Is it time for you to evolve and thrive?

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. This episode is all about that stuck on the fence feeling that I think is so familiar to so many of us. That feeling when you know that something needs to change, but you are not sure whether now is the right time to make that change.

Full show notes for this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

Links for Rosie:

Substack: substack.com/@drrosie

Rosie on Instagram:

@rosiegilderthorp

@thepregnancypsychologist

Evolve and Thrive Mastermind

Have you been listening to this and feeling like the time has come for you to make a change in your practice? Maybe you are ready to grow with passive or semi passive income. Maybe you are ready to gain more time freedom, have that flexibility you always dreamed of, or expand your impact. If any of that sounds like you, you might be a really good fit for my Evolve and Thrive Mastermind.

Our next cohort is starting in January 2026, and it's a small group, six-month coaching experience. The early bird rate finishes mid-December, so if any of that sounds good to you, make sure you check out the details over at psychologybusinessschool.com and book your free call with me now to secure the best price.

Shownotes

Is it time for you to evolve and thrive?

Hello and welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. This episode is all about that stuck on the fence feeling that I think is so familiar to so many of us. That feeling when you know that something needs to change, but you are not sure whether now is the right time to make that change.

I just want to acknowledge that often this happens when my clients are really successful; when they've built exactly what they set out to build, but now something about it just isn't feeling fulfilling or they're struggling with the day-to-day running of their practice, feeling burned out, maybe feeling like they're doing fine, but sort of spinning their wheels in time, and that's how it was for me. On the surface, I had built a really successful private practice. From the outside looking in, people would've seen fully booked, always busy attracting people to my specialism, tick, tick, tick, it all looks great. But in reality, I was really struggling to keep going with that pace of clients because it wasn't giving me the flexibility that I needed in my life, but also it wasn't really allowing me to use my skills as a psychologist in the diverse and interesting ways that I had been able to in my public sector roles. So for a number of reasons, I arrived at this point of feeling like I needed to make a change, but I sat on that fence for quite a while, and it can be quite an uncomfortable place. I've noticed that as I've been doing the calls for our next Evolve and Thrive cohort, which is really exciting, that a lot of people are sitting on that fence. And because the economy is in a challenging place, and I don't think that we're in a really optimistic frame of mind as a generation at the moment, often we might be sitting in that place for a bit longer, really agonising over when's the right time to jump off and do something a bit differently. So I wanted to record an episode to help you think that through. And it's not going to be, “you should always go for it, now is definitely the right time to make a change in your practice”, because actually one of the things that's really important to me as a business coach is that you are respectful of the season of life that you are in, and that you make decisions based on wherever possible, data, good information about the return on the investment that you're going to get. And I don't just mean investment in terms of money, I mean investment in terms of time, your creativity and your emotional wellbeing as well. So, I hope this episode is going to help you. If you are thinking that now might be a good time for you to step into something new, maybe create a new project, something outside the therapy room, or maybe expand and bring on associates, my aim with this episode is to help you think through whether now is the right moment to jump in with both feet and really go for it, or if actually you might be in a season that means that those things are all here for you, they're all going to happen, but they need to happen a little bit later. So I hope you're going to find this useful.

I also hope that this episode will demonstrate to you that that evolution is possible, even if it's not the thing for you right now, I think there's a bit of pessimism out there sometimes that maybe we will miss the boat, that they are one to many offers, online courses, that kind of thing are only really available to people that built their audiences back when it was easier, like in 2016 for example, but actually that's not true. I am supporting day in, day out, I'm supporting psychologists and therapists who are doing it right now in this tricky climate and making it work. So I also hope that this episode is going to give you a little bit of that hopeful optimism that I have the privilege of sitting alongside in my coaching practice regularly.

Signs that you might be ready to evolve your practice

There are some signs that you might be ready to evolve your practice that are worth paying attention to. I got these from my existing participants in Evolve and Thrive.

The first sign is that you start craving one to many. You start craving more scale and more variety in your work. Maybe you are fully booked or well established, but you really miss using the other parts of your brain that one-to-one therapy doesn't always utilise. And this is how Dr Grace Lee-Brindle, who is currently in Evolve and Thrive described it to me. She noted that after leaving the NHS, she missed other parts of her work. She was well established with one-to-one clients, she's got a brilliant specialism, but she felt like she was ready to branch out and use other skills. So I think that's really important. Dr Kelly Young also shared something on this theme. She said that she wanted to move from a one-to-one, to a one-to-many model to increase the revenue in her practice, but also to make more impact for more people while working fewer hours. So, I guess the takeaway from that is if you resonate with those things, if you feel itchy to use your skills in a different way and you're wanting to make more impact with more people, then that could be a sign that you are ready for that recurring income strategy, and to develop a business model that takes you outside the therapy room.

Another theme that came up as a sign that you might be ready to make that change in your practice was a feeling that Dr Melita Ash, another one of our evolve and thrivers, put really well, I thought it was a really nice analogy. She said she felt like she was running fast, but standing still. I guess this is about the issue of sustainability, it's that feeling like I have, that you are working incredibly hard, but the business isn't really growing in a way that gives you any more time, flexibility or financial security. So it can feel a bit like you are running on a treadmill. Melita described it as like running fast, not getting anywhere, constantly working hard and feeling really stuck. And she felt like she needed to come on a program that would give her a structure towards getting unstuck because it can be such a difficult place to be when you are running that fast, that you're exhausted and sometimes unable to think outside of that fast pace of work that you're doing every day. That's something that Dr Victoria Wallace talked about too. She really prioritised sustainability and looking to avoid those boom and bust cycles we can often get into when we are relying on just one-to-one therapy and that referral rollercoaster in private practice.

I guess what this tells us is that if taking regular time off or flexibility for family is really important to you, and the business model you have at the moment isn't delivering that, then you really need a plan. Putting more effort into the model you already have is not going to take you somewhere different or more sustainable than where you are right now. So if where you are right now doesn't feel sustainable, if you feel like you're heading for burnout, you have to make a change. Sometimes what I hear from people is that they're sort of waiting to feel better before they make a change. But actually, if we formulate for ourselves in the exact same way that we would for a client, that's like waiting to stop feeling depressed before you go out for a walk. Sometimes we have to put the cart before the horse and get out, make the change that's going to allow us to feel better. So I think that's a really important point. If you're already on the road to burnout, hop off now. Do something different now before you get fully in the pit of it.

So sign number three that the current Evolve and Thrivers talked about was feeling like you kind of get stuck in contemplation mode. So maybe you have ideas, but procrastination, peer fear, or imposter syndrome stop you actually executing them. A lot of people talk about this as like shiny object syndrome, like the magpies or butterflies flitting from on...