Hey Fabulous Health Professionals,

Last week we spoke about how focusing on spot-fires WILL stunt you in private practice. Quite a few people got in touch with me to let me know that this topic really resonated with them, so let’s dive in a little deeper.

When SH*T hits the fan, what do you do?

When you’ve got a client in crisis, a sticky-customer service issue, or maybe some financial problems – how do you react?

The natural response for all of us is to go full-ostrich. Nope nope nope, if I ignore it, this issue DOES NOT exist.

If I hide from the uncomfortable stuff (or at least play with the spot fires instead of the root cause), it ceases to exist, right?

This is a totally normally response. But it’s also totally unhelpful.

And while it might feel kinda nice to not have to deal with the underlying issues causing these spot fires, you’re shooting yourself in the foot in the long term and only asking for more spot-fires, and the same old familiar frustrations you feel with your private practice not being what you want it to be.

So what could you try instead when you face a set-back?

I’ve had a series of events happen in my own practice that have been fairly challenging lately. Several clients went into crises at once and my calendar was suddenly way too full.

My first instinct was to clear the time I had set aside for working on my business to immerse myself in these issues. I was at a high risk of becoming a technician in my own business 100% of the time, which meant I wouldn’t have the chance to nurture my business and give it the attention it needs to be sustainable and profitable in the long-term.

It also meant that I would stop being able to serve my clients in the way that they needed me in the long-term. This was a classic boom-bust cycle waiting to happen.

Basically, I really wanted to ostrich on this one.

I had to put those feelings aside and trust that I COULD handle this without slamming the breaks on my business development. I also had to remind myself that I didn’t need to do this alone, and I shouldn’t.

I looked back at my goals for the year, and made some tough decisions about whether my ostrich reaction was actually going to help me get to where I wanted to be.

The answer was a big fat nope.

So, I waded through the imperfection and messy stuff but didn’t let it consume me. I had to ask myself a bigger question for each spot-fire –

“What do I need to do right now to move forward without getting stuck in the minutia?”

P.S. – just a reminder that another really good question to ask for growth is in last week’s blog post… you can read it here.

Let me know in the comments below – how do you move forward without getting stuck in the details? (unless you really like details – in which case I am very curious about you and you need to introduce yourself).

– Jo