Your Year-End Check: How to Know If Your Business Is On a Healthy Path of Growth
Even though I don’t feel that the new year truly starts until the Spring Equinox, I recognize that the end of the year offers us an opportunity to reflect and consciously close out a cycle.
With the end of 2024, I’ve been reflecting on this past year in my business—the challenges, the learnings, the gifts…
Beautiful new branding work was created. Boundaries were strengthened. Business partnerships were formed. My branding program was birthed.
But how do you determine if the year was a success and if your business is on a healthy path of growth?
There are a few simple check-ins I do at the end of the year to see if my business is in alignment for nurturing, sustainable growth.
The key is to review your business from a holistic perspective.
To do that, we need to look at both masculine and feminine markers of success.
Overall, the masculine is about the mind and the feminine is about the heart.
The masculine wants to see numbers, results, and structure, while the feminine desires connection, creativity, and emotional wellbeing.
Both are equally important, in balance.
(For a more detailed breakdown of the masculine and feminine in business, check out this fantastic chart by Embodied Awakening Academy.)
Here are a few simple end-of-the-year reflections for your business…
The Masculine (yang)
There are two important numbers I look at each year.
These are good benchmarks for determining success from the masculine point of view:
1. Your revenue is increasing at least 10% each year.
This should be about 20–50% a year for new businesses and 10–30% for more established businesses.
This is a general range for services-based business and may vary by your industry. But at a minimum, you want to stay above the inflation rate (3–5%).
To find out a more accurate number for your business, use this ChatGPT prompt: “For {industry}, what’s considered a healthy revenue increase year over year?”
2. Your overhead is ~15–20% of your revenue.
“Overhead” is the cost it takes to run your business—basically your standard expenses (software, admin, marketing, etc.) But does not include one-off purchases, like client gifts.
15–20% is considered a healthy operating cost for most service-based businesses, particularly if you’re a personal brand or entrepreneur.
Here’s how you can calculate this number…
(overhead costs ÷ gross revenue) x 100 = your overhead %
Give yourself grace in your first few years of business if your numbers aren’t in these ranges.
My numbers were in the negative (aka my expenses were higher than my income) the first two years in my business.
Oftentimes, we have higher expenses in the beginning because we’re starting from scratch, experimenting, and investing in our future growth.
I was also recovering from corporate burnout (a masculine imbalance), so I leaned heavily into the feminine to recover…
This meant a LOT of rest. So much so that I was confronted by self-judgment for not being “productive” or seeing “results.”
However, now in hindsight I can see how necessary that rest was for the future success of my business.
The Feminine (yin)
You trust in your vision—even if your business is not where you want it to be yet.
Just as important as revenue and numbers is asking yourself…
How do I feel in my business? Is the way I’m working nourishing or depleting my energy?
Do I trust my vision and what I’m creating?
Am I operating in service of a higher purpose, or just trying to make money?
Let me first say: There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make money. Money isn’t “unspiritual” or inherently evil. As with anything, it depends on our relationship to the thing—not the thing itself.
But there has to be something deeper than that.
This personal connection to your business—your “why”—leads to long-term success because it gives you purpose. It keeps you going when the going gets rough.
Not only that, but I sincerely believe that when we choose to step into business consciously and use our God-given gifts in service of something greater than ourselves, the Universe supports us.
It may be scary at first. We may not know how we’re going to make it work. But as long as we lead with authenticity and purpose, we can trust that it will lead us where we need to go.
✺
Wishing you a bright new beginning for 2025!
Anika
