Re-imagining Your Vision for Your Practice |

Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 41.

MINDY TOTTEN:

Hey, Hey there. Welcome back to the Do It With Intention podcast.

I’m your host, Mindy Totten, and I have one question for you today, as we start this episode, how are you doing? I mean, really, really? How are you doing. I hope that wherever you are on the back to practice spectrum, whether you're back in your treatment room, working at capacity, or if you're not quite ready to practice again or someplace in between, I hope that you're feeling safe, listening to both your head and your heart.

I trust that all of us are doing the very best we can right now to do what's right. I don't know how into astrology you are for me. I enjoy learning about it. And I probably know just enough to find it even more interesting and want to learn even more. We happen right now to be in a period that's called mercury retro grade.

A time when things like technology and communication can get all wonky for us. In addition to my recommendation that you back up your laptop and all your records right now, because that's what they say that you're supposed to do. And Hey, it's always a good idea to do backups, right? I also like my dear friend and yoga teacher, Kathy Russell's idea to look at the word retro grade and see how it applies to your life.

Retrograde begins with R E re the prefix that literally means to go back and look again, think of words like recharge, reinvigorate and reimagine. Now is the perfect time for you to reimagine the vision for your practice. We've been discussing this a lot inside of the bodywork project and a couple of themes are coming up again.

And again, first of all, when the coronavirus really hit the country hard in mid-March, most of us experienced immediate fear and anxiety, right? What would happen to our practices? What would happen to our clients? What would happen to us? But as time has gone on and we've had to navigate shutdowns illnesses, uncertainty, we've begun to recognize our own strengths and resiliency.

I'm hearing my students say now that this forced downtime has allowed them to have the time to be still and to reflect on so many things in their lives, including of course their bodywork businesses. And they finally have the time to think. Feel dream and reimagine the vision for their practices. I encourage you to do the same thing.

And today we're going to talk about how to do just that there are really two parts to this reimagining of your practice vision. The first is deeper and requires stillness in time. That is what is your big, why? What's your big, why? Why are you doing this work? If you've never taken the time to figure that out, I want you to be sure to download today's free podcast bonus guide.

You can get it at the show notes, which is at www.mindytotten.com/podcast/episode 41. There are some questions in the guide to help you figure out your why. Often we  big hearted bodywork therapists. We share a variation that goes our big, why is something like this? I was in pain.

Bodywork helped me to heal. And now I want to share that work with others. This is certainly a part of my, why I had a number of symptoms that Western medicine couldn't get to the bottom of and nothing the doctors told me to do help. Finally, finally, finally, craniosacral therapy helped me to heal and become whole again.

And I wanted to share this remarkable work with other people and be a part of their wellness journeys. So the first thing you want to figure out. When you're, re-imagining the vision for your practice is to figure out your why, why are you doing this, particularly in this new age that we're all now living in.

Once you get your, why down, I want you to look at how so you know why you want to be of service. How are you going to be of service? How are you going to show up in your practice? What offerings will you create so that you can be in service to your ideal clients? When you think about these things, you may well realize that in the past couple of months, your why hasn't changed.

You still want to be a body worker. You still want to help people release their pain, but perhaps your, how has changed. You may be starting to offer remote sessions, for example, or video classes or information products as you reimagine, how you want your practice to look going forward. I want you to think really carefully about the how, and I want you to listen to me really carefully with what I'm about to say.

You can turn up the volume if you need to, because I want you to really hear this. You have so much more to offer then just hands-on bodywork. I promise you, you have so much more to offer than just hands on body work. If you're listening to this podcast, I know that you are a skilled, big hearted therapist.

Who's smart savvy and will succeed with your work no matter how the future unfolds. The first step is to get as clear as you can around your re-imagined vision for your practice. One thing you'll want to look at is the bottom line for your business. Of course, there's a financial bottom line, right? How much revenue do you need to bring in month after month to keep your practice doors open?

Most body workers are hyperfocused on this financial bottom line, but there are other bottom lines in your business as well. For example, there's the environmental bottom line. How big is the environmental footprint of your business? Are you carefully using resources in a way that's in alignment with how you want to live on the earth?

