Are You A Rebel? Here's How To Succeed In Private Practice (Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies)

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.

Which Of These 4 Types Are You?

I’m a sucker for personality tests and new ways of understanding myself and other people. When I discovered Myers Briggs as a 23-year-old, I was all in (infj, woohoo!). In grad school, I enjoyed diagnosing myself, my family and all of my close friends using the DSM4. Enneagram? Sure! Of course I take it all with a grain of salt, but I figure the more personality tests I take, the more angles I have of understanding myself. My poor wife sometimes has to take them too.

When Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, created a quiz to help us understand what motivates us and sets us up for success, I took it right away.

She calls it “The 4 Tendencies” quiz. She has split us up into 4 categories,depending on “how we respond to expectations.” Each of these 4 types is motivated by different kinds of expectations. When you understand what motivates you, you can set up your life so that it supports you in accomplishing your goals, creating the habits you want, and letting go of the habits you DON’T want.

As entrepreneurs, we really need to know how to get our stuff done. How well you can consistently accomplish tasks is a big predictor of how successful you will be in your business. You are your own boss, so no one is going to MAKE you follow through with tasks or stick with habits.

Just a small number of the things we entrepreneurs may need to do are: create and maintain your website, write a weekly blog, network regularly with colleagues, complete advanced training, write our notes, manage our business finances, and answer our phone and email. Some of that might be easy or pleasant for you, but probably not ALL of it! We all need strategies to stay on top of it.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to break down for you how to adjust the way you work depending on which type you are.

Here are descriptions of the 4 types, in the words of Gretchen Rubin:

• Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations.

• Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense.

• Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike. 

• Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves.

By the way, if you bristle against being categorized by this quiz, you’re probably a questioner.

Ok, now go take Gretchen Rubin’s quiz here

and then meet me back here next week.

Gretchen Rubin is a freak for these quizzes, maybe more than I am. Here are ALL of her quizzes. 

Use Your Listening Skills To Market Your Therapy Practice

I bet you’re an excellent listener. You listen well to your friends and family. You listen with care and respect to your clients. In your therapy sessions, you tune in not only to the content of your clients’ words, but also to the emotions, the body language, and the many possible meanings of what is said.

You speak, but first, you listen.

As a therapist you are a professional listener. Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers has said that a person gains mastery of a skill after 10,000 hours. You either have your 10,000 hours of professional listening, or you’re well on your way.

Here’s some good news:

Marketing your therapy practice is more about listening than self-promotion.

When you think about marketing your therapy practice, you sometimes feel uncomfortable and ill at ease with what you think you’re supposed to do. You may believe you’re supposed to promote yourself and say wonderful things about the work you do. That’s not really what marketing is about. 

Marketing your therapy practice is more about your potential clients than it is about you.

It’s time to those amazing listening skills in your marketing. I’m talking about listening to your potential right-fit clients (sometimes called “ideal clients”), those people who you would like to be working with and who would love to find you. When you are creating your website, talking to your colleagues, or putting anything out there into the world, the more you’ve listened to your potential right-fit clients, the more successful you will be at delivering the right messages.

So how do you listen to your potential right-fit clients?

Pay attention to what potential clients say in their very first conversations with you. In that initial phone call and that first session, listen very carefully to what your right-fit clients say. Don’t translate their words into your therapeutic language. Listen carefully and remember the words they use.

Those are the words you will focus your marketing around. There’s a lot of garbage out there, so when your right-fit clients notice that you are tuned in to what they are experiencing, it stands out.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you listen. I’m not suggesting that you ask clients these questions. Just keep listening as you always do, and you’ll gather this information over time:

• The biggest problems your right-fit clients struggle with when they are ready for therapy.

• The emotions your right-fit clients feel about their problems when they are ready for therapy.

• The things your right-fit clients were doing to try to solve their problems before they were ready for therapy.

• The things your right-fit clients want to accomplish right away in therapy.

Now get out there and listen. 

Is it time to build the therapy practice that only you can build? Apply for a free phone consultation with me now. 

