Unless you work in a resort town or at a destination spa, the summer months tend to be slower for most bodywork practitioners.

I call it the Summer Slowdown -- people go on vacation, kids have to be shuttled here and there, and bodywork and self-care may not be number one on your clients' list of things to do.

So looking ahead into June, July, and August, and not seeing many names in your appointment book can be really scary.

If you’re not careful, you can find yourself spiraling down into a black hole of “OMG, what’s happening to all my appointments? Where IS everyone? What am I going to do? Can I keep my doors open?”

So it’s important to remember a couple of things as we head into the summer:

First, it’s not about you.

Really, it’s not. Your practice is going to ebb and flow, along with the seasons. And there’s a good chance that summer may be slower.

So don’t take it personally.

Don’t make it mean anything about you or your skills, or your business acumen. It’s simply an ebb that will soon become a flow again.

Second, don’t get lost in the downward spiral of fear and self-doubt. Instead, use the downtime to mend nets.

When fishermen couldn’t go to sea because of bad weather, they would use the time to mend their nets so that when the good weather returned, they could make the most of it.

And it’s the same with your practice.

You can use the slower summer months to get a jump on the parts of your business that you haven’t been able to focus much of your energy on when you’re super busy with clients.

Before we start, it’s really important to understand the difference between Aspirational Goals and Process Goals. An Aspirational Goal is a big picture goal: I want to lose 10 pounds by September 1. That’s great, but it doesn’t tell you HOW you’re going to get there. HOW are you going to lose those 10 pounds?

The HOW are Process Goals. So, you might have 3 Process Goals — like run 5 times every week, or pack a healthy lunch for work each morning. Think of the process goals as check-off-able steps that will get you to your Aspirational Goals.

Now, let’s jump in.

I suggest you start the summer months by creating 3 aspirational goals for your business — one for CLARITY, one to help BUILD your business, and then one goal that you’ve really been wanting (or meaning) to work on.

Then, you’ll sketch out what steps you’ll need to take to make these goals a reality.