now I'm no longer twenty

You may have noticed that my blog posts this year have been a little different.

That's because 2025 has been the 20th anniversary of my business, and as part of 'celebrating' this milestone (over 90% of all start-ups don't make it this far), I wanted to commit to doing a few things:

1. 
   get more people to talk about toilets;
   
2. write and publish a 20-year retrospective of perspectives on how this journey to date has been so far;
3. and being more open and honest about things that we might usually shy away from, or consider 'too unprofessional' to share openly.

What happened this year

As this is the last scheduled of post of the year, it's usually the one were people look back over what they've done this year that they think has been most important - and this one is no exception to that custom, except I'm focussing more on what I think I've learnt and experienced by my attempts to mark 2025 as my porcelain anniversary:

- admitting to, and drawing the curtain back (a little more than I have done in the past) on the crises I've endured doesn't seem to have lost me any work (and actually made people more interested in me). It's also meant that others who are navigating their way in self-employment / small business ownership have been more encouraged by hearing that it's not just them that 'certain types of stuff' happens to.

- a year goes by more quickly than you think it does. I started in January by twinning my office toilet, but then it was the start of summer and the book I'd originally intended to have out in the world for the spring was still having pages added to it... but I managed to get it out in the end, and was rewarded by Amazon declaring it one of their top100 bestsellers of the year!

- in trying to make sure I also did the other things I meant to (like completely refresh my website), I messaged and tagged others as part of trying to ensure some accountability for myself in making sure everything I wanted to achieve actually happened. But none of them were able to help me keep in track with those things - and I don't think it was because they were rude or insensitive, they're just caught up in life and all the unexpected things that the universe throws at us each day that we have to prioritise and juggle. (And there's always next year to try and catch up with this 'still to do' list?).

What didn't happen this year

Which brings me to a key reflection about life overtaking me more times during the year than I hoped it would (usually for dramatic reasons connected to my being a sole unpaid sandwich carer) - and that's ok, as the other things I'd hoped to do to tie-in with this milestone anniversary year (refreshing my website, getting the 2nd edition of my first book done), can still be done next year (or maybe the year after that...)

How well did I celebrate 20 years compared to how others do it?

I also paused during the year to reflect on how others celebrate milestones in their own respective organisations. Most involved cake (which is always a good thing), but these also seemed to be fleeting moments - surely if we're serious about creating impact through what we do, then the way we celebrate our achievements should similarly leave some form of legacy or lasting benefit?

The moral of this festive story?

And maybe that's the key message of this end of (calendar) year reminisce - enjoy your anniversaries, because life is hard, and we need all the encouragement we can get. 

But don't blow it all on a single cake (maybe take out a monthly cake subscription?) - try and find ways that you can create artefacts and reminders of how you've managed to keep these plates spinning that you never thought you'd be handed. They'll then act as future encouragements not just to you, but to others too...