Do You Feel Competitive With Other Therapists?

When you see another therapist succeeding in her business, how do you feel? A little jealous? A little resentful? Happy for her? Maybe you see her photo pop up and you think, “That therapist seems so successful. Who does she think she is? I don’t like looking at her smiling face in photos!” You’ve got to have an answer to those thoughts, because feeling GOOD about her success will help you succeed in your business. I’ll tell you a few ways that I deal with my own competitive thoughts when they arise.

All kinds of thoughts become available to us. Competitive and zero-sum thinking are all around us. You might think, “the more she succeeds, the less clients there will be for me.” Don’t take your competitive thoughts personally. They are just thoughts. When you believe your competitive thoughts, you’ll find reasons why they are true. You may even ask other people to join you in your competitive thoughts. Then you get to hear “Yes, I can’t stand her either!” Oh, that can be so fun!

I think competitive thinking hurts you and your business. When you keep those thoughts going, you hurt your own chance at success. You define success as other than you, rather than something you identify with. This thinking keeps you anxious rather than calm or expansive. Perhaps sometimes anxiety can move us towards action, but we’re more authentic and effective when we’re calm.

So what can you do when you feel jealous or competitive?

1.     Choose to be happy for the other therapist. 

You can choose to be happy or at least neutral about another therapist’s success. Gretchen Rubin, the author of “The Happiness Project,” has said, “People succeed in groups.” When one person in your field succeeds, it makes it more likely that you can too. Is this truer than the theory that some people succeed and others fail? Not necessarily, but it sure is more pleasant. When another therapist succeeds in her business, could you imagine taking that as a sign that you could succeed too?

2. Notice how you’re different from the other therapist.

Sally Hogshead, author of“Fascinate,” has said, “Different is better than better.” I really like to lean on The Superpower Method™ to help with this. You’re unique as a therapist. The more you know that, and know how to use it, the more you don’t really have to worry about competing. When you’re aware of your superpower, you look at any other successful therapist, and you can move away from jealousy and competitiveness and towards a thought like “look how they are doing their thing and making it work.”

What about healthy competition? What if you want to be the best, so you use competition to push you? If that works for you, great! But I don’t think it works well for many of us. I see how competitiveness works well in sports where there’s going to be one winner and one loser. In the therapy community, we know that our work helps people. We want MORE people to get help, and we do better work when we support each other.

If you’re ready to use uncover your superpower and build a unique practice, apply for a free and confidential 20-minute phone consultation now.

Writing A Blog For Your Therapy Practice, Part 3 (Mindset Issues!)

I’ve been posting about writing a therapy blog for the past few weeks, addressing the most common concerns that come up. In part 1, I discussed what to write about. Most bloggers deal with panic as they face a blank page at some point. I shared some tools for idea generation and ways to store those topics so you don’t forget them. In part 2 I talked about finding your voice as a therapy blogger, and I encouraged you to experiment and think through some key questions. Today I’ll write about mindset problems that come up for therapist bloggers.

Your mindset will mess with you at some point when you’re writing a regular therapy blog. Here are some of the sabotaging thoughts that make appearances for many of the therapist bloggers I work with:

“No one wants to hear what I have to say.”

“I am an imposter or a fraud.”

“This has been said before.”

Here are some ways to respond to those negative thoughts. Think of them as hacks for getting through them and holding on to your sanity.

Sabotaging thought: “No one wants to hear what I have to say.”

Response: Your therapy blog is a lot like your therapy practice. It’s not for everyone. Your work is for a particular group of people who really need YOU, who are in pain or who are hoping for a particular outcome and are turning to you to guide them or facilitate that process. Those people want and need to hear what you have to say. Many of them are hungry for it. Your intended blog readers are the people who might want to work with you, but first would like to read your blog. Some of them will read one article, and some will read your articles for months before they are ready to call you.

You are writing this blog to help the right people find you. You’re NOT writing this blog so that you become the next internet sensation. Your blogging is not meant to create a huge following. It’s meant to express your message in your unique voice, and your ideal clients do want to hear that.

