With the end of the year approaching, it is a great time to check in with yourself and your business. What are your wins? What have been your challenges? How was this year different from the one you set out to have?
In what ways do you go about checking in with your 2018? You can crunch the numbers and check out if your practice has made a profit. You can look at your current caseload to determine if you are full or not. I don’t know about you all, but when I was first asked to review my year, I couldn’t remember anything important regarding my business earlier than the summer. Sure, I remembered bits and pieces, but not enough to have a thorough review of my year. For me it is helpful to look at the financial health of my practice, however the numbers do not tell me all I need to know about my year. Some months may have been higher revenue while some were lower, but what factors made the difference? Are there other things that are important to you within your work besides your bottom line? So, while it is important to look at your practice at the end of the year, it is just as important if not more important to check in with your practice more frequently. While I do set yearly and quarterly goals, I have also chosen to check in with myself and my business each month. I am so glad that I did.
In what ways do you go about checking in with your 2018? You can crunch the numbers and check out if your practice has made a profit. You can look at your current caseload to determine if you are full or not. I don’t know about you all, but when I was first asked to review my year, I couldn’t remember anything important regarding my business earlier than the summer. Sure, I remembered bits and pieces, but not enough to have a thorough review of my year. For me it is helpful to look at the financial health of my practice, however the numbers do not tell me all I need to know about my year. Some months may have been higher revenue while some were lower, but what factors made the difference? Are there other things that are important to you within your work besides your bottom line? So, while it is important to look at your practice at the end of the year, it is just as important if not more important to check in with your practice more frequently. While I do set yearly and quarterly goals, I have also chosen to check in with myself and my business each month. I am so glad that I did.
Each month I ask myself several questions and set goals. I really like the questions from Lynn Grodzki’s book, Building Your Ideal Private Practice: A guide for therapists and other healing professionals. It focuses on wins and challenges and how you can make improvements to your life in general rather than solely focusing on your business. I have done this practice on and off for the past 4 years and I can see positive changes within my practice when I follow through with sitting down and writing out my monthly check-in. This year, I have found added value to writing down the answers to the questions on the check-in.
Again, going off of pure memory of my year, which is what I had done in the past, I did not have information on the nitty-gritty details of my year. I did not remember specific challenges or opportunities that I did not take full advantage of. I also did not remember some of the wins that were maybe less in the spotlight, but improved my life or my business in meaningful ways. This is where my monthly check-ins come in. I was able to gather all twelve of my check-ins from January through December and look at those details. Were there consistent challenges that I struggled with over the year? Were there changes that I had made within my life in general that benefited my business or home life? Were there goals that seemed to get carried over from one month to the next without completion? I was able to answer all of these questions by rereading my scribbles. And the answer was yes to all of these questions. I found some challenges to getting specific goals met that seemed to keep showing up over the course of the year. I remembered some small changes that I had made regarding my intention at home with my family that made some small improvements in my mindset and overall balance that I had slowly let get away from me. I can now see the themes and commonalities between the goals that transferred from to-do list to to-do list.
Now, having all of these details, I can make some tangible and meaningful changes from the get-go for 2019. Clearly, there are some areas for improvement if the same challenges are coming up in more than half of the months the previous year. That challenge is one that needs to be tackled this year to really make the big changes that I want to make in the new year. Focusing on my wins and how I reached those the previous year allows me to be more intentional and do more of the same for this year. Creating goals and visions for 2019 feels more purposeful and reaching them more possible with the information I provided myself with the extra 10-15 minutes each month. What are your goals for 2019?
Again, going off of pure memory of my year, which is what I had done in the past, I did not have information on the nitty-gritty details of my year. I did not remember specific challenges or opportunities that I did not take full advantage of. I also did not remember some of the wins that were maybe less in the spotlight, but improved my life or my business in meaningful ways. This is where my monthly check-ins come in. I was able to gather all twelve of my check-ins from January through December and look at those details. Were there consistent challenges that I struggled with over the year? Were there changes that I had made within my life in general that benefited my business or home life? Were there goals that seemed to get carried over from one month to the next without completion? I was able to answer all of these questions by rereading my scribbles. And the answer was yes to all of these questions. I found some challenges to getting specific goals met that seemed to keep showing up over the course of the year. I remembered some small changes that I had made regarding my intention at home with my family that made some small improvements in my mindset and overall balance that I had slowly let get away from me. I can now see the themes and commonalities between the goals that transferred from to-do list to to-do list.
Now, having all of these details, I can make some tangible and meaningful changes from the get-go for 2019. Clearly, there are some areas for improvement if the same challenges are coming up in more than half of the months the previous year. That challenge is one that needs to be tackled this year to really make the big changes that I want to make in the new year. Focusing on my wins and how I reached those the previous year allows me to be more intentional and do more of the same for this year. Creating goals and visions for 2019 feels more purposeful and reaching them more possible with the information I provided myself with the extra 10-15 minutes each month. What are your goals for 2019?
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