Center Institute

How to pick a business structure for your private practice

You might be scratching your head and thinking, what do you mean “a business structure for your private practice?” Isn’t a private practice a structure in and of itself? I see clients. They pay me (or insurance does). How does it go beyond that?

If you haven’t read the first post in this series, click on over to read the first installment.

This is where your personal why comes in: if your personal why means picking your kids up from school every day, then you’ve got to structure your practice in a way that makes that possible. If your why involves 6 weeks of paid vacation every year, then you’ve got to be intentional about how you set up your practice to make that happen (and yes, you can do that). If your why has to do with another calling, some spiritual work, setting up a non-profit someday, then you’ve got to know that so that you consciously and intentionally point yourself down a path to make that happen. No one is going to do that for you. Your private practice will not automatically build itself around your hopes and dreams. You have to make that happen.

Something I have come to see in both my private practice and in Center Institute is that businesses have a life of their own. They can suck you in and drag you down the road of their choosing if your eyes are not open and your map is not in front of you.

If you don’t know what you want for yourself, your business will take over. (If your practice is slow right now, you may be thinking I am crazy, but once you take the right steps to build your practice, it will take off.)

So know WHERE you are going (three day work week that makes you twice what your agency job paid?) and WHY (a retired husband and the most awesome weekend cabin that is calling you for long weekends of self-care and relaxation?) so that you can build everything else around that.