Your Practice’s Recovery: What Will it take?
2020 has been a rollercoaster of emotions for all of us and how to handle your practice’s recovery is likely at the very top of your list. As a private practice owner, you are likely dealing not only with the pandemic’s impact on your personal life but also trying to navigate the myriad of issues affecting your practice and your team. To say the last few months have been draining would be putting it mildly. But as we move on through the year, you need to adopt a strong and decisive leadership position if your practice is going to make it through this bizarre time.
The question is, as a leader, where are you taking the most counsel for your decisions? Is it the right platform or resource to properly steer your practice’s recovery in the right direction?
Andrew Jackson wisely advised that you should “never take counsel of your fears.” Another wise man, author Napoleon Hill, reiterated Jackson’s point in his book “Think and Grow Rich.” Hill details seven major NEGATIVE emotions. Notice, fear is Number 1.
The 7 NEGATIVE Emotions are:
- Fear
- Jealousy
- Hatred
- Revenge
- Greed
- Superstition
- Anger
In contrast, these are the seven major POSITIVE emotions:
- Desire
- Faith
- Love
- Sex
- Enthusiasm
- Romance
- Hope
Are You Letting Your Fear Control You?
This is a primary obstacle to overcome for successful practice recovery. Most people don’t recognize that they make most of their decisions by taking counsel of their fears. Let’s face it, this year has had plenty of things to be afraid of and those things came fast and without precedent. So the reality is, that’s what people have been doing because decision-making happens “between the ears.” The brain is influenced by literally everything that goes on around us. If we let it, the world will zap our positive emotions by constantly barraging us with negative emotions. Think of the comments, attitudes, actions, and the people around us (like our team, our friends and our family). They will either feed our fear or feed our desire. Think about this:
- What do you desire that fear leads you away from?
- How often does your “faith meter” get knocked back to zero so you lose your confidence?
- How frequently does your enthusiasm get dashed and you decide to just forget it?
Fear’s Best Friend Wants to Be Yours
If you let this happen often enough, you’ll become best friends with “the excuse.” The despicable excuse wheedles its way into your life whenever you take counsel of your fears rather than pursue something you desire.
Have you ever heard of kudzu? It’s a leafy vine that grows rapidly and consumes entