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Abundant Practice Podcast
Episode #671: How To Not Screw Up Your Practice
00:08:31
Starting a practice? Watch for your old patterns. In today’s Ask Allison, I share how building a business brings up old stuff—perfectionism, over-functioning, avoidance, you name it. It’s not new, just newly visible. I’ll walk you...
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Allison
Foreign. Welcome to Ask Allison. Y' all ask the questions about having a fun and thriving practice and I answer them. We have a worksheet for you today so you can bring this answer into your life. You can Access that@AbundancePracticeBuilding.com links where you'll also be able to ask any questions you have for Ask Allison. If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there too. If you can't get enough Ask Allison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Allison library. Welcome back to Ask Allison. Here's today's question. What self defeating patterns do you see in people who are starting their practices? What should I be on the lookout for on a psychological level? I love this question, obviously. So before we delve into the answer, I want to thank our sponsor. TherapyNotes has been sponsoring Ask Allison and we really appreciate it. We've talked about them for years. You probably know their features by heart by now, but what really sets them apart is that they genuinely care about your experience. It's not just about troubleshooting. They actively implement user suggested features like Therapy Search, secure messaging, their new AI Notes, real time insurance checks. Everyone at Therapy Notes believes in the product and they want you to love it too. Plus, they're independently owned, which means no venture capital and no pressure to prioritize investors over customers. This independence allows them to keep prices fair, focus on innovation, and prioritize customer experience. With over 100,000 therapists already on board, they've proven you don't have to compromise success for quality. If you're ready to see for yourself, try TherapyNotes free for two months with the code abundanttherapynotes.com all right, so as a therapist, we're going to assume that we have pretty good insight, right? We've been trained to reflect, to notice our thoughts and feelings, to help others do the same. You've probably experienced some major self growth in your personal life, but what happens when you start your own business? Specifically, if you're a private practice owner and entrepreneur, you're going to get hit with some uncomfortable truths about yourself. Truths that can feel vulnerable and even messy. So the self defeating patterns I see are as varied as the therapists I work with. So I'm going to focus on how you can tune into your own patterns. Because the things that crop up while building a practice, they're never new. It's never your first rodeo with this problem. When I first started my practice, I thought I knew exactly who I was. I mean, I had a solid sense of my values My mission, my approach to therapy. I had great self awareness, right? But going into business for myself taught me like a whole new level of that. It's kind of like you've been living in a house with some hidden rooms and one day you open a door and there's this whole new room, this whole new part of you you didn't know existed. Sometimes it's like being immersed in a therapy session with your exes and your family and every person you've ever felt self conscious around. It's awkward. But if you're feeling these things, like the self doubt, the discomfort, the moments where you feel like you're really not good enough, I want to tell you that you're doing it right. Those moments of self doubt and vulnerability, they're a sign that you're growing. Growth is uncomfortable, it's messy, it's totally normal. Here's what I've noticed over the years. As we build our businesses and we expand into new roles, we come to face to face with our patterns, those subconscious ways of reacting and coping when we feel stressed or overwhelmed or insecure. You might find yourself acting in ways that seem completely out of character, but in reality these are deep rooted patterns that you've had for years. And that's okay. What's important is that you recognize them and you act accordingly. I've got a pattern too. When I am passionate about something, when I'm really excited about a project or an idea, I go full steam ahead, which sounds really great on the surface. I get super focused, I'm all in. But then I forget to take breaks, I forget to rest, I forget that I had to pee an hour ago. And when I do this, especially over time, of course I'm going to hit a wall really hard. It's like the moment that you're driving and the gas light turns on. Except I keep going until the car literally stops and that's burnout. When I don't take care of myself, when I don't take time to recharge, that wall is inevitable. And it is covered in tears and frustration and sometimes a good bit of martyrdom. Maybe that sounds familiar to you, but the good news is it's avoidable. So like over time I learned that I had to consciously schedule self care into my schedule. I had to make it a part of my plan because without it, my pattern of burning out would just keep repeating. It became a non negotiable part of my routine to have some self care in there. I schedule regular breaks. I have time set aside for exercise Lunch with friends, family. And I want to make this really clear. Your pattern is probably different from mine. Maybe you're the type to procrastinate. Maybe you can't move forward with a project until everything is perfect. New photos, a fresh look, or the ideal version of yourself. Maybe you overeat, drink a little more wine than you'd like, or you turn to other forms of emotional escapism when the pressure gets too much. It's okay. We all have our patterns. And unfortunately, you probably won't even recognize your pattern until it's already in motion. It might take a moment of self reflection or a time when you hit a wall hard, like I tend to, to realize what's going on. Don't worry. The important thing is that once you recognize your pattern, you can interrupt it before it takes control. So after you watch or listen to this, I want you to take five minutes. Like actually set a timer for five minutes. This, I want to do this exercise for self awareness and it's gonna help you. So your free worksheet for this week has these questions. I want you to go through them. You can also listen, pause, write them, write out your answers, whatever works. Here are the questions. What are the early warning signs of my pattern behaviors? What happens when I start to slip into that cycle? What works for me to break that cycle before it gets out of hand? And then here's the big one. Am I willing to do what works to stop the cycle? And that last question is tough. A lot of us, myself included, can come up with a million excuses to keep doing what doesn't work. We might think, oh, it's just temporary. I'll just power through, I'll deal with it later. But the truth is, it's that lack of willingness to interrupt our patterns that keeps us stuck. It keeps us from moving forward, personally, professionally, all of it. I see it in my clients, I see it in my students. I see it in my business owner friends. I see it in myself too. The good news is, when you're willing to do what it takes to break that cycle, that's when the magic happens. That's when you start truly growing. So let's get practical here. If you're still in the phase of figuring this out, I want you to commit to scheduling these moments of self care and reflection. For me, it had to be something that was non negotiable. I put it in my calendar because I am ruled by my calendar. If it's taking a walk, journaling, just sitting still for a few minutes, find what works for you, but don't leave it to chance. Being an entrepreneur takes resilience, and part of that resilience is knowing when to rest, when to ask for support, when to pull back so that you can continue showing up as the best version of yourself. These questions are written down for you in our free worksheet this week. You can just DM me the word sheets if you are seeing this in social, and you can just click the link if you're hitting the Show Notes in the podcast. I'll send you this week's worksheet along with a link to all the worksheets in the series, and these are designed to help you break through cycles, build a stronger, more balanced foundation for your business. All right, thanks for joining me today. I will see you soon. If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months free. I hope that helped. If you have questions for Ask Allison or you want to get your hands on the worksheet for this episode, go to abundancepracticebuilding.com Links if you're listening, you probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the Show Notes. I'd love for you to follow, rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.