From Reflection to Action: Maximising the Next Six Months in Your Private Practice

Hi, and welcome back and if it's your first time here, it's really great to have you on board. Hope you're okay. I've just had, I've just started recording this, and can you believe, and I say that because this happens every single time my dog decided to start barking, so I've just had to stop and kick her out.

So does your, does your animal do that? It's really annoying, isn't it? Just when you need to do something quietly, they just start, don't they? Anyway, enough of me and my dog. So here we are, and I truly can't believe that it's already July. You know, where did time go? And that's a serious question because, I have no idea where the time's gone this year. Now, this is a year where I've had the best intentions. I was gonna write a new course and, well, there were lots of things, but you know, I.

Nevermind, because it's been a really tricky year personally for me. I'm not gonna harp on a lot about what's happened to me, but just to let you know, my dad died. He went into hospital Christmas Eve and he died on the 7th of January. And my relationship my with my dad was very complex. And what's happened since has been.

Very complex, to say the least. I'm not gonna bore you with the details, but you know, even after death, he's thrown me and my brother a massive curve ball. And so this year has been very difficult. I've also had something else significant happening in my private life that I'm trying to manage, and it's, it's really, really hard.

So my brain this year, For the majority of it, my brain's just been in a massive fog. So anybody out there that struggles with a bit of brain fog, maybe you're in the menopause or maybe there's another reason you'll understand. It's very difficult, isn't it, when. When you can't put one word in front of another sometimes.

So yeah, it's not been the best of years so far. So what's your year been like so far? You know, has it gone the way that you planned or have you had something more like a plot line from a soap opera like mine?

o hell with the first half of: 2023

So for me, recently, I've had two trips away in two weeks, so I. Had a trip to Atomic On, which is a marketing conference, which is fantastic, up in Newcastle. Really enjoyed that. And then I've had like a, a few days away with a friend and our dogs over at the Seaside. I love being by the, by the coast. I really love it.

So I've already booked a week away in September with a friend. Which is fantastic and that feels fantastic for me, and this is significant as I found an old holiday pass when I was clearing out a handbag, and it turns out that the last proper holiday I went on was 20 11, 20 11. That was the last proper holiday.

And I have to say, although it was a proper holiday, my dad was with us. So again, you know, my dad and I had a tricky relationship. So I personally think I'm overdue a proper break. So how about you? You know, do you need a break? Maybe you can think, you know, have a, think about the six months coming up.

And think, right, how can I get away? You know, if you can afford it, can you go away on holiday if you can't afford it, can you go on a trip to visit a friend? There's always ways of getting a break, ev, you know, depending on, you know, whatever your financial situation is. Now something else that I've decided to do is I've decided to produce this podcast weekly again.

So that means I'm gonna be, you know, sharing with you more of my thoughts, more tips and advice for you about how to grow your private practice. So I'm looking forward to getting back into the habits of, you know, producing a podcast every week. Now, just whilst I'm talking about it, by the way, did you know that you can also catch this as a blog?

So if you do prefer to read, Lead. This is available on Jane travis.co.uk/blog. And yeah, whilst I was just looking in my diary, I've also just seen that on the 8th of July, it's the Grow Your Private Practice shows second anniversary. And it kind of shocks me, you know, I'm talking about how fast the time is going and, you know, it's hard to believe that this podcast has been going that long.

You know, it's really hard to believe that it's been going so long, to be honest, because I started, when I, when I started, I told myself, right, I'm gonna try it for 12 weeks and if I don't like it, I'll stop. And I do that with everything new that I do. And I recommend that you do it. You know, try something, give it a good doc, good shot.

12 weeks is a good amount of time. So I'll try it, throw myself into it, give it my best for 12 weeks, and then I have a little review and I think, right, did I enjoy that? Do I need to do it a different way or do I just wanna stop? So I started off by telling myself that. So I didn't know how long it was gonna go on for.

And here we are. This is episode, I think this is episode 144. So that's a lot. So this, this year so far, because of what I've just been talking about, the blog. The podcast has been going out fortnightly, but apart from that, it's been weekly every single week since I started, and I'm quite proud of that because you know that that consistency is, I dunno, I just feel really proud of it.

I'm not, I'm not known for my consistency in lots of ways, you know, when I look at my, my private life. But I'm really proud of the fact that this has been going out every week, and thank you so much. If you are a regular listener, it means the world to me to know that you listen and that you get something from this.

