At the end of the year, it’s always great to have a proper little sit down and think about what really happened in the last 12 months.

We tend to judge things on some kind of success scale that’s been pre-decided for us: how does our life correlate with a “successful” life? A lot of the time, we just feel like we are getting on pretty normal, so we assume we haven’t really done a lot.

I mean, I do that all the time. It’s crazy how much you can normalise things. Spending 4 weeks madly writing a witchy course about Morgan le Fey, making nipple pasties on the bus, putting off repairing a broken mermaid tail for three months, hassling people about booking in drag photoshoots? That’s my normal.

We don’t notice the magical things that actually happened. We don’t give ourselves props where we deserve them, cos to us it’s no big deal, because if it was, it would FEEL bigger…. or it wouldn’t have happened to us.

I came from a family that never really celebrated much, so I am a re-learning to celebrate. A recovering party pooper, if you will.

As a self-employed person, I judge my life a lot on how calm I feel and how much dollar I have in the bank. Spoiler – calm is not a feeling I encounter a lot in entrepreneur life.

So I get to the end of this year, and at a first glance, I’m like: huh. Well, I’m still skint. That wasn’t a very successful year. There is a whole bunch of goals and dreams I forgot about along the way too. Ooops.

But then I sit down and ask myself: what have I done this year? What have I learnt?

This year I healed a broken heart.

I started the year with nearly a month in Brazil with my best friends: a dream of mine, to spend January abroad in a warm place.

I moved house. I saw how I was getting in my own way, and just moved into a beautiful, beautiful house with wonderful people, gorgeous puppies and, very crucially at this time of year, central heating!

And then I fell in love. With a kind hearted uber-hottie.

I spent the summer not making much money at all, but surrendering to romance instead.

I went to Portugal to dance. I totally fell back in love with Dance this year, and remembered my original dancing dreams.

I had more fun than I think I have had in a very long time.

I saw that my dreams were not as mad or impossible as I made them out to be. I cleared away a lot of neurotic fog surrounding what I wanted to do and be, and realised it’s not as big a deal as I thought it was.

I chilled the fuck out about money, and started enjoying it, rather than worrying about it.

I stepped up and really began to embody my role as Priestess. I created two new priestessy e-courses, started running monthly women’s circles, and ran a dream-come-true weekend retreat in Glastonbury with someone I really look up to and am inspired by.

I went on a crazy romantic trip to Rome, Italy.

I ran two shows, and sold out the second one.

I learnt that London, as well as being a really frustrating place to get through with a suitcase and a mermaid tail (which is my usual experience), can also be soooo much fun.

I started Priestess of Rhiannon training with Katinka Soetens, like I had desired for the last five years.

I began to understand my desires more about the big things in life – love, family, fame and fortune. Things I thought were not important became important, and things that were important became so much less so. My vision for my future is very different now.

Did I meet my money goals in 2017? Nope. As an entrepreneur, (or as I like to call it, a professional weirdo) this is the go-to easy trap I fall into for measuring my success – I mean, to the world at large, success either equals money or fame, or both.

But so much other stuff happened. So many amazing adventures. So many late nights tipsily playing Game of Thrones Monopoly, cooking delicious meals with friends, and kissing under the stars. So many days spent lazily playing with the doggies, or having sneaky afternoon naps in hammocks, or gossiping with my besties.

So all in all, 2017 was a beautiful year for me.

What lessons did you learn in 2017?