The “Why” of Creating Your Private Practice

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell

Let’s talked about mindset and the Why of creating your private practice. There are quite a few great reasons to start a private practice. You can create more flexibility of time, be available to your family as they need you, want to see that school play at 2:00 pm or go on that all-day museum field trip with your child? Want to earn more money or you just like being the boss of you? Then starting a private practice maybe, the work route you want to take. Before you start planning and signing a building lease, you must understand your why for the business. That why must include your passion, your longing to help others, the courage to face fear, go beyond what you “think” is possible for you. Most of us know the why for spending thousands of dollars and a ton of time to finish graduate school, yet when I ask what your why is for business, I get blank stares or worse yet, I hear “because its easier than working for someone else.” Anyone who knows anyone that owns a small business knows that last statement is certainly not true.

Being your own boss and having the freedom to make your own decisions comes with great responsibility. I would never say that it was easy, but I will say 100% for me it was worth it.  Building a business is learning a new set of skills, and it is doable, and you must believe in yourself.  You have to ignore the negative self-talk that peaks its sad little head into your dream and tries to derail it. You must shut that negativity down.  You must know your vision and goals. When I worked for an agency each year, we would write out our goals. We all would come up with something that sounded good. Then the rest of the year we would go about our work, never once thinking about our vision or goals. They meant nothing, and we never looked at them again. I am encouraging you to make the vision and set the goals but also review, analyze, and adjust as the year goes on.

Take some time right now, find a quiet place, and answer these questions:

1. What is your why for going into private practice?
2. What is your vision for your company?
3. What are your goals for your business? (Break it down from monthly, quarterly, half year and one year out) Calendar check-ins to see how you are doing. Make adjustments as needed, and celebrate your successes.

I was often frustrated by the length of time it took to get contracts or MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) executed in my agency job. One of the first actions that I did going into private practice was I created a contract with another agency who didn’t have enough therapists to do the work. We sat down and created a contract in about two days. That same action would have taken 4-6 months to complete. This contract was even reviewed by lawyers. Being small meant I could act quickly. My business whys included:

1. Helping people who have experienced trauma get healthy.
2. To make a difference in my community.
3. To have freedom of time.
4. To earn more money.
5. To work at a fun place, but still act professionally

You will have to figure out what your passion is before you put too much time, energy or money in because it’s going to take you a lot of work at first. Initially, your movement will be slow and then gradually like you are riding a bike uphill, you make it to the top.  Picking up speed as you go. You will be amazed at how quickly and smoothly your practice skills build. That is until you decided to scale up by adding new therapists; then there is a whole new learning curve. When you first start out, you may be working harder and longer hours than you would like to. Know that once you have things up and running, that will change. Building a business is hard but not impossible with good planning and knowing your why, it’s just a matter of learning a new skill. Knowing your why is certainly a building block to a healthy and sustainable business.