An honest review of Quarter 1, 2026: The good, the bad, & the fugly!
Oh hey, fellow Badass! It’s great to have you here, though I gotta say…I’m a tad (a lot) nervous about publishing this particular blog post ahh!!
Yep, I’m going to be getting vulnerable with you today and sharing a behind the scenes perspective of my first quarter of 2026.
Spoiler: it didn’t exactly go to plan…😕
But the silver lining is that I have a tonne of stuff to reflect on which will make fantastic blog post fodder ha!! There’s always the best lessons in the failures right?!
Having said that, after completing my end-of-quarter review (inspired by my awesome client Reagen from RML Biz Ops) I think the word “failure” is a bit harsh.
I do have a tendency to be VERY hard on myself when things don’t go to plan and I’m often very quick to jump into an internal spiral of doom, disaster & desperation…Sound familiar??
However, I am very happy to report that I did eventually pull up my big girl pants, and sat myself down to actually look at the FACTS of what actually went down over the last 3 months and guess what?
It wasn’t ALL doom! In fact, there was a lot of really awesome shizz in there too, that I needed to acknowledge and allow myself to celebrate!
And as expected, there was a lot that could have been improved or done differently - but hindsight’s a bitch like that right? At least now, I have some evidence that I can use to refine my direction in Quarter 2 - wheee!!
So I thought why not share some of these lessons? Because if you are reading my blog - then you’re likely in the same business building boat as me and this could be helpful?
But also, I don’t want to just share the “highlight reel” of my behind the scenes because that isn’t the reality of any business, especially mine!!
This journey of being an entrepreneur and growing an online business is definitely a hard one, with lots of ups and downs built-in along the way, but going through the process (and not giving up!) is where all of the JUICY learning (that gets us to the next level) comes from.
Without further ado, let’s get into those juicy (and highly uncomfortable) details of my Quarter 1 review:
[yes, I totally meant for that to rhyme 😉]
I’ll start with the really GOOD stuff…
I WAS FULLY-BOOKED WITH CLIENT WORK:
Thanks to my marketing efforts in the last quarter of 2025, I was well and truly fully-booked with client work which was an awesome achievement.
December 2025 was off the charts, and I ended up booking 3 clients plus I also had a couple of sales pages booked for Alex (the winner of my October website makeover giveaway!).
I made over:
And Natasha’s website in March (which is still ongoing due to sickness - more on this later!!)
In all honesty, this was the first time I was booked out with back-to-back web design projects across an entire quarter so it really gave me a lot of opportunities to evaluate my process, to see what was working well and what needed to be shifted and improved. (definitely lots in both columns lol)
I DID SOME OF MY BEST WEB DESIGN WORK YET AND MY 1ST CLIENT COPYWRITING PROJECT!
A standout project for me in quarter 1 was Reagen’s website for her operations management business RML Biz Ops - check it out here!
I really feel like I did my best design work yet and uplevelled my skills which was really cool! It also happened to be my first client copywriting project which was RAD and made me fall in love even more with the website makeover process!
In full transparency, Reagan did not initially hire me to do her copywriting. However, since copywriting is a new service that I’m adding to my books and I’ve only really done copywriting for MYSELF in the past, I was looking for a free “practice” project for experience, to test my process and for a decent example for my portfolio.
Whatsmore, Reagen had expressed to me that she really struggled with writing her own copy and she had also given me permission to “go nuts” with her website, SO I felt like this project was a great fit for me to put my copywriting skills to the test!
I ended up writing the Homepage copy and then surprising Reagen with what I’d done and to see if she wanted me to keep going…
Spoiler: She freaking LOVED it!! And I loved doing it!
Overall, the whole experience made me realise that I was definitely on the right track with my idea to add copywriting to my service list. It also made the whole website makeover process run much more seamlessly because I had full control of the creative direction of the entire project.
Of course, Reagen still had multiple opportunities to give me feedback and revisions (always an important part of any website makeover process) but I really felt like that I was able to really sink my teeth into this project in a way I wasn’t able to before which was fantastic and really fun! 😁
I STARTED THIS BLOG - FINALLY!!
Starting a blog on my website has been on my list since day 1, but things got so hectic last year, I just didn’t have the time or the energy!
However, I came into 2026 with the clear intention of getting this blog going because I know what a powerful long-term marketing & SEO strategy blogging really is.
Plus, who doesn’t love a bunch of FREE Google traffic that keeps growing over time?? Hmm yesss please!
It goes without saying, blogging and any long-form content has its down sides - it takes a lot of effort, and consistency over time to see success.
BUT unlike Instagram, blog posts have a much longer (infinite) lifespan that can generate a steady stream of traffic and potential clients from Google itself.
For example, you can write a blog post and 2 years later, it can be one of your biggest sources of incoming traffic & client enquiries!! Total GOALS right there!
Even though this is only my 5th post, I’m already starting to see a little upturn in Google traffic which is wild, and is definitely encouraging me to keep going. 💪
OK, so now let’s face up to the BAD (and the fugly) side of my learnings.
What didn’t go so well in quarter 1?
I FELT COMPLETELY FRANTIC, OVERWHELMED & ON THE EDGE OF BURNOUT.
I stepped into the New Year off the back of a verrrry intensive last quarter of 2025 where I was working my full-time teaching job by day and by night I was going hard marketing my business and starting client web design projects. No weekends off either.
I had the goal of leaving my teaching job and scaling back to relief teaching in 2026, which honestly was becoming more and more of a MUST for my mental health & overall wellbeing.
But I knew that in order for that to happen, I needed to get a headstart on booking New Year projects so that I had some momentum going into 2026.
And I did just that! In fact, in December alone I ended up booking out quarter 1 which was incredible! However, after the craziness of school end-of-year stuff and pushing hard in my business, I was reeeeeally feeling it.
