How to be a CONSCIOUS boss (to yourself) [video]
If I hadn’t learned to become a better boss to myself, I would be pretty ragged at this point. I am amazed by people who work for years in an agency setting and don’t shrivel up and turn into a parched, desiccated pile of human dust—I wonder how they do it. It is really good work, and it is also really demanding and difficult work that often involves seeing challenging clients back-to-back all day long. My hat is off to you if you’re one of those therapists who can thrive at that pace.
But here’s the thing: I also see therapists in private practice working those same grueling hours.
In this week’s video, I talk about how to become a more conscious boss to yourself—how to begin rethinking the default settings we all learned when we came up through the ranks working in agencies and clinics.
Check it out here:
I challenge you today, now, by the end of this year, or as a 2017 resolution: shape your practice with intention and consciousness. Offer services to your clients based on your own awareness, knowledge and experience. Work the hours and earn the income that make sense to you, your life, your family, your circumstances… don’t meet expectations created by your training, create a life and a practice based on your experience.
Thank you so much for being a part of this community of therapists—working to find sustainable ways to continue the critical work we do while caring well for ourselves. I hope you were able to take some time off last week to eat delicious, nourishing food with those you love.
Talk soon,
What comes up for me on “being my own boss” is this:
I am Mexican American. Growing up my lived experience was learning how to acculturate me into the dominant culture (on so many levels). Today I’m in my second half of life desirous of moving into my day according to my personhood.
With this said, I’m interested in hearing more on how to design my practice.
Carol, the design of your practice must take into consideration who you are, where you come from, how you want to live and interact. It also must consider who you work with — whether they are from a particular social segment or cultural group or a more diverse population and how that impacts their needs and the supports that best serve them. Having the insight that you do about your own culture and life path will help you in designing your practice. I am definitely a proponent of having your practice be a reflection of you and what you believe works in psychotherapy rather than simply hanging a shingle and opening a generalist practice that may or may not meet your needs as an individual. Thanks for writing and sharing! – Evan