The First Thing You Need to do to Build Your Massage Business
Do you ever feel like you have TOTALLY missed the proverbial boat? You’re going along, thinking that you’re doing all the right things, really connecting with your clients, and then BAM! — something happens that lets you know that you need to take stock and reconsider.
That recently happened to me.
I was on a coaching call with one of my Private Mentoring students, and we were talking about the next steps she needed to take to build up her practice into one that could sustain her and her family.
After we had talked for about 45 minutes, I asked her how she was feeling about all the ideas that we had going back and forth.
I was surprised and gobsmacked when she said, “I feel terrible.”
AACK! What in the world? How could she be feeling terrible when we had come up with so many wonderful ideas for her practice? I could see her potential as a therapist, I had a clear vision of her helping so many more people, and I knew that together we could make it happen. But she felt terrible — what was I missing?
When I asked her to explain, she said, “I don’t know where to begin. There’s just too much to do. I don’t know if I have the time, the energy, the experience, the know-how to do any of this. It’s too overwhelming, and I just feel like hiding underneath my blanket.”
Whoa.
I then told her the same thing I’m going to tell you now.
The very first thing you need to do to build your bodywork practice is to start where you are.
I had been so focused on strategy, tactics, and helping my student see her potential, that I had missed the fact that she didn’t have a clear idea of where she was at the present moment in her business. I did, but she didn’t.
Whoa.
We talked it through, and I reassured her that she didn’t have to do ALL.THE.THINGS today!
Together, we went through the 3-step process that will get results, in your practice (and in your life):
Know where you are.
Know where you want to be.
Keep taking baby steps, every day, toward your vision.
Yes, I told her, it’s that simple.
Stepping into your power and fulfilling your potential as a bodywork therapist and entrepreneur isn’t always easy. But the framework is simple.
And in the next series of blogposts, I’m going to take you through this simple process that I use with students I mentor and members of The Bodywork Project.
All you need to do is make the commitment to start where you are.
You may be at the very beginning of your bodywork journey, and have a gazillion things that you need to do. That’s OK. Or you may be sooo close to your dream practice, and you just need to refine and tweak a few things. That’s OK, too.
Start where you are.
No need to compare yourself to others, or beat yourself up for not being further along the path. This is YOUR journey, and all you need to begin getting closer to a practice (and life!) that works for you is to begin.
And that’s exactly what we’ll do in this series of blogposts. I’ll show you how to figure out where you are, where you want to go, and how to begin taking baby steps in that direction.
My student? She contacted me this morning and told me that she had been sleeping so much more deeply since our call because she now has a plan. She no longer has to try to do ALL.THE.THINGS, and she no longer has to do it alone.
And neither do you. Take a deep breath, have some chocolate, and start where you are.