Who wouldn’t want to be their own boss, set their own schedule, be in charge of their own income potential?!
Well – a lot of people!
Starting private practice is not for everyone. Before diving in, it’s important to assess whether starting a private practice is for you. There are all kinds of amazing options to work for others where you get access to great benefits and a sense of professional security.
While I’m all about helping clinicians develop the business savvy to build a thriving practice, I think it’s just as important to pay attention to the signs that indicate private practice may not be for you.
Last week we explored the first three. This week we’ll take a look at the last four indicators that your constitution may not be set up for private practice.
Here are 4 More Signs that Private Practice is Not Right For You:
4. You’re a shiny-object-chaser.
If ADHD was a huge thing when I was a kid, I would’ve been the poster child. In kindergarten, I was moved to the back of the class in order to accommodate my constant need to stand up and fidget. The comment that I was overly talkative and perhaps a bit disruptive was par for the course on my report cards. This kind of kinetic energy is awesome for creative endeavors.
But when it comes to private practice, you must develop the ability to pick. one. strategy. and follow through to the end. If you’re the kind of person who wants to do a million things, who isn’t a big believer in follow through, who hops from one new idea to another – then avoid private practice like the plague!
To gain success, you must cultivate the ability to stick to a consistent and disciplined schedule, even when it’s not fun, even when the passion has waned. It is work. And in the middle stages, it can be boring, uninspired work.
5. Critical feedback crushes your soul.
When you work for someone else, you have the luxury of softening critical feedback. Your boss is too
overbearing. Your colleagues are personality disordered. Your clients are low functioning. You can take your difficulties to therapy and spend weeks or months working through feedback that hurt your feelings – differentiating between which of this feedback indicates that you need to grow and which really is other people’s shit.
When you’re in private practice, if your business isn’t succeeding, there is only one person who needs to get her shit together. And that person is you. You must have the courage to seek critical feedback and the internal resources to survive it, even when its painful. If clients aren’t sticking, if colleagues aren’t referring to you, if the phone isn’t ringing, these are forms of feedback indicating that your behavior needs to change. You’ve got to have the ability to grieve and then shake it off and listen to what others are telling you, directly or indirectly.
6. You prefer the short game to the long haul.
In private practice, patience is the name of the game. You must have the ability to put together a plan based on the reality of your situation and then stick to it. To build ultimate success, you’ve got to master the skill of saying “no” to small monetary gains now in order to create a foundation for the solid income stream down the road.
If you’re struggling financially, have tons of credit card debt or need a client, like, yesterday in order to put food on the table – it’s not the time to go into private practice.
7. You want to do what you want to do.
This one sounds counterintuitive, because therapists constantly talk about the freedom of going into private practice, the joy of doing your own thing. It’s a bit of an illusion. While you’re afforded lots of room to be creative and set up your practice in the way you want, you must also be willing to do things that you don’t want to do.
You’ll have to get comfortable with tasks like charging for your services, advertising, doing market research, choosing a niche. While a lot of therapists go into private practice with the intention of bypassing these steps, all who survive find that these activities are essential and they learn how to do it – and do it well.
If you’re the kind of person who staunchly refuses to adopt the tried and true behaviors that lead to success because you want to do what you want to do, stay out of the private practice game.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: private practice is not for everyone. For those who love it, they really love it. They feel energized by challenge, seek the thrill that comes on the other side of fear, and get motivated to push harder when failure hits.
But for you, these same experiences may be far from desirable. You may feel inspired by predictable promotions, a sense of safety with routine, and a feeling of comfort knowing you’ve got a stable paycheck coming.
Now, for the remainder of this blog, I’ll be writing for those of you weirdos who DO desire, in your heart of hearts, to dive deeply and fully into the world of private practice. You cannot imagine living your life any other way and the thrill of succeeding, come what may, fills you with joy, creativity and excitement. You’ve fought your way here – maybe as a first generation college student or a first time entrepreneur – and you’re ready to push beyond your doubts, insecurities and anxieties in order to create something bigger than yourself.
Well, well, well. I’m happy to have you.
In the comments below, I’d love to hear from you!
Why private practice, despite all the inherent risks?!
Photo credits: 123rf -Uliya Stankevych, studiograndouest
from Psych Central Professional http://ift.tt/2cBqNxk
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment