3 ways to get ready for the fall season in your private practice

Fall is always a busy season for therapists, but it often sneaks up on us! So in today’s episode I’m sharing three ways to get ready for the fall season.

Tune in to hear me explore—

• The seasonal ebb & flow of private practice
• How to figure out where you’ll make time for the different parts of your work
• 3 questions to help you reflect on your priorities for fall
• Where to find support & accountability for your season ahead

I hope you’ll listen then get in touch to let me know how you’re preparing for fall. And don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, then share this episode with a friend!

Links

• Sign up for the Brave and Well newsletter
• Follow Brave and Well on Instagram
• Get my workbook — Laying the Foundation for your Private Practice

Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone welcome to the Brave and well podcast I'm your host Vanessa Newton I'm a group practice owner in social worker I'm also a Latina entrepreneur mom and recovering perfectionist. On this podcast we teach mental health professionals how to build sustainable profitable and values align businesses here you'll hear all about decolonizing the business item private. Music. Our time together will be raw honest vulnerable and held together by Joy if you like what you hear subscribe to our newsletter at Braven well.com / newsletter Dash sign. Thank you for listening. Music. I'm back to the Braven well podcast I'm your host Vanessa Newton licensed clinical social worker, it's so good to be back I don't know about y'all but this summer has been, not exactly what I thought it would be I thought it would be very stressed free very chill take some time off maybe not work as hard let go of some projects and I just feel like between life and working things have been more a little bit more stressful than I thought or anticipated so here we are. Ending the summer schools about to start people are coming back from vacation and I know a lot of us their purpose and healers are trying to look at our schedule and try to get back into this place of thinking about what fall is going to look like, in my experience fall tends to be a really busy time for therapists in private practice owners just because people are getting back into their routine there. You know looking for some consistency in their schedules they're wanting to get back into therapy maybe they took a Hiatus because they were traveling in the summer with family or just needing a break in general I know that we've seen in my practice kind of just a little dip in client sessions and clients either facing out of therapy or putting a pause on therapy and so yeah we're just kind of excited to kind of get back into business and just. Keep doing the good work that we're doing so I wanted to talk about today three ways to get ready for the fall season. This is something that I didn't do early on in my business just because I didn't know that this was a thing but what I've learned is that there are seasons in private practice right summer tends to be a little bit slower people tend to either take breaks or maybe phase out or maybe they move from weekly sessions to bi-weekly sessions or monthly check-ins fall tends to be really busy, then we get into the holidays and that starts to slow down a little bit because people have a lot of holiday plans and they're just really busy with closing out the year and then spring kind of picks up again right new year new me people have a lot of personal work that they want to be doing and so there are seasons in private practice and I think a lot of that is really reflective in how our caseloads look. You know what our Revenue that's coming in looks like how much were able to save and part of fall planning when you're an entrepreneur is preparing for those Seasons I didn't realize that I needed to prepare for slow Seasons I need to prepare for taking a vacation or taking a week off or you know if I had, events coming up that I knew that I wasn't going to be able to work I needed to prepare financially for how to still pay myself cover my expenses while also taking care of me and prioritizing my personal life and. All of that didn't click right away you know I can I went from agency work getting paid consistently you know having PTO. And having that cushion where that's not true right now unless you work in a group practice or in a private setting that offers upto as an entrepreneur especially a solo entrepreneur you don't have that built-in and so. You know getting ready for any season and right now we're talking about the fall because that's just where we're at but. Any season is really an important practice. So I have three tips strategies whatever you want to call them for you the first is carve out some time and sit with your schedule to figure out where you'll plug in the different parts of your work for example I have different buckets when I think about the work that I do right it's not all the same I have client work, I have leadership write my leadership position as a group practice owner of colors of Austin counseling. I have bravin well. And the projects that are associated with that so this podcast business consultation so any Brave and well projects then I have social note which is my third business that I'll share more about in another episode but social note is a business that I run with my husband and that is definitely one of my buckets and something that I have to allocate and make time and space for then I'm