Sabotaging thought: “I’m a fraud.”

Response: You’re honest in your blog. You are in fact a therapist. You help people. You’re not claiming to have invented this field or the methods you use. You should also know that imposter syndrome comes up because you’re doing something new and stretching yourself.  Try to make friends with it, because every time you do something brave and wonderful, that imposter syndrome will show up at the door. Eventually “I’m a fraud” won’t show up as often when you blog… but it will show up again when you stretch in a new direction.

Sabotaging thought: “This has been said before.”

Response: In your therapy practice, you don’t put pressure on yourself to come up with something completely new in every session (at least I hope you don’t!) It’s very rarely possible to come up with something completely new anymore. All of the information you’re offering is available in other places. Your readers aren’t looking for brand new information as much as they want your perspective on the topic. For example, your ideal client has already heard that using meditation helps with anxiety, but when she reads YOUR article about meditation, she may feel for the first time that she’d like to give it a try. Perhaps your sense of humor or the examples in your article help her feel a new sense of hope.

Here’s an extra tip: You can’t maintain a blog without support, and you don’t have to. Some ways to get support are to talk to other therapist bloggers, work with a business coach, or set up a relationship with an accountability buddy.

If you’re ready to build a unique therapy practice, apply for a free 20-minute phone consultation now.

Writing A Blog For Your Therapy Practice, Part 2 (Finding Your Voice)

Find Your Tone Of Voice As A Therapist Blogger

What’s the right voice or tone to write your therapy blog in?

As you write your blog week after week, you’ll find your unique voice. There really isn’t one right tone for a therapy blog. Some bloggers use a casual and conversational voice, and some are more formal. Some bloggers write about their own personal struggles and feelings, while others stay away from that realm. Some bloggers refer to research, while others stick to anecdotes. The only rule is that you can’t please everyone, and the more you try to, the worse your blog will be. 

Think of some non-fiction writers you enjoy reading, especially in your field.

To figure out what voice you’d like to write with, think about what blogs and writers you like best. You aren’t going to copy their style, but you might notice an overall tone that appeals to you. Are you a big fan of Anne Lammot's essays? Brene Brown? Irvin Yalom? or maybe bell hooks? Notice what you most enjoy about your favorite writers. 

 Think about what kind of therapist you are, and go with that. 

 Your writing voice will be similar in some ways to your voice as a therapist. If you never use self-disclosure in the therapy room, you probably shouldn’t use it in your blogging either. If you tend to use humor in sessions, let that come out in your writing. If you have a calming presence with clients, you can write with a more soothing style. 

Always write TO someone. 

When you write to a particular person, your writing will be more engaging and less vague. As you write each blog article, imagine you’re writing an email or letter to a particular person. Pretend they have asked you a question, and you're writing this article as a response. For example, when you’re writing about depression, imagine you’re writing directly to a person struggling with depression and looking for a therapist. You might even start your first draft by writing, “Dear…” and then you can edit that beginning out later. 

Don’t stop writing. 

The more you write, the more you will discover YOUR voice.

Ready to build an innovative and profitable therapy practice? Apply for a free 20-minute phone consultation with me. 

Writing A Blog For Your Therapy Practice, Part 1

What Should You Write About?

So you want to write a blog for your therapy practice. Great idea.

If you’re on the fence about it, here’s my article about deciding whether blogging is right for you.

Blogging regularly can improve your SEO and help potential clients get to know you. It’s a great, authentic tool for building your practice.

The problem is, you’re having trouble getting started or staying with it. I feel you. Even if you’re totally inspired by your work, there are weeks when you feel like writing, and there are weeks when you don’t. You find yourself avoiding or dreading the task of writing. You’re not alone. Many therapists start blogging and then peter out, and others intend to blog, but never start.

 Over the next few weeks, I’ll talk about some of the issues and obstacles that come up for therapist bloggers, and some ways to get through them.

