Happy 2022
Welcome to my first article of the new year and let me start by wishing all my readers a happy 2022. May this be a year of success and more importantly, happiness, peace and fulfilment for all of us.
I think it is fair to say that 2021 was a year of ups and downs. The pandemic continued (and still does) to create a very uncertain environment for people all over the world, in a climate of increasing political and financial instability. As we start 2022, the UK at least faces political change, and inflationary pressures. On the positive side, the UK economy has shown signs of recovery and the Omicron strain of the virus so far appears to be milder and cases continue to reduce, although caution is still needed over the next few months.
In December I celebrated my first anniversary as MJ Milton Accountancy, and I want to thank the many people (too many to name here) who have supported me very generously, many of whom have provided me with a word or two of encouragement and some sound advice. Not least, many thanks to my clients that I have been fortunate enough to work with during the past year. Many of my clients are entrepreneurs and self-employed like myself, and they are an inspiration, especially during the tough times we face. I look forward to collaborating with you during 2022.
Running my own business – even in its infancy - has been greatly rewarding and challenging in equal measures. I have learned a huge amount, ranging from what at first glance may appear fairly simple tasks, such as procuring my own accountancy software, opening a business bank account, launching a website, or even getting my own email domain, to name a few. However, even though I am a qualified accountant, the reality is that I never had to do any of those things in my earlier existence, so it was a steep but satisfying learning curve. What I have also found is that as a sole practitioner, I handle all aspects of running a business, complex and mundane. Previously I always worked for companies that had someone else take care of those things, while I specialized in doing what I had trained for – do the accountancy, tax and audit! Sometimes it has proven a bit daunting at first, but as with a lot of things in life, once you throw yourself in at the proverbial deep end, often it isn’t as bad as it first seems. In fact, I’ve learned new skills and gained a lot of satisfaction from being able to feel that I did it all by myself, with some sage advice by others from time to time.
In my next article I intend to pick up where I left off last year, exploring work-life balance and hopefully some positivity tips. Until then, focus on the positives and let us all try to make 2022 a year of peace and love (and yes, I know we’re not in the sixties, but personally I quite liked the idea of that decade!).