a clinical supervisor so I do clinical supervision and that takes up several hours of my week. My family which is my priority and then self-care right taking care of me so those are my buckets how many buckets is that one two three four. Five six seven seven buckets. So figure out what your buckets are and get grounded with your work and set some boundaries so when I think about my schedule I work Monday through Friday. I have usually a hard start at 9 a.m. and a hard stop at 6 p.m. sometimes 5 p.m. depending. You know what's going on that evening but within those hours I have to think about how do I block. The hours within the week right and so for me I love using like a color coding system where. I'm all about paper like I love paper planners I love markers fun pens. I love stationery in general so all my stationery friends out there. I'm with you and I sit down with my planner and I think about where do I want these buckets to fall on what days do I want to be doing which projects. And so Mondays are usually my admin days for all my businesses to kind of look ahead at the week plan what's coming up, think about anything that I need to do on the front end to prepare for projects coming up that week Tuesday usually is clinical supervision, colors of Austin leadership Wednesdays you usually times that I'm with my clients Thursday's is usually clinical supervision and business consultation meetings, and then Friday is usually some more Brave and well stuff and then social note and so. That's what works for me but I think it's different for everybody write it how you have to kind of figure out what works with your schedule so carve out time and sit with your schedule to figure out where you'll plug in the different parts of your work right and make sure that you make a plan for self-care I think one of the things that. We can get into trouble with a saying that we want to make space to prioritize ourselves. But if we don't actually put it down or write it down somewhere it won't happen and this was another lesson I learned just when I thought about. Well when does that therapy session actually happen or when do I actually go on that walk or when do I actually, you know have that coffee date or lunch date with my colleague those are the things that we can neglect and we can fill up our schedules with other things, that our work and then we think about wanting to do some of these extra self-care things or just connection pieces not even self-care I mean I think self-care can be a complicated phrase and term for people to sit with but just connecting right like I really value connection and one of the things that was really hard for me during covid and be working from home was the lack of, connection that I had with other people. And so while you know still being cautious now but I'm so grateful that I get to connect with my colleagues again and I get to have that you know lunch break with them and be able to meet up with him and see how they're doing and you know get inspired by each other so but that takes time right and I need to plan ahead for that that can't just be something that I spring upon myself or them it's got to be really planned so get grounded in that, think about Fridays from your my networking days to you know if I have any flexible space or time I look at Friday's and I think wow I have a block of three hours I wonder who's available or who have I not connected with recently that I really miss and want to talk to or that you know I really want to check in with and when we think in the last episode we talked about marketing right marketing equals Community marketing equals connection. The self-care prioritizing yourself connecting that's your marketing time so it is an investment. I know that for me I used to look at that extra time is if I'm not working then I'm not. That I'm wasting time I'm not pushing myself forward and those times that I set aside to connect and be with myself be with my business be with others that is an investment in my business absolutely, and same for my family you know having a small child now whether she has swim class or ballet or a playdate. I want to make space for that I want to be sure that I'm around if if she needs me to be and and if I want to be which I do and so. But I have to I have to be able to put that in my planner and be able to make that a priority. And so something I suggest is when you are looking at your calendar printing out a seven day week calendar on. And kind of playing with it using a pencil or something you can actually erase and plugging things in and seeing how they feel and trying it out first right you might have one schedule in August and then at the end of August you reflect and you think that wasn't really great or there were parts of my schedule that I loved and there were parts that I didn't. So that leads us to number two is reflecting on the past six months right this is really important as you enter a new season is reflecting on what things were like for you for the past 6 months. What worked really well what am I ready to let go of. What do I want to keep but I don't need to do right now. And really sitting with some of these questions and asking yourself what do I need to make adjustments on. I'm giving yourself permission to do that you know you might find that you make some adjustments that don't work and you make some that do and that's okay and. Constantly giving herself time and space to just reflect on how things are going and how you're feeling. In the last month or so I realized that