Personal Growth and Putting Strategy Into Practice

If you'd told me this time last year that I’d be sitting at home, three weeks before the end of the year, full of beans, smiling as I write a blog about how we’ve achieved what we have this year (without the burnout), I never would’ve believed you. I’ve been burnt out every December since I don’t know when. To be honest, I've been burnt out every three months since I don’t know when.

Running a small business is tough. It’s spinning a trillion different plates and working every hour God sends to keep it all going. Well, that’s what I thought it was. But as 2024 came to a close, I knew I wanted 2025 to look a whole lot different. 

I wanted more joy. I wanted more of a work-life balance. I wanted to enjoy free time instead of a million and one work things spinning round my head and feeling guilty for not doing the work thing I thought I should be doing. 

Don’t get me wrong, things were going well. So well in fact that we’d planned for Matt to stop his London PR & marketing consulting roles and join Coastal Media full time in January 2025. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted things to feel easier.

Like most small businesses, Coastal Media had grown organically. I’d been freelancing, working with a variety of agencies up and down the country on change projects; helping them adapt and learn how to work with and support small businesses. After setting up a hobby Instagram account when we’d moved to Norfolk, I’d ended up meeting loads of small Norfolk businesses and when they’d learnt what my “day job” was, they’d started asking if I’d do some work helping them. 

Changing what I did felt like a scary prospect, but I love small businesses, and I love Norfolk. And working where I actually lived meant I could make a real difference to my local community. And actually be in Norfolk Monday-Friday and see my husband and dog….instead of constantly travelling all over the place. 

So I started saying yes. The thing is, when you start any small business, you kind of HAVE to say yes. You take any opportunity that’s thrown your way so you can build it into something meaningful and pay the bills. I was running Instagram accounts and building websites. For some small businesses I was writing their strategy, for others there was a bank of hours they used to work with me whenever they needed me. 

It was great. The business was building. But flipping heck I was shattered. I was working ALL THE TIME. I was carrying so much weight. I was working with 20 small businesses simultaneously at one point and I was caring about each and every single one of them as much as I would our own business. I was answering Insta DMs for hospitality clients at 11pm on a Saturday. I was waking in the middle of the night worrying about the monthly revenue for a different small business. We’d also started running a small business marketing course which ran for 10 weeks in the evenings. I loved it, all of it in fact, but giving that much energy all the time was absolutely draining me….and I knew it wasn’t sustainable. There was no way we could grow Coastal Media that way. Not without breaking me (and Matt once he joined full-time).

I knew things wouldn’t change unless I changed though. I didn’t want to stop caring. The energy we put into what we do is why so many small businesses love working with us…and it’s who I am. I never want to change who I am. But I did need to change what I put first…and I knew what I needed to start putting first was me (and our relationship - for those of you that don’t know, Matt & I are a husband-and-wife team). 

So 2025 became an experiment. One I knew the answer to, but one I wanted to inexplicably prove. If I put me and my wellness first, and used personal growth as a business strategy…would it work? 

If you’re reading this, I’m confident you must follow us on Instagram and very much know the answer to this. It’s a resounding yes.

So how did we do it?

1. In November 2024, I started working with an EFT practitioner. I’d had talking therapy before and worked on lots of things surrounding the sudden loss of my Dad in my 20s, but I knew it wasn’t talking therapy I needed this time. I wasn’t unwell. I was just stuck. Stella was recommended to me by several people and after having an initial call with her, I knew she was the person I needed to work with to clear some of these blocks and level up to get out of my own way.

2. By January when Matt joined the business, I was already feeling calmer and more confident. Confident that we could make changes to our business that would mean we could support more small businesses AND not burnout. That we could use the skills and strategies we teach other people in our business and have unwavering trust in them. So we sat down and started planning. We took a whole day out. In the morning, we worked through a review of 2024, and a plan for 2025. We got really honest about what had drained our energy. What we wanted more of in 2025. What our priorities were and what our “anchors” were that would keep us steady and on track no matter what happened in the year. Then we got a massive year wall planner out and mapped out what it could look like. 

If you’d like to do the same, we used the framework that’s in this planning & goal setting workbook and got a big wall planner from Burbidge’s of Norfolk…and they’ve got this beautiful one in stock this year.

When we mapped everything on the wall planner, we worked out the times we knew our business would be quiet i.e. the school holidays, and marked that out on the wall planner. We knew that was the time we’d focus on our business (instead of focussing on our client’s businesses). We then marked out 4 weeks of holidays for us, in one week batches spread across the year. Consistent time off to make sure we had consistent energy.

Then we started looking at those “anchors” we’d developed in our morning planning..which were these in case you’re nosey:

• We wanted to work with (and advise) the Council more so they could better support small businesses

• We wanted to grow our own small business community

• We wanted to change our business model to be more sustainable

To turn those “anchors” into actionable projects and things that we could add to the wall planner, we needed to spend the afternoon unpicking our whole business and then developing a strategy to make it all work (which is funnily enough, is a service we now offer to other small businesses). 

