I walked into 2025 with the success of 2024 in mind and a quiet intention to beat it.
Not in a hypey way. In the real way: clearer decisions, steadier execution, and fewer avoidable stress loops.
After a difficult year before that, 2024 felt like proof. Proof that the company could surge again and that I could lead it there. I didn’t say that out loud, but it was there.
And 2024 really was a standout year. I intentionally took on two six-figure projects that required working with several new contractors, while also running a third major job with long-trusted partners. Revenue and profit jumped. From the outside, it looked like momentum.
What I didn’t do at the time was slow down enough to ask what that year had actually required of the business, or of me. I admired the result. I didn’t interrogate the conditions.
That turned out to be the work of 2025.
Over time, I’ve learned that a strong year can be misleading if you don’t stop and study it. Success hides its costs. Momentum can mask strain.
These aren’t steps or strategies. They’re signals. Six places I look so the next big win isn’t an adrenaline sprint, but something the business can actually repeat.
When a good year quietly becomes the target
One of the most common traps for experienced owners is treating a great year like a template instead of a data point.
I entered 2025 assuming that if we did everything “right,” we could simply repeat 2024 and then improve on it. What I hadn’t asked yet was whether I wanted to repeat the entire experience, not just the financial outcome.
A big year isn’t just a number. It’s a combination of project mix, timing, decision density, leadership bandwidth, and tolerance for strain. When you skip that analysis, you end up chasing a result without understanding its cost.
Cash flow, timing, and where pressure shows up first
By midyear, the story was already there.
Cash flow always speaks early in a seasonal company. There’s always a ramp, and I expect that, but this year it took longer to catch up. We carried more money owed to us than usual, payments were slower, and the cushion felt thinner.
At the same time, permitting delays on two conservation projects pushed planned fall work into the spring. That kind of lag doesn’t just affect one job. It compresses timelines, strains production planning, and exposes how much of the business is riding on a few long-horizon decisions.
Nothing was broken. But the system was tight enough to force honesty.
What repeating success actually asks of quality and capacity
Here’s what I didn’t want to admit until 2025.
Repeating 2024 exactly would have meant lower quality and higher stress. There is no version of running multiple large projects simultaneously where I can be everywhere, see everything, and maintain the standards I care about without paying a personal and organizational price.
I also knew that chasing another surge year immediately would mean giving up things that mattered deeply to me in 2025: time to travel, time with my children as they launched into adulthood, and the space to do internal systems work that had been deferred in favor of execution.
Choosing not to repeat a win isn’t about lowering ambition. It’s about deciding what kind of ambition you’re willing to live inside.
Seasonality as strategy, not excuse
Winter clarifies this for me every year.
We don’t produce revenue for two months, and that’s a conscious choice. Winter is a pause from production, not from leadership. It’s when we close the year, analyze income and expenses, look honestly at what happened, and plan the year ahead.
By March 1st, we’re implementing. By April 1st, we’re back on the land full force, assuming Mother Nature cooperates.
That rhythm only works when the business is healthy enough to carry itself through the quieter months. Winter doesn’t create the truth. It reveals it.
Capacity limits, skill depth, and steadier revenue
This year made our capacity limits unmistakable.
Three conservation projects in permitting at once is too many for us right now. Until more skill depth exists, we need to limit that to one active permitting project at a time. That’s not a retreat. It’s a boundary.
At the same time, we’re intentionally rebuilding the base of the business. Fine Gardening is foundational for us, and normal life changes reduced that base this year. That means putting focus back where steadiness lives, not only where the headline projects are.
Most importantly, I’m no longer holding this work alone. This winter, our core five (me plus four leaders) are meeting weekly to refine the systems that make strong years repeatable on purpose. We’re connecting everyday work to revenue and profit, cleaning up handoffs, and dismantling silos that quietly cost time and money.
Their roles haven’t changed dramatically. Their ownership has.
How you decide what you’re willing to carry forward
If you’re reading this as an owner or leader, here’s the practice I’m taking forward and offering to you:
Interrogate your last good year before you chase the next one.
Ask yourself:
What conditions made that year possible?
What did it ask of my time, attention, and nervous system?
Where did quality strain, even if the numbers looked good?
What systems were missing but temporarily compensated for by effort?
Do I actually want to pay that cost again, or do I want to redesign the business so success feels steadier?
These aren’t questions about settling. They’re questions about authorship.
When I look back at 2025, I don’t see a year that fell short. I see a year that taught me how to read my own success more intelligently.
Ambition didn’t disappear. It matured. And that feels like the right kind of growth for this stage of leadership. For me, that’s the transformation: success that doesn’t require me to grip the whole system to make it happen.
It’s hard to see yourself clearly when you’re inside the machine. That’s not a weakness. It’s the nature of leadership, especially when you’re the one carrying the decisions, the timing, and the consequences.
Coaching is a mirror. It helps you separate signal from noise, read your decisions without shame, and choose what you’re willing to repeat and what you’re ready to redesign.
If you want a clear-eyed review of 2025 and a grounded plan for 2026, reach out. I’ll meet you where you are, and we’ll work from the truth.
I work with business owners and leaders who know they’re capable and want to be more intentional about what they’re building next.
I’m not coaching from a distance. I’m a founder and owner, actively building, managing, and growing a real business. I work in it. I study. I train. I’m in ongoing learning, and I have coaches too. Nothing I bring to the table is theory only.
2026 doesn’t need to be a harder year. It can be the year you stop carrying everything alone, look honestly at what your business is asking of you, and design your next moves with clarity instead of pressure.
My approach is straightforward and reality-based. We look at what’s happening in your business, where the strain is coming from, and what’s actually within your control to change. Then we map the next right moves and build a plan you can execute without spinning yourself into exhaustion.
If the New Year feels like an opening rather than a push, and you’re ready for thoughtful support as you step into it, I’d love to talk.