As with all business aspects of private practice, managing our practices offers us many opportunities to grow and develop as a person. Many people see our work as distinct and separate from business, and part of my mission is to change that perspective!

In previous articles I have written about how engaging with the business aspects of our practice can aid our internal journey towards integration. Today, I’d like to look at the fourth pillar of a therapy practice: managing your practice.

We all manage things all the time. We manage our jobs, our diaries, our emotions, our relationships, and our environments. We all have our ways of managing, usually developed to suit our circumstances at the time and adapted as things change in our lives. In our work lives, most of us have been managed at some stage. We could probably list those bosses that have managed us well, and those that haven’t, and why.

When we’re self-employed, as I’ve often said before, we are both the employee and the boss. We work with the clients and we also have to take care of everything else. In managing our practice, we meet our relationship with rules and with discipline. As we are our own boss, we have to create the structures and processes that support the business side of our practice as well as the client work. These structures might include plans and budgets, appropriate records (accounting as well as client) or allocating time to complete the day to day tasks of running our practice. As an employee, these structures are often given to us, for example, our working hours are generally set by our employer; a finance department may expect us to deliver information or documents by a certain date; or if we overrun our budget for a particular expense, we will be asked about it. Without that framework, how do we create the appropriate structures for ourselves?

As an employee, I liked to please those I worked for by performing well and delivering more than was asked of me. But when I’m self-employed, who am I trying to please now? Who do I look to for the reward or acknowledgement for my efforts? No one is going to thank me for writing up my client or financial records, no one is going to appreciate my attention to detail or the timely planning. For those who have had an ambivalent relationship with employers, who is there now to push against or to complain about? If I need the tension of an external demand in order to make me deliver, without that demand, can I do what is needed? If I have been a resentful or reluctant employee, turning up only for fear of what might happen if I don’t, what happens when there is no boss to take me to task, or to reprimand me for not measuring up.

If I have been used to working to the requests of others, what will now motivate me to ensure that essential tasks get done? On the spectrum of order and chaos, where are you most comfortable? Can you create and tolerate sufficient order in yourself to ensure that you can do what needs to be done? Without the external impetus and the twin motivators of carrot and stick, can you keep yourself on the track?

Managing our practices also means we meet our relationship with boredom and excitement. Can we tolerate organisation and doing the mundane repetitive tasks that are a part of every job? Or are we drawn only to the thrill and the buzz of the “real work”? Do you like to tidy up loose ends, or do you get so far with projects and then leave things half finished?

Do we rely so much on external structure that we find it hard to know what processes or supports we need, and fall into inertia unless someone else tells us what to do? To illustrate this, check in yourself what happens if I ask you to imagine yourself creating a financial budget, or a marketing plan for your practice? Do the ideas interest you? Can you see any value in such structures? Do you feel yourself pulling away or discarding the idea?

A business consciousness is open to the benefits that business practices, such as budgets, accounts and plans might offer in the way of support. A business consciousness acknowledges that a practice has needs too and will leave space and willingness for these to be given priority alongside the clients’ needs. A business consciousness recognises that developing the business does not mean the clients are disadvantaged or exploited in any way but rather may have something to gain from the growth of the practitioner.

If you struggle to manage the everyday tasks of your practice, perhaps I can help. Contact me here for your free 20 minute consultation to explore these matters further.