Think about that. There's also a values bottom line. As you reimagine your practice, I want you to consider the ways that your practice is a reflection of you and the person you want to be. Whatever that means for you is your practice inclusive. Does your clientele mirror, the larger population of where you live?

Do you spend your business dollars with other companies and people who reflect your values and ideals, does your business support, social justice, equality, diversity. You can reflect on all these bottom lines as you reimagine the vision for your practice. I'll share with you a little bit of how that has looked for me.

You know, I've been a hands on craniosacral therapy practitioner for almost 17 years and I have absolutely loved it. So it was really hard for me to admit a couple of years ago that my heart was calling me to do more coaching, more teaching and more mentoring, but I listened to my heart and I started to downsize my hands on practice so that I had more time for the coaching side of my work.

For me going forward. That means only seeing craniosacral therapy clients and special situations so that I can focus my energy into this coaching work that I love so much and that my intuition is calling me to do. And it means that I can show up for my students 1000%. And I recently made the decision.

Here's another one looking at values. Bottom line. I recently made the decision to leave Facebook and deactivate my account. I simply, and I'm, this is no judgment on anybody else, but I simply could not continue to support a platform that was actively engaged in sharing falsehoods that it knew was false and misleading.

I'm just a really tiny business. I get that right. Facebook probably isn't freaking out that I'm no longer on Facebook. I'm a teeny tiny little business, but taking my advertising dollars away from Facebook is something that was important to me, supporting a company whose business model actively leads to misunderstanding.

At best and violence and hatred at the worst was just something that I could no longer do. It was part of my values bottom line to recognize and admit I could no longer do that. So as I said, I have no judgment of others who choose to use Facebook or any other social media platform. I just realized it wasn't in alignment with my values.

So I stopped advertising there. I moved all my groups to different platform and it feels like such a heavy weight has been lifted off of me. You guys, I may not have been able to get that clarity to make those steps without taking the time to reflect, to recharge. And re-imagine. So I want you to do that too.

Now part two of the new vision for your business is more practical. When you're dreaming of your ideal practice, it's important to get as clear as possible. You want as much clarity as possible. And why do you need as much clarity as possible? Well, without getting into. Sort of the metaphysics of the whole thing.

Clarity has an energy that will make your journey so much faster, so much more straight forward and get you where you want to go. When you're clear, it's almost like the universe opens up and delivers things to you so that you can go faster and you can get to where you want to go. So let's clarify that vision for you.

In the episode bonus guide. I want you to start brainstorming about your perfect practice. You can draw paint, cut out pictures that give you a feel of what you want later. You know, do your vision board layer right now. I want you to focus on specifics. These can always change as you and your practice evolve.

But for right now, let yourself dream think of the answer to the eight questions that are in the episode bonus guide. So in your re-imagined practice, I want you to ask yourself, what modality do you use with your clients? How many clients do you see each week and each day, which days of the week do you work?

What are your hours? Where do you work? What population do you work with and how much income do you earn each week? Your answers to these questions will help give you the blueprint for your practice. So the first part is re-imagining the vision. And then the second part is taking that vision and making it concrete.

For example, once you realize that you only want to work weekday mornings, say you can begin to schedule your clients accordingly. Or if, you know, in your heart that you want to do a certain modality, you begin to work towards certification in that modality inside the body work project. The last couple of weeks, students have shared things like, they've been scheduling 45 minutes between clients to give themselves enough time to thoroughly clean and they realize how much they like that extra time.

So they're going to keep that schedule in the future. Or other students are letting their office space go and opening treatment rooms attached to their homes or sharing office space with other practitioners, making their practices and their lives more streamlined and intentional. I encourage you to be intentional too.

I mean, that's what I'm always talking about on the show. Right? Do it with intention, be intentional with your business going forward and take this time to reimagine your vision for your practice. Then follow that vision with clear, simple steps toward that vision, your vision for your practice should include your why, your, how and your values bottom line.

Take the time to reimagine your vision. You've got this. I know that you can do this. And as always, I am here holding you and your practice in my heart.