3. After building our strategy, I knew we had to start saying no to a lot of things. Instead of saying yes to everything, we had to build a model of working that meant we did a few things only and did them well. What came out of that strategy session is the four things (and only the four things) that we now do:

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Free Workshops & Meet-Ups

Each month, we host a relaxed and friendly gathering for small business owners. We start with a free workshop packed with practical marketing tips you can apply straight away. After that, we move into a casual meet-up where you can chat with others, ask questions, and connect over coffee. No pitching, no pressure -  just real people cheering each other on.

We run free monthly small business workshops in Cromer. Our December workshop focussed on personal growth as a business strategy.

Day Marketing Bootcamps

Marketing can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to. Our bootcamps give you a practical framework and hands-on guidance to focus on what really matters for your business. You’ll leave with a clear plan, confidence about what to do next, and ideas you can put into action. Bootcamps run 9am–5:30pm at the Cliftonville Hotel in Cromer, with lunch and refreshments included. Groups are small (6 people maximum) to ensure plenty of support.

Half-Day 1:1 Strategy Sessions

Running a business often feels like spinning plates. Our half-day sessions give you space to step back, see the bigger picture, and create a clear, achievable plan for your marketing and operations. You’ll work one-to-one with Gabriella to untangle the messy bits, get practical advice, and leave with focus, clarity, and confidence. Sessions run 9am–1pm or 2pm–6pm in Cromer.

The we worked out what went in the freezer* and what we started work on immediately (because even though those four things seem simple, there was a heck of a lot of work behind all of them and there was no way we could start them all at once). 

4. We started using our own marketing methodology to get the word out there. We did exactly what we teach in our One-Day Marketing Bootcamp. We worked out what our marketing funnel looked like, we got super clear on who our audience was and then we worked out the three simple things we could do that would move the needle most for us….and we started doing them consistently for a whole quarter. 

I’ve got to be honest, that first part of the year was the scariest for me. We were saying no to a lot of work…to a lot of money. But working with Stella and making time for me and my wellness (read lots of yoga at iamthestorm) and I didn’t let the nasty voices in my head allow me to panic and start doing loads of other things “just in case”. I took the extra time we had and I doubled down on getting time for us, for finding that joy again and properly resting ... .and it turns out all of that is pretty damn great.

5. At the end of every month, we looked at our data (again something we teach on our One-Day Marketing Bootcamp or 1:1 with you in Half-Day Strategy Sessions) and checked things were moving in the right direction. If they weren’t we looked at small tweaks we could make. If they were, we celebrated our success and kept going. There was no stabbing in the dark. We knew exactly how each thing we were doing was having an impact…even before the first £s landed. At the end of the quarter, we did a bigger review. A proper deepdive. What worked and we should double down on. What didn’t work and we should stop doing. What did we now have time to add in?

12 months later and rinsing and repeating all the steps above and I am beyond proud of what we’ve achieved. 

We’ve grown a community of small business owners from zero to hundreds of small businesses who have attended our workshops and meet-ups at The Cliftonville in Cromer.

We won the competitive tender to work with Norfolk County Council as advisors on their Go Digital Programme.

We were chosen by North Walsham Town Council to help deliver a major new campaign to raise the profile of North Walsham and support the town’s businesses and visitor economy.

We’ve trained so many wonderful small businesses at our One-Day Marketing Bootcamps and the feedback (and what they’ve achieved off the back of it) has been unbelievable.

I’m currently as I write this (9th Dec 2025) fully booked with half-day strategy sessions until Feb 2026 and even have a couple booked in as far in advance of December 2026.

We moved into an office at Letheringsett Watermill and are beyond loving being part of the small business community there.

We took the whole of August off client work to purely focus on us and uplevelling us and our business.

We got enough rest.

We found a heck of a lot of joy.

I’m not telling you all of this to brag. December 2024 me wouldn’t have written this blog even if she hadn’t been burnt out. She’d have worried you’d have judged her and thought she was being big headed. “Who does she think she is”, she would’ve worried you’d have all thought.

…but working on myself has made me realise that’s all nonsense. I started this year wanting to prove that there absolutely can be another way when it comes to running a small business. One that means you can be successful (whatever your idea of success looks like) without having to sell your soul or burn yourself out in the process.

Working with Stella helped me work on myself enough to believe that was possible. This year I’ve proved it….and I hope that helps you know you can do the same.

There’s so much magic in running a small business….and if you follow the steps above, I bet you by the end of 2026, you can actually feel it too. I finally can, and I promise you, it’s beyond wonderful.

*What the heck is a freezer you ask? In the back of every notebook I write the word freezer. Any good idea I get, (and I get lots - or think I do at the time 😂) if it doesn’t align with the current plan, it goes in the freezer. When it’s written down I then don’t try and keep it in my head thinking I’ll forget it if not, and that frees up a whole lot of brain space. Every quarter I then look in the back of my notebooks, see if anything needs defrosting, and then close it back up for next time. It’s been a game changer for me and every single small business I’ve ever told this to. If you don’t believe me, you 100% need to try it. ….and yes, before you all ask, Norfolk Uncovered is coming back out of the freezer again in 2026 🙌🏻