So, yeah. Now. Then something else that we've got to look forward to is that next week, so on the 13th of July, it's the Q3 Quarterly Action Plan Workshop in the membership. Now, I'm telling you this because you know, we are looking at reviewing the last six months and what we want to do for the next six months, so, If you have a to-do list that's a mile long and you don't even know where to start, then I would say come and join us.

And if you're listening to this after that date, the replay will always be available for you to catch up with because really, I just want you to know that you're not alone with this. You know, you don't have to struggle to work out where to start or how all the pieces fit together, and thank God, because it can be so overwhelming.

You know, you've got me, I'm here. The Grow Your Private Practice membership is a community of therapists and. You know, that are all working on growing their practice. And so I help, both with prerecorded courses that I've already done and also live events that you can come to. So you are always gonna have a place to get questions answered and to support and be supported.

So, just as an example, here's what's going on in July this year. As I say, we've got the quarterly action plan, so that's an hour and a half, and we really focus on what's going to be your next thing to focus on, what's going to be a secondary thing to focus on. So you know, you're gonna have one important thing to focus on, and then something else that's in, you know, important to look at.

And then also, what do you want to look at? Personally, what, what area of growth do you want for you personally? So that could be you want to start journaling or meditating, or you might want to start, you know, always eating five a day or something like that. So the quarterly action plan is a great way to just give yourself a good boost and get started.

Then we've got,something else that's happening in the membership is we've got the third in a mini series of workshops that's called How to Generate Blog Post Ideas to Attract More Clients. Now, in part one of this, we looked at the importance of understanding the client's journey into therapy and what content to produce for each of the stages.

And actually if you are interested in that, I've got a free download that you can grab that's all about how to, you know, learning about your client's journey into therapy. You can find that at jane travis.co.uk/start here, and you'll get, you know, you'll find that and all the different free resources that are available for you.

Now part two of this series is all about, it was all about alleviating clients' fears. Now this is so important because most clients that come to therapy have fears. They have doubts about, you know, about accessing therapy. And in actual fact, this was based on the therapy rebrand survey I did. I did this a few years ago.

I asked people, I asked counselors not to, not. To complete the survey cuz I thought that would skew the results. So the therapy rebrand, brandand survey went out to the general public about, you know, what are, how do they feel about counseling, you know, how do they perceive counseling? And the findings were a real eyeopener and they're just as important to know now.

As they were then. Now that was a webinar I, I put on a webinar about the results. And again, that webinar is available for free and you'll find that@janetravis.co uk slash start here. So that's the first two of those, that mini series. And in July we've got the third of this series. So it's all about how you can blog to attract.

More clients. And in this the third part of the series, we are looking at how you can save time blogging by using chat G P T. So if you've heard of chat G P t, but don't know anything about it or how it can help you, this will be a great workshop for you because. I think for a lot of people they might be really interested in blogging and one of the things they're worried about is, I dunno what to talk about.

Well, you never have to worry about what you're gonna talk about cuz I can share with you so many different ways to work out what you are going to talk about. But one of the things about getting started with blogging is people worry, I haven't got time to do it.

Is it gonna take too much time? Well, using chat g p t is gonna really reduce the amount of time that it's going to take you. Okay? So that's what we'll be talking about in the third of this series. And to close the month off in the membership, we've got one of our regular workshops, which is called the Pick My Brain Call, where members come along and they can basically pick my brain, you know, they can ask, ask any questions they've got.

and we can either have a chat about it or you can submit questions in advance. So that's what's going on in the membership this month. So look, you know, Come along, join us, see what you think. There's no risk. You know, you don't have, there's, you're not gonna lose anything. If you join and you decide it's not for you, you can just email me.

If you email me within 14 days, I'll refund you. No quibble. You know, you don't have to explain why. All you have to do is say, this isn't for me. I will refund your money. No problem at all. I'm there to help you. I'm not there to try and, you know, swindle you outta some money. So the, the membership is 45 pounds a month, which I think you'll, you know, once you see what's in there, I think you'll realize that that's, that provides really good value.

So come and join us, see what you think.

So here we are six months into the year, and it's a great chance for you to stop and to take stock of what's happening in your business because I think regular reviews are really important, you know? Because if you don't stop to focus, then you run the risk of just dabbling in this and dabbling in that and not really taking the steps that you need to to really move the needle forward in your business.

