Empowering Women in Chiropractic - Seasons of Practice - Growth and Reinvention without Guilt

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Hello and welcome to the show Empowering Women in Chiropractic. My name is Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp. And thank you to ChiroSecure for putting these shows on. It always is good information that we can get from other practitioners and reflecting on what we are doing in our practice. So in this segment, what I'd like to talk about is, are the seasons that we have in practice, because I think, as we develop as doctors, and depending on the times that we spend in practice with the flow and ebbs of life that it is potentially, having kids raising the family and so forth are, our focus and the time that we spend in the practice could be different, and I think we need to have the conversation of not feeling guilty about that.

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So let's get to the first slide here. So how to navigate growth. And also potentially plateaus and reinventing without guilt. Because let's face it, I know myself, I've re reinvented my practice so many times and I think, it is not just for chiropractic practices, but also for any business.

Let's go here to the next one. So I think we have to, it is hard as humans, we always want to be better and do better. But we have to be careful to not equate bigger to better. And we have a tendency to do that. Society in general, the bigger the athlete is, the bigger the salary will be and for actors, and those are just I examples that come to my mind.

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So sometime. It could be more in term of you have more free time, you're able to spend more time in your family. So I think we really have to think of the mid of that. Bigger is always better because I think it's not sustainable. It will, there will be ups and down. It could be the economy, it could be one of the industry that is a big employer in your community is shutting down.

There's just so many variables. Also too, the hustle culture can lead to burnout, especially nowadays because you could see your colleagues doing videos on TikTok and you're like, oh my God, I should be doing this. I should be on x, I should be on Instagram, I should be on Facebook. And I, there's always more that we could be doing.

So I think it's. Important to really look at what is working, what is necessary, and not feeling that if you're not constantly hustling, you're missing out or you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And the third point here is that. Nature does have its cycle. So does businesses.

So I think it's important to realize that. And sometime it's our own focus. Maybe you have something going on in your life that you need to refocus on, and it's okay that your business can be affected in a certain way. We're all human. We're not superheroes and it's okay to deal with that.

And then coming back, refocusing and working on rein, reinstalling in your practice, for lack of better terms, the strategies that you were doing that worked for you in the past. And then so you can re-energize your practice. Again, so identifying the current season that you're in, and that could be, on a yearly basis, it could be looking at it for a five year span or a 10 year span.

In the growth with the new graduates. Or people that are bringing new graduates into the practice. So new ideas and momentum and hiring people if you have other services as well. So there's a time and a place to do that. And then you might be at capacity or close to capacity sometime from a physical.

Point of view that you do not have more room in your practice. So when you've achieved that, then the second phase could be harvesting with the consistency and then you're refining your system and automation of the, the education automation and your processes. To get people into your practice and then another season can be plateau that either you're personally tired your team may not be as energized.

Maybe you need to do a practice building or an activity with them to get them re-energized or sometime. Taking a hard look at your team members and see if you have the right people in the right seat to help you. Sometime it's good to hire new people. They have new energy. They might come up with other ideas.

It is important for us. Even as practitioner to stay engaged so you're not bored with the day-to-day routine and tasks. So going to a conference learning a new technique or integrating or perfecting your skills, going to a marketing event, going to your. State or province association to be with other chiropractors to exchange and get re-energized.

And then the fourth season could be the reinvention where maybe something, maybe your clinic has to move or you need to potentially hire a lot of people all at the same time. So you need to be able to pivot and restructure and know that this is. A season and that you will get your footing back and that you will be able to move forward and adapt to whatever circumstances you are facing.

So what each season needs from you for growth, obviously you need to be centered and focused. You need to be clear on the actions that you need to take and have a clear vision. But you can't really do it alone. You need to make sure that you have a team that is able to support you and see in your mission the harvesting season.

The focus, the optimization, and that requires a lot of leadership. Which sometime if you are more the leader in your practice and you're the practice owner it is. Hard to juggle, keeping everyone engaged. The question would be, do you have set meetings, you have rhythm in your practice that you're taking the time to meet either one-on-one with your staff or, do quarterly meetings so you can see what's going well?

Kind of have a tactical. Part of it with the task and the things that need to be tweaked, but also have the Reiner re-energizing and the re-engagement of that. So as a practice owner, you are also a leader. So we need to make sure that we stay on top of that plateau. Sometime we just need to rest.