I was stacking my Monday's too high. Like even though Monday's were technically myadmin days I had like five leadership team meetings and one-on-one meetings with people and I. I ended up being in a space where I didn't have any time to get any anything done and so I was starting my week with all these meetings packing onto dues on top of what I needed to do, for that week and so it just left me feeling really overwhelmed really foggy and just really, kind of frustrated you know and not feeling motivated for the week and so I reached out to everyone that I had standing meetings with on Monday and I said look I can't meet with you on Monday anymore this isn't going to work for me I need to clear my Monday schedule to have space for me and to reflect and kind of focus and get ready for the week so how can we push our meeting back to another day this week and I was able to do that. Ask me if I would have able been able to ask for that 34 years ago the answer is no. You have the right to change things within your business that no longer serve you and your business you do not have to take that client at 7 p.m. if you have a hard stop at six. You don't have to take that meeting on a Tuesday at 9 a.m. and compromise your meditation practice, you don't have to overextend yourself because when we overextend ourselves we always end up compromising our time and our energy when we overextend ourselves we end up resentful. You don't have to overextend yourself to make things work. Things will fall into place when they do and not everything has to happen right away not everything has to happen right now. I think about the meetings that I have in my schedule and how many of them actually have to happen right then and there they don't. Right everything is flexible and so give yourself permission to push things back. To change a meaning to a different day. To tell a client no I can't see you past six to start your day a little slow to. Not compromise that meditation practice even if that means that you're missing out on a client who can pay your full rate. When you give people options they will always pick one that doesn't work for you when you give people options, that are in line with your boundaries and your values and your ideal schedule then it'll work it'll work for you and it'll work for them. So reflect on the past six months take inventory of what worked really well and what you're ready to let go of. Number three what support do you need to hold yourself accountable to the ways you want to show up this fall, we all have things that we need support with we don't get through this alone, right that's why you're here that's why Braven well exists is because we're a community that supports each other and. We can't do this alone and so. When you think about the work and the life that you're creating yourself what support do you need to hold yourself accountable. It's easy to compromise your needs and your life in secrecy that's the wild thing about private practice is that it is so isolating it is so easy to get caught up in your own ways. And not tell anybody nobody could ever really know what's going on with you as a solo entrepreneur unless you tell them, that's the dangerous part of it I think right the fact that we can get so caught up in ourselves and our work that we forget to look up we forget too. Turn to our left or right or what's in front of us and say hey I haven't even had time to look up this is what's going on with me. Do you have time to chat so when I think about the support that I need to hold myself accountable I think about. Weekly therapy sessions I think about. Morning walks I think about Stillness with my self-reflection. I think about checking in with my people making time for connection. And I think about what others that know me well that know me inside and out would say. If they knew exactly what I was compromising right the people that love me the people that know me the people that care for me and want the best for me probably wouldn't put up with what I put up with and so. Having that, be the thing that you bounce off of right being being sure that you're always being open and honest and practicing that vulnerability and holding yourself accountable to the ways you want to show up that's so important it's so important to this the sustainability of your business so that's what I have to offer you carve out time so with your schedule reflect on the past six months and make adjustments as needed and figure out what your support needs to look like. I hope that all of you have time and space to reflect to set boundaries. To create a plan for radical self care. And to continue to be flexible with yourself and with your work and that if there is something that you've been longing to do you know that you ask yourself what's holding me back. Is it that I'm holding myself back because I'm there's a lot of fear happening is it that I'm not making time and space to create the offering or the project or, that product that I've been dreaming about for so long you know what is holding back and so my hope is that, you know these strategies can be an offering to you and that it gives you space to continue to do the good work that you do while not compromising yourself in your energy, so Music. You so much for listening to the Braven while podcast you can find links and resources from this episode in the show notes at. Music. For free resources special announcements and discount code subscribe to our newsletter at Braven wall.com forward slash newsletter Dash sign up. Music.