What Does a Successful Practice Look Like For You?


The first step in establishing a therapy or counselling practice (or indeed any other kind of venture) is to envisage it. Since most people who set out to do something do so with an attitude of wanting it to go well, I am assuming that you want your practice to be successful.

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What would tell you that your practice is successful?

  • A client arriving in distress and leaving in confidence and happiness?
  • More clients than you can handle?
  • Earning a decent living?
  • A deep and rich understanding of the issues that your clients are facing and a confidence that you can help them?
  • A master’s degree or a post graduate diploma certificate hanging in your consulting room?
  • Clients telling their friends and family how much you’ve helped them?
  • Your colleagues coming to you for advice and support?
  • Avoiding a legal or disciplinary action?

Maybe some or all, or maybe none of these things. The point is, you need to have some idea of what success means for you, in order to have some chance of achieving it.

Looking at these questions forces us to focus on what is important to us, really important to us. I know for myself this is not as clear as perhaps it might be. My thoughts can be very sticky. For example, when I consider which of the above criteria is most important to me, I find it can depend on my mood, or the state of my bank balance, or may be influenced by the last person I spoke to, or something I read. The good news however, is that we don’t have to nail it to the floor. For now, a general idea of what we’d like to achieve will suffice to get us going.

Take a moment now to reflect. Imagine yourself in five years’ time:

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    If you are already in practice, how do you imagine your practice will be different from how it is today?

  • If you are just setting out on this journey, and your practice is still an idea rather than a reality, ask yourself what you’d like to achieve in that period. How would you like your practice to look five years from now?
  • How many clients would you like to be seeing?
  • Do you have a preference for working with a particular age or gender of client?
  • What issues will you be dealing with?
  • How many hours a week do you want to work, and when? Do you want to be free at weekends, or to work in the evenings?
  • What income would you like to be earning?
  • How would you like to feel about yourself as a therapist?
  • Where would you like to be practising from? A centre with other therapists? Or perhaps a place of your own? Perhaps you’d like to be working over the phone or the internet?
  • What additional skills or knowledge would you like to have acquired?

These are just some of the questions you might like to think about as you imagine your future. Can you really have what you want? Notice your “yes, buts…” as you consider these questions.

Unsure where to go next? Perhaps I can help you to get started. Contact me for a free 20 minute consultation at https://thisbusinessoftherapy.com/contact-us/