Maybe it's a holiday that you need. To take some time. We need to sit back, as I say, and do a hard review of even with the stuff that served us right with certain things that we used to do in practice. And, if you've been in practice for a long time, you might have slack tough on your procedures and steps, especially from an education point of view.

I don't mean from a technical point of view and an adjustment point of view, but the systems to educate people. And setting boundaries as well. I always say even to patient when I lecture about health, that in order to not feel too overwhelmed, I often do a not to-do list. So I'll sit down and write a list of things that.

Drain my energy that I don't enjoy doing and so forth. And then, or something that just snuck up on my to-do list and I'm like, why is that there? Or something that I stopped doing that really recharged me and I enjoy doing so doing that not to-do list. You're looking, can I get rid of it? Can I pass on to someone?

Or do we really need to do that sometime? We have so many things and ideas on our to-do list, to go back and declutter it to say, you know what? It was a good idea when I thought of it, but the implementation might not be right now. So park it somewhere so it's not giving you, paying rent in into your brain and taking some some space there.

And then reinvention. Be creative, have the courage to look at things differently and a bit of detachment. 'cause sometime we have to ask ourself the hard question about ourself, our focus, our intent and as practitioner, it's. It's we love what we do, but we are dealing with people all day long.

We are trying to move them from often a mechanistic symptom-based model to a more prevention and wellness model, and to do so requires a lot of. Energy on our part. So if you can do it in a creative way that doesn't take as much of your energy. And sometime, the reinvention could be a new brand, a new look, something new in the office to Reer, reenergize yourself.

So letting go of gi of of guilt and timeline pressure it's easy for us to think, my goodness, I should be further ahead. Or it's easy for us to say, I used to be there and now we're here in term of the amount of people that we're seeing in the practice or the money that we're making.

And everyone else. Is growing faster again. So this is, I think, part of the social media aspect that we're seeing either, our colleagues or other businesses potentially in our own town that seem to be doing better. And this sea is the big key word here, that it is easy to look good with social media, but as it not, it is maybe not always the reflecting of what's going on and knowing that our timeline is our own and giving each other or ourself a bit of a break if we have had some situation in our lives. Have been a bit of a hurdle to give ourself permission to just lay low and then regroup after that.

So how to move through the season with intention. Let's get honest. What do I need the most right now? So we need to reflect and identify where we are with the four Seasons that I mentioned. Set aligned goals, not someone else. And I think, again, to go back to how long you've been in practice, maybe your goals will have changed.

Maybe your freedom of time, of taking four days, working four days a week instead of five will, will be worth for you depending on again, your goals and where you're at. Use tool that match your season. Obviously we talked about the strategies in the system for each, and also asking for support, mentorship, or space.

And I know myself, I'm very fortunate to have so many great friends in this profession, and oftentimes I'll just pick up the phone and call one of them and say, Hey, I'm having this challenge in practice that it is. Either with a patient communication or staff or, even marketing, whatever that might be.

So I think it's important that we don't put ourself in isolation and have mentors or colleague that you can reach out to get you out of the funk potentially and get together with them. As I said, everything is done online and sometime meeting in person can be valuable. All right, so you don't need to bloom all year.

I thought it was a pretty important quote to realize that growth isn't linear, it is cyclical, and that we are going to have ups and downs in practice and we need to be able to recognize it. Ask ourselves the question why, what we can do about it, and pivot and refocus. So your practice, as I mentioned, has those natural ebbs and flow just like nature.

So we need to trust that rhythm. And as I mentioned at the beginning, I think it's the guilt sometime of not being where we want to be or where we used to be, but embracing those cycle. I'm not saying, sit at home and do nothing about it. But just being aware of all this and embracing the cycle and acting on what we can do.

So I and I guess the next slide here, if you have any question, Dr. Nathalie, at dr Nathalie Beauchamp.com, I'm always happy to receive emails with questions as I said. We don't wanna stay in isolation. And I think sharing with other practitioner is very important, especially the people that have been in practice for a long time, helping out the younger and vice versa, the younger helping the people that have been in practice for a longer time with the newer strategies that of education and communication and marketing.

Hope you enjoyed this segment. My name is Dr. Nathalie Beauchamp. Thank you for tuning in. And again, thank you to ChiroSecure for putting this show empowering women in Chiropractic together.

Join us each week as we bring you the best in business growth, practice management, social media, marketing, networking, leadership, and lots more. If it's about women in practice and business, you'll hear it here.

This has been a ChiroSecure production.

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