how I would achieve it.

My 2025 Plan

Regardless of everything that has happened during the last couple of years, I’m really excited for 2025 and my plans for the year. Here are some of the things I plan on working on:

Launching my personal brand and new site. Last year I had a falling out with Showit, the platform my website is currently hosted on, and I realized it was no longer serving me. I plan on moving over to Squarespace and taking all of my clients with me 👀.
Expanding my knowledge. One of my brand values has always been to “stay curious” because I believe there’s always room to learn more. I plan on taking on more education this year and one of the first things I’m investing in is my friend Ashleigh’s Webflow course, Groundwork, that will be launching later this year.
Updating my services. Last year I hinted at bringing back my popular service “Consulting for Designers”, but with some more thought, I’ve updated my entire service suite and put strategy at the forefront of everything I offer. This means I’m going to be offering a mastermind for designers within The Designers’ Cohort as well as requiring strategy before design in all projects. I think this will make my work feel more fulfilling and beneficial in the long run.
Continuing the newsletter. I have always hated writing long formats of content, in school and in business. However, for some reason, this newsletter itches a part of my brain that I quite like so I plan on pouring into it more. I like being able to offer my audience an inside look into my life and process, so we’re going to keep this going for the foreseeable future.

So, while 2024 was harder than normal, I feel like 2025 will be a promising year for me. If you’d like to share, I’d love to hear how your 2024 went and the plans or goals you have for the new year.