The school year ended on Dec 11th and I was EXHAUSTED. But I couldn’t stop and rest because I had clients projects on the go AND I also had stuff that I needed to do on the backend of my own business. I took about 3 days off over Christmas, but asides from that…I worked through.
I did ease up a little bit in the first couple of weeks of January, but I was still working and still posting on Instagram. I really didn’t want to lose momentum!
And I was SO EXCITED for 2026! This was the year that I was going to BLOW-UP my business yahhh!!
Then the client projects started (which I’ve been so thankful for) but I didn’t feel rested. My end-of-year fatigue definitely followed me into the New Year & didn’t let up.
By the end of February, I was feeling the way I always felt in my full-time teaching job - on a hamster wheel that just kept on turning & there was no escape hatch. (Yikes - this seriously hurts my heart to say out loud!!)
I also felt like I was working super hard but losing momentum especially in my marketing efforts which was frustrating. I was also trying to do way too much (ahem - starting a You Tube channel…case in point)
Anyway, in March I came crashing down - no surprises there huh? I got sick which I’m pretty sure was the Universe’s way of ENFORCING REST upon me ha!
Not wanting to be dramatic or anything (lies, I’m a total drama-queen 😜), but I swear everytime I get sick it feels like I go through some kind of ‘dark night of soul’ in my business - it just felt like everything was falling apart and it was all going away, that all my hard work was slipping away from me…aahhh!!
Reflecting back though, it was definitely a necessary wake up call. Once I surrendered to it & just gave myself permission to just look after myself (even if it meant not posting on socials & delaying client projects), I was able to get some good perspective on everything which was really needed!
The lesson I’ve learned: BOUNDARIES, Kelly! This is a super hard one for me because I honestly LOVE working on/in my business. However, I know that I often take it too far by not prioritising my own health, rest & play.
Moving forward, I’m definitely going to be more mindful of this and I’m also implementing some small changes to create a little more space:
I’ve added an extra week to my project timelines for the rest of 2026 - my Signature Refresh package is now moving from 2 to 3 weeks, and my Ultimate Glowup package is moving from 3 to 4 weeks.
I’m going to build in about a week’s buffer time between client projects too so that I can have some downtime & refill my creative cup between projects.
I’m also going to be getting a lot more strict around turning off the computer/phone at a certain time each day and communicating with clients between certain hours so I can actually switch off.
After just 3 videos, I’ve decided to not go ahead with my You Tube channel - I’m putting into the “way too hard and time consuming” basket for now and I’ll come back to it at a later date!!
LOSING MOMENTUM IN MY MARKETING & GULP…NOT MAKING ANY SALES IN QUARTER 1
Honestly this is a total bummer for me and definitely NOT what I had envisioned the start of 2026 working out like. *whomp whomp*
And it’s also REALLY hard for me to feel like this wasn’t a total failure from a business perspective.
Having said that, rationally I know that the only failure is quitting and I’m far from that point. At the end of the day, I’m loving what I’m building and it is super early days in my business journey, so I can expect some waves right?
As part of my end-of-quarter review, I’ve been reflecting back on what may have caused me to not make any new sales since December 2025, and here’s what I’ve noted down thus far:
The fact that I came into the New Year feeling so exhausted, was never really able to catch up with myself, and then getting sick in March DEFINITELY had a huge impact on how I was showing up to market my biz. I was sooooo busy with client stuff, I definitely slowed down posting on socials and I wasn’t doing the things I know I need to be doing at this stage of my business - actually spending time making connections with others & actually sending pitches.
Even though my marketing efforts had slowed, I was still getting enquiries via my website (which I was really pleased about!) and I did have a few coffee chats with prospective clients. However, for whatever reason, none of them turned into client projects for me which was super disappointing. It also caused me to lose some belief in myself. I started questioning & doubting myself, and the imposter syndrome started to run the show which affected how I was showing up in my business overall.
The lesson I’ve learned:I’ve come to the conclusion that on this business building journey, there will be seasons for selling (like December ‘25!) and there will be seasons for slowing down and doing the work on the backend to close the gap, which is where I’m at right now.
Here’s how I’m choosing to take action to close the gap sales wise - I’m going to:
Be open to honest feedback from those who have said no. If the reason wasn’t already communicated clearly, I’m going to actually go back and ask the question. This feels super uncomfortable, but how do I know what to improve on if I don’t ask right?
Take the majority of April off client projects so I can slow down in order to speed up! I want to spend some time on updating my own website - doing portfolio pages for my more recent projects, and making some needed tweaks. I also want to spend time tightening up, streamlining & amplifying my client experience especially when it comes to onboarding and offboarding. My goal is to WOW and DELIGHT from the very first interaction someone has with me when they press submit on that enquiry form - yesss!
Schedule a weekly ‘CEO day’ for myself so I can keep on top of my own business stuff & content creation. I also want to build myself more of a system around my content creation & get a couple of weeks ahead, so that I don’t have to stop posting when I get sick next time! I’m also going to use these days to send pitches and actually email the people on my email list on a regular basis ha!!
Work on strengthening my mindset and my sense of self-belief because if I don’t believe in myself first, I can’t expect anybody else to riiight?!
So there we have it! You now have the inside scoop on what went down behind-the-scenes in quarter 1, 2026!
After writing this post, I’m feeling much more encouraged than I thought I would - who’d have thought?! I think using this space to reflect on my own business journey in an honest & real way will be super beneficial for me as I continue to grow this business.
And I really hope these kinds of reflective posts will be useful for you and your own business journey too!
If the start of 2026 has also been a bit of a rough one for you, then know that you are definitely not alone and also it doesn’t mean that you are doomed and destined for failure. Maybe it just means that some tweaks are required?
What resonated with you the most? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