And if you want success, and when I say success, I mean whatever success. Looks like for you. So for some people that might be just five clients a week, regularly, or it might be that you want to have, you know, see clients on a full-time basis. Or it might be that you want to have clients on a part-time basis and you have something else that you do as well.

So you might want to diversify. Well, all of those things. You need to focus on what you're doing. You need to think about where you are and what you need to work towards so that it'll happen because it won't just happen. You know, it's not just gonna happen by chance. You have to focus on it and take those steps to make it happen. So here are a few questions that you might find useful. So have a think about, you know, where are you, just, you know, where are you?

Are you where you want to be? If you're not where you want to be, Where do you want to be? That's the first question. Something else to consider is, Is there something that you are doing now that you can drop? Is there something you are doing now that doesn't bring you results or you really don't like doing it?

You know, what can you drop? And so if you want to drop something, what else can you do instead? Is there something you've been meaning to try? But you haven't had time or you've not wanted to do it for various reasons. Maybe now could be a time to think. Right? I want to pick that up and I'm gonna start to focus on that over this quarter.

Something else you might want to consider is where do you need support, you know, We all need support. It might need be that you need support at home. You might need some, you know, extra childcare. You might need a chat with your partner. you know, think about that and think about what can you say no to, you know, is there something in your life that you can say no to so that you can devote more time to your practice?

And have a think about what is your current priority and what are the steps that you need to take to achieve that? You know, like I say, it's not gonna happen if you don't focus on it. And again, what do you need to do on a personal level? You know, maybe like me, you need some time off, maybe. You need to increase your prices because you're just not charging enough and you know, maybe you are struggling financially as well.

So maybe that's something you need to focus on. Or maybe you need to get some help. So maybe you need to get like a VA to help you in your practice. Or maybe you need some help outside of your practice. So maybe a cleaner would help to free up some time for you to work on your practice, cuz you'll earn more from a couple of new clients.

That's totally gonna cover the cost of a cleaner. You know, a cleaner is usually, I dunno, be between between 10 and 20 pounds a, a session. So it's gonna be good financial sense to let somebody else come and do the cleaning, and you save your energy and do the thing that's gonna help you to earn more money.

So, have a think, you know, think about where you are. What you want, how you might get there. And you know, one of my favorite sayings, if you've been listening for a while, you'll know that I say this, inspiration without action is merely entertainment. So, you know, here is your action step for this episode.

And this, again, if you listen to my podcast regularly, I talk about this all the time, take yourself off somewhere. Maybe a coffee shop, maybe a pub, maybe a park, maybe a library. But I do think that going somewhere, Different, you know, away from where you normally are means that you can then stop and you can think in a different way, and that means that you are gonna be able to focus more about what's going on from a slightly different viewpoint with that little bit of distance between you.

So take yourself off and consider the questions that I've just had, because if you don't stop to focus, like I say, then you are run the risk of just, you know, dabbling in this and dabbling in that and just not really moving forward and you deserve to move forward. You deserve to have the practice of your dreams.

And look, just before I go, I've just about finished, but just before I go, I want to say, I just want to give you the heads up because I've got something special coming for you on the podcast. So, because I'm starting to podcast again weekly, I've, I'm starting with a bit of a bang. So starting next week is, The first of a three-part mini series all about how to attract your dream clients, and I know that you're gonna find it really useful, and it might not actually be what you think, but this would be a really good boost for you for the start of the second half of the year.

So yeah, keep an eye out for that and just subscribe to the podcast. If you subscribe to the podcast, it means that you'll never miss an episode. So that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening to the Grow Your Private Practice Show. I really do appreciate it and I do hope that this, this has helped you.

And again, you know, I've talked about some additional resources that I have that are free and available to you. And if you want to get those resources, just pop on over to my website, which is jane travis.co.uk. I've got lots of free resources there available and you can download them and just, you know, use them now.

So, yeah. An added bonus of that actually is that if you download any of my stuff, you'll be added to my email list, and that means that I'll send you helpful hints and strategies directly to your email. Want, once a week and look, I promise I won't spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time, every email that goes out has a link and you can just unsubscribe if you don't want it anymore. So, you know, like I say, I'm here to help you, not to hinder you. So, you know, what are you waiting for? Pop off. Have a look@janetravis.co.uk now, and let's get started to take your private practice to the next level together.

Okay, that's it. I look forward to speaking to you again next time. Bye.