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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. With the new year coming up, I'm feeling the urge to reevaluate my practice. I've been doing this for a while, but I'm not sure where to start when it comes to making meaningful changes. What should I be thinking about? I love an assessment question. I love us to like, look at what we have and see if it's what we want and if it could be better and all of that. Okay, so before I answer the question, I want to thank our sponsor, TherapyNotes. I've talked about them for years. I know their features by heart, 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 clinical outcome tracking, real time insurance checks, a smooth super bill process, and their AI feature, therapy fuel. Everyone at TherapyNotes believes in the product and wants 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 their prices fair, to focus on innovation, and to 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 code abundant@theapynotes.com all right, so if you are here listening, you're probably ready for some change. And that readiness is huge. Whether you're brand new or you've been practicing for the for years, this kind of reflection can set you up for a much more aligned, fulfilling year ahead. So let's walk through several domains of your practice. I'll share ideas you can use immediately, plus reflections and examples so you can see what this might really look like in action. And at the end, I'm going to send you a worksheet that you can use to map it all out. So first, when and how do you actually want to work? A lot of Us drift into schedules that feel expected rather than chosen. We fall into working evenings because that's how other therapists do it, or weekends because clients want that, etc. But do you have enough energy at those times? Do those hours align with your rhythms, your personal life, the things that sustain you? So as an example, I worked with a therapist who always did evening hours because she thought she had to. And over time, she felt depleted. She shifted two of her evening slots to midday, and though she thought clients would complain, almost none did. Some even preferred the change. And her quality of life improved, her energy increased, her burnout decreased. So if you want to or need to change your hours, it is okay. It can just be a simple conversation, something like, I'm adjusting my schedule. Starting on this date, I will no longer be offering this hour routinely, but I'll honor existing clients who already have those times for a few weeks slash months. After that, we're going to shift to this new schedule. The anticipatory anxiety about that conversation tends to be way worse than the reality. Your clients can be flexible. They often understand more than we expect. Number two, are you still serving the right clients or niche? It's worth asking, do I love what I'm doing clinically with this client population, or is it draining me? Does it feel sustainable for another year? Do I feel challenged, alive, like I'm growing professionally? Or am I just coasting in a way that I don't like? So an example here. A therapist I know had been working with high anxiety adults for years, but realized she was more drawn to trauma work lately. Of course, there's overlap there, right? But she began taking on fewer new anxiety only clients and gradually shifted her marketing, her website, her trainings towards trauma. She continued supporting her existing anxiety clients until they concluded. So she didn't abandon them abruptly, but over time, her practice felt vibrantly alive with where she wanted to be. So if you decide to shift your niche, phase out old clients rather than abruptly dropping them. Begin promoting the new niche once you feel clear on what it is. And update your content, your website, your descriptions, outreach to reflect the new direction. Third, what do you feel about your fee and your pricing? Your fee is one of the most powerful levers in your practice. It affects everything. How many clients you need, your schedule, your energy, whether or not you feel respected and able to sustain your business. Here's what to assess. What does your ideal lifestyle require financially? Time wise, rest wise? How many sessions per week do you want versus how many can you sustain without burning out? What are your expenses Clinical overhead, tech, professional development, personal living needs how many weeks per year do you plan to take off? Vacation, holidays? Continuing ed? Include all of that in the math. There are tools for this like fee calculators or courses that help you flesh it out. Some therapists do this annually to make sure their fees keep up with the cost of living. Their skill growth, inflation, etc. Also communicate changes in your fee clearly, kindly and with notice. Most therapists find clients are more understanding than they feared. Again, this is one of those anticipatory anxiety things. I usually give six to eight weeks notice about a fee increase. Keep your fee visible in your materials, your website, your intake forms, your good faith estimate. Be confident in saying the number. Avoid phrases like I think or hedging. Just say your fee. Okay? Number four Goals you can control and build on. So goals are super helpful, but only when they are the kind that can directly influence. Vague goals like more clients or more revenue are hard to sustain. Instead, make your goals about actions rather than outcomes. So write one blog post per week. Reach out to one potential referral partner every Monday. Record one video per month. That's better than get a new client because how do you get a new client? You do these specific things that bring them in the door. Use the smart criteria. We all have heard of smart goals, but I will remind you it's specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. Put stuff in your calendar. Block out time for your goals. If they're not scheduled, they probably won't happen. One therapist I worked with blocked off Monday mornings for business work, which is marketing outreach, and Wednesday afternoons for professional development. She found that once she made these blocks non negotiable like a client needs to reschedule, they still don't go in there. These are held. She felt less reactive, more in control and her business grew more steadily rather than feeling like she was always catching up and behind the eight ball. Number five let's look at your systems and energy management. If any part of your practice feels chaotic, maybe your notes are piling up, cancellations are confusing. Scheduling feels like a scramble. This is where you need better systems. Use tech and tools, your practice management software like therapy notes, automations for reminders, recurring appointments, scheduling. I want you to have buffer times between emotionally heavy sessions. Don't pack too many draining clients back to back or in the same day. Set aside admin time. Let some of your time just be for paperwork catch up or accounting or emails, not just clinical work. When you look at your work schedule, outsource what you can. If you hate blog formatting, scheduling, social posts, receipts, it might be worth hiring someone part time or a VA to take on those burdens. Sixth, let's reflect. Let's celebrate. Let's get honest about our needs. So before making changes you need awareness and for that you also need kindness to yourself. So let's reflect. What moments this past year made you proud of? When did you do something really difficult or uncomfortable or scary and you showed up? What do you need more of? What's draining you? What is fear holding you back from doing that you actually want to do? So there are your reflections. Let's celebrate. Maybe raising your fee or enrolling in a difficult training or making a boundary or cleaning up tech. All of those are huge wins. I want you to recognize them. So please look over the past year and see where you can pat yourself on the back and get honest. Are you over committed? Are you working when you actually don't want to or when your energy is low? Is fear or people pleasing or perfectionism or inertia keeping you stuck? And what's your plan for getting unstuck? So that comes to putting it all together like the action plan. Number seven, here's how you can begin putting these pieces into motion. Number one choose one or two areas to start. Maybe it's your hours plus fee or it's your niche plus your scheduling system. Don't try to change everything at once. Number two, Use the worksheet, which I'm going to talk about in a second, to map what ideal looks like for you in those areas. Number three Set small concrete next steps. So for instance, send an email to current clients announcing schedule changes or calculate your expenses to define your minimum sustainable session fee. Number four Give yourself a timeline. Maybe one to two weeks to decide, one month to implement, another month to assess how it feels. So you deserve a practice that nourishes you and allows you to feel energized and alive and proud. Change is uncomfortable, but often the discomfort is just the threshold for growth. So I created this free worksheet, make this New Year Better than Last. It's going to walk you through these areas. We talked about your schedule, your niche, your fees, your goals, your systems, your energy and give you space to reflect and plan action steps. If you are in a full practice or a mostly full practice and you want to make some changes but you are terrified that you are going to lose what you built, I want you to DM me the word limitless and I will send you information about our program specifically for full therapists who are making changes in their practice. If you want that free worksheet, I want you to DM me the word sheets. If you're listening on the podcast, then you can click those links in the Show Notes. And yeah, you've got this. You've already do. The fact that you're thinking and you're reflecting shows me that you already have a great practice or a great practice on the way. That's more than most people ever do. All right, I will talk with you all. I hope you have a wonderful start to the new year. Take care. 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.