One issue that comes up for almost every therapist blogger at some point is the feeling that you’ve got nothing to write about. This is probably not true. You’ve likely got a lot to write about, but you’re not aware of what it is in some moments.  Almost every time I talk to a therapist I’m working with, I blurt out: “that’s an article you have to write.” I often offer up a title for this article I want them to write. You can learn to start doing that for yourself too.

You need to maintain a list of topic ideas. Keep this on your phone or in a place where you can add to it at any time.

Here are some questions to get those ideas flowing. In the answers, you’ll find some potential topics for your blog.

• What are the problems your clients came in wanting to talk about today?
•  How do you think about each issue your clients are working on? (For example, what are some of the ways you think about depression, break ups, or racism)?
• What trainings have you been engaged in recently? What are your thoughts about what you’re learning? What new tools will you use most with your clients?
• What clinical issues have you been talking to colleagues about recently?
• What are you reading right now?
• What drives you crazy that you see other therapists doing?
• What do you believe about how therapy works?
• In your particular practice, what kinds of outcomes are most important to your clients?
• When potential clients call you, what do they say they want to work on? What else do you believe they really need to work on?
• What’s happening with your own personal growth right now?
• Who are some of the most influential people, past or present, in your corner of the therapy world? What do you find most useful about their work?

 So now you’ve thought up some topic ideas. In the next blog, I’ll talk about how to find your tone, or voice, as a blogger.

 If you’re ready to build a bold and innovative therapy practice, apply for a free 20-minute phone consultation now.  

Want Get Off Those Insurance Panels?

Here's a question I hear all the time: 

I want to get off insurance panels. Can I do it? Will my therapy practice survive?

You’re considering getting off of insurance panels. You want to stop doing all that paperwork, you want more freedom to practice the way you believe works best for your clients, and you want to make more per session.

Yes, you can transition to a private-pay therapy practice. If you’re ready to take steps to get off of panels and revamp your practice, I’m happy and excited for you.

Many of the therapists I work with transition their businesses from insurance-based practices to private pay practices. After this transition, they have more satisfying and profitable businesses.

Here’s how you can do the transition well:

Before you do take any steps, stop listening to messages that say this can’t be done. Perhaps those messages are coming from your own head, or from the mouths of your frightened colleagues. When therapists tell you that you can’t have a successful private pay therapy practice, remember that these their fears, not facts. When you get ready to make any bold business move, some therapists will respond with their own anxiety and projections. You can have compassion for their feelings, but don’t take them on.

You’ll want a plan with 2 major components, exiting the panels and increasing your marketing.

Getting off the panels

It’s normal to feel afraid when you get ready to leap. I don't want you to lose sleep. 

You’re going to go step by step, leaving one panel at a time. Choose the one that brings the lowest reimbursement or the one that creates the most stress in your life. Read the contract so that you understand the process you’ll need to go through, and enter into the termination period.

Examine your expectations. I recently spoke with a therapist who is planning to exit her most headache-inducing panel, and she estimated that she’d be losing 7 or 8 clients a week. When I asked her follow up questions and we did the math, she realized she’d only need 3 or 4 private pay sessions per week to replace the income, even if every single person using that insurance decided to leave.

Start conversations with your clients who use that insurance, and prepare your mindset first. Work through your guilt, fear, or anything else you’re feeling so that you can be totally present for these conversations.

Expect some of those clients who use insurance to stick with you and become private pay clients. Your clients may experience feelings of abandonment, but they also may feel comforted that you’re modeling good self-care. Decide what fee you’d be willing to accept before you start the conversations so that you’re not figuring it out in the session.

If clients using that insurance enter your practice during the termination period, talk through the timeline and expectations with them before you start therapy.

If you can’t tolerate or afford the risk of a dip in your practice, plan to accept a few lower-fee clients, including some of the people who’s insurance you’ll no longer be accepting. Don’t do this as a knee-jerk reaction, but rather make sure it fits with your long-term business goals. Make sure you are maintaining at least your current average reimbursement rate when you lower your fee.

Once you’ve completed the process with one panel, exiting the next panel will be a lot less scary.

Marketing

You’ll use that extra time that would have gone to insurance paperwork to authentically market your practice, doing some thoughtful work on your online presence and strategic networking.

