I want you to succeed in private practice, and one thing that requires is getting stuff done. As a coach and strategists for therapists in private practice, I am thrilled to have a new tool to help you. Gretchen Rubin created a framework which divides people into one of 4 categories, depending on how they respond to expectations. She discovered that some people respond to inner expectations, some to outer expetations, some to both outer and inner alike, and some to NEITHER inner or outer expectations.
When you know and understand your tendency, you can set up your life and your business in a way that helps you create the habits you want (like writing notes after every session and calling back your colleagues), and stop the bad habits (like procrastinating on updating your website).
When you have good habits, you’re much more likely to succeed in your business.
Here’s last week’s post where I describe all 4 tendencies.
If you don’t know which category you fall in, go take the quiz now.
Then come back here to find out how to adjust your private practice.
I’ll start with Rebels, the category of people who resist all expectations, outer and inner alike.
To the Rebel:
You are well suited to being your own boss. As an entrepreneur you have a lot of autonomy and you don’t have to answer to others in the way you run your business. Many rebels are driven achievers. When you really want something, you’ll do what it takes to go after it. You don’t worry much about what others think, so you excel at creating a business that stands out from other therapists. I love working with rebels because they are usually bold about claiming their Superpowers.
One challenge for you as a business owner is that you have a hard time with habits. You don’t want to feel fenced in or tied down, but you want to accomplish some things that require habits.
As a rebel, you need to CHOOSE every habit and task you take on for your business. In order to choose those tasks you don’t enjoy, you must tie them to a bigger accomplishment that you want.
For example, if it’s time to write new copy for your website, you will need to take steps that may not excite you. If you tell yourself “I have to update my website because it’s part of what all therapists have to do to be successful,” you’ll stall out. If you instead tell yourself “I’m going to create a website I love. It’s going to be different from all the other therapist websites out there,” you can use that vision to keep moving forward.
The key is to set up your business in a way that you WANT to run it.
Assess what you enjoy about this work and build your business around it. I know one therapist who loves to collaborate with people. She hates sitting in front of a computer, and she loves to go on walks. Her marketing plan should include going on walks with colleagues. If she has to do a little emailing to make it happen, she can get it done because she knows it’s in service of something she WANTS to do.
Come back next week to find out how to build your practice if you’re a questioner.
Is it time to build your unique and successful therapy practice? Apply for a free consultation now.