Don't Double Your Therapy Sessions

Maybe you plan to double or significantly increase your income this year. If you're in private practice, you might look at the numbers and think you should double your sessions. And you totally could. People are out there looking for a therapist exactly like you. You might feel like adding sessions is your ONLY option to increase your revenue. That's not true. You've got other options. Check in and be honest with yourself. Will adding to your client load exhaust you or head you towards burnout? If you're already seeing 12 clients or 15 clients and you're starting to feel a bit of dread around sessions…do not double your sessions. On the other hand, If your'e excited about filling up your private practice further, follow that excitement and do it. Like I said, there are plenty of people who need a therapist like you. If you're like SO many therapists I know, you might have the time in your schedule to add more sessions, but you don't have the capacity in other ways. You don't have the energy, the self-care practices, attention or focus capacity to add even more sessions. I want to invite you to take a step back and look at your business model. Your business model is basically the way your business is set up to make you money. It's the combination of the things you get paid for. If your business model is built on 1:1 private practice sessions, and that isn't sustainable for you…you are in good company! There's nothing wrong with you. A full private practice might not be the right fit for your nervous system or your particular gifts. There are other business models. For years I thought I should be happy to have 25 or more therapy sessions a week. I had worked so hard to build that business. I was helping people and making good money so I thought I should just be grateful. But that business model wasn't right for me long-term. Then I started helping therapists build their private practices and I talked to tons of therapists privately about what really works for them. I discovered that LOTS of therapists don't find it sustainable to have 25 or more sessions each week. Like me, they built their private practices and then discovered it wasn't right for them. And they felt guilt or shame like they SHOULD want the full private practice they worked so hard for. They started to feel drained and overwhelmed. Either their work or their life outside of work or both began to suffer. Therapists often don't want to tell people they feel overwhelmed by a full private practice. So they think they're alone. If working in a different way at least some of the time would be a better fit for you and for your nervous system and your gifts, now is the time to start building a different business model. I know that it's really hard to carve out time and space to do something different. But it is SO important to start building a business you'll be more fulfilled by. The business model I help people create is based on running your own high-touch, niched, outcome-based signature program. If you're someone who loves teaching or facilitating and you'd love to really focus in on a topic you're passionate about, a signature program might be a great fit for you. If this resonates with you…but you're feeling overwhelmed by the idea of getting started…mostly because you're not even sure HOW to get started, do not let that stop you. I end up hearing from grads of my program that they just wish they had realized sooner that it was possible to grow a signature program. They are so relieved to have another income source and another place to direct their creative energy. They're happy that they no longer have all their eggs in the private practice basket. If you think you want to run a signature program, don't wait. Don't set yourself up to stumble along exhausted trying to build something AFTER you've burnt out. AND Don't just make little tweaks to a business model that is showing itself to be unsustainable for you. Start building your signature program. If you want to make a lot LESS mistakes and get there a LOT faster, with a step-by-step process, join me in Create Your Program. That's where I help a small group of therapists and healers to create signature programs they're really excited to run and then start selling them. This is exactly the process I needed when I was ready to build a business beyond private practice. Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/217