Now that you’re getting off of panels, you’ll want to reposition your private practice. You have an opportunity to redefine who you enjoy working with most and what kind of therapy you feel most fulfilled by providing. Get support from a business coach or colleagues who know first hand that a profitable private-pay therapy practice is possible.

When You Have An Unproductive Day

On most days, I get a lot done. I own two businesses and I’ve got two kids, so I have to be self-motivated and structure my time well. Still, I have unproductive days. On those days, I have my tasks in front of me, I’m clear about what I’m supposed to be doing, and I don’t get it all done. I had one of those days last week. Moved… Like... Molasses.  

If you have those days, you know how bad they feel.

When you’re running your own therapy business, here’s what a lack of productivity means: You will see your clients, be on time for your sessions, be fully present, and you’ll do good clinical work. You’ll return urgent phone calls and emails. You’ll show up for your family and friends too.

When you’re not feeling productive, you will find a way to follow through on what others expect of you.

The problem is, on unproductive days, you don’t move your business forward.

Some of the things that WON’T happen on unproductive days are: writing articles, reaching out to colleagues you’d like to know better, creating new or better content for your website, seeking out opportunities for speaking, assessing your business expenses, strategizing about your business plan, and…you get the idea.

When I have an unproductive day, it’s ok. I have a support system for my businesses, so I get back on track the next day. After I gather up some love from friends and family, I lean on my business support system, and get back on track again. If I didn’t have that business support system in place, it would be much harder to return to productivity.

A lot of what I do with therapists is strategy and positioning. I help them create unique business models based on their strengths, and the strategy to make those plans happen. The other part of what I do is to provide support and accountability so that one unproductive day doesn’t turn into ten. In my one-on-one work and in my small groups, therapists get the accountability and kindness they need to get back on track.

If you’re ready to build a unique therapy practice, apply for a free consultation now.

Should You Get More Advanced Training?

Therapists often ask me if they should embark on a new advanced training or go for certification in a therapy method.

I love training! I’ve spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours getting in-depth training in the methods I use as a therapist. It's changed me as a therapist and it's enriched my life. I don’t ever want to discourage you from pursuing the training that will inspire you and make you an even better therapist.

But you can’t do all the trainings, so you have to figure out which training to choose, and when.

I walk each therapist through a process to figure this out.

When you’re considering a particular training, consider these questions:

1. Will this training help you feel more confident and inspired in working with your ideal clients?  

First identify who you most love working with, and discern whether this training will allow you to help these folks more skillfully. If this method will help you do even better work with the people you love working with, consider investing. On the other hand, if this training will help you in an area you don’t love working in, let it go and allow other therapists who are passionate in that area do that work.

2. Are you expecting this training to make you feel ready to market your practice?

As therapists, we’re never done learning. You’ll seek out training over the entire course of your career. And yet, sometimes I see therapists waiting to get certified in a particular method before they will allow themselves to feel good enough. Don’t put off marketing your practice and putting yourself out there. You don’t need another certification before you reach out to your ideal clients. They need you now.

3. Do you want this training because of what you’ll learn, or how it will make you look?

If you think having a particular certification or letters after your name will make a big difference in your business, this is usually the wrong reason to invest your time and money in training. I recommend pursuing the training that inspires and helps your clinical work the most. The certifications are just icing on the cake. For most clients, what matters is that you have a way to help them, not the particular certifications you’ve received.

4. Is this training a should or a want?

Usually the answer of whether to invest in training comes down to this question. Do you want to do this training, or do you think you should take it? I believe we must go into learning situations with curiosity and even hunger for what we will receive. If you’re not in that place, perhaps this is not the right training or not the right time.

5. Is this training in-depth or does it just scratch the surface?

Consider going deeply into a small number of methods, perhaps one or two, rather than learning an overview of every method. If you haven’t had a chance to practice any of the skills you learned at your last training, perhaps it’s not time to move on to something new.

If it’s time to get help building a bold and unique practice, apply for a free 20-minute phone consultation with me now.