The Dream of a Successful Natural Therapy Business

By Margaret Gill

Have your New Years Resolutions flown the coup yet? Imagine if you could be pulled toward your goals for your natural therapy practice instead of fighting against them. I have found that defining my dream each year is a much more powerful way to get the things I want achieved. Let’s see if using dreams could work better for you too.

“Nothing happens unless first a dream is created"
Carl Sandburg

Many therapists often start the year with warm fuzzy intentions to make this year their best yet but end up frustrated that things aren’t happening for them by March. Often what is lacking in these fuzzy intentions is a connection to the dream that got you started in the first place.

Take yourself back as you stood looking out at the crowd of friends and family gathered to watch you graduate, with your accreditation certificate in hand, the ringing of applause in your ears and a light glowing from your eyes, it seemed an easy path to set up and be successful in your own natural therapy business. After all you had flown through your training, got great grades and everyone tells you what a phenomenal healer you are.

Why then is the reality a dark place where you feel alone, unsupported and quite frankly with no idea who to turn to and learn how to make your business work?

Importance of Identifying Your Dream

Often what is missing in the gap between graduation and a full practice is a connection to the three key foundational musts to achieve a successful business:

• Decide

• Believe

• Dream

During your training you probably made a committed decision that you were going to be a therapist but did you make a commitment to have a successful practice? Don’t feel bad if this is you because most forget this step.

Then the second step is to build a strong belief in your ability as a therapist and a belief in your ability as a business person. Most therapists grabble with believing in themselves as a therapist and their reaction to that is to go out and do more training.

The third step is then to create a compelling dream or vision of what you want your natural therapy practice and life to look like. What most do is write down a few hastily thought out affirmations, cut out a few pictures to go on your dream board, write a few immediate goals and set about the task of setting up your practice. In fact if you are like me in the early days you even forgot to write in anything about money in your affirmations which meant nothing appeared. If you don’t include all aspects of your business and life, your dream quickly disintegrates before your eyes as the effort you put in does not equate to the rewards you get out.

In reality the dream component of your practice needs a lot of time and energy for it is the foundation on which your practice will be built and grown.

Why is this so important?

Perhaps Stephen Covey explains it best: Begin with the end in mind. Having a clear, specific, vivid and inspiring vision for your business and life is critical to achieving it.

I have had two past clients who have taken out major awards. One, a Chinese Doctor took out the Telstra Young Business Women’s’ Award and the other took four coveted Tourism Awards in the Spa and Wellness Industry. Both told me the very first time we met that their dream was to be recognised as the best. They had clear pictures in their mind of what that meant to them and they went about and created it. Neither follows the convention of normal and both created new dreams once they won their awards. Their point of difference in winning was their resolute focus on their dream and an unwavering commitment to stick to their own dream and not just churn out the industry standard dream.

In Your Natural Therapy Business these are the types of items that you need to be clear about so you can build them into your dream statements...

• What are you doing professionally? (One-one treatments, teaching, speaking, live workshops, authoring books?)

• How many people do you want to treat?

• What are your clients like?

• What are you treating?

• What kind of impact are you having on your clients and in the world?

• What kind of income are you earning?

• What is your reputation in the industry?

• What is your work environment like?

• Are you working alone or with others?

• Are you meeting with clients in person at a clinic or working from home?

• What is your treatment room like?

• What is your waiting room like?

• Do you have a view from your treatment room?

• Do you have an assistant or other systems in place to support your business?

• How many hours per day/week/month are you working?

• Have you become a specialist in your area?

• Do you have a media presence?

• Are you travelling and speaking to audiences?

• Are you reaching out to thousands of people who might read the books you write or attend programmes you design?

In Your Personal Life...

• What qualities do you possess?

• What are you learning?

• What skills have you mastered?

• Where are you living?

• How are your days spent?

• What are your relationships like?

• How is your health and wellness?

• How do you express your spirituality?

• How active are you in your community?

• Are you engaging in some type of service?

• What do you do for fun and recreation?

• What do you really love doing?

• How do you want to be remembered when you are gone?

• What causes do you support and how are you doing this?

As you work on your dream ask yourself:

• Is my dream a reflection of what I really want?

• Is my dream congruent with my values and priorities?

• Does my dream inspire and excite me?

• Have I been as specific as I can be about my dream?

• Does it incorporate and balance all the important aspects of my life?

• Is it a dream I REALLY want and am willing to work to achieve or is it a “pie in the sky fantasy” that is as likely to happen as winning lotto?

How vividly can you paint your dream? How clear can you get?

Your goal is to identify and write down what you really want your life and business to look like. Think about the best vision you can imagine. Don’t worry about how you’re going to make it happen. Instead focus on what you REALLY desire for yourself and your life, both personally and professionally. Be as specific as possible and dare to dream!

-oOo-

Margaret Gill is a business coach who has a proven system that helps natural therapists grow their business, be more profitable and have a balanced life. Her dream is to work with natural therapists all around the world to achieve strong, healthy and abundant practices in all ways. www.abundant-private-practices.com

margaret@margaretgill.com

www.Abundant-Private-Practices.com

This article orginally appeared on Samantha Richardson's fabulous Empowering Women Website

© 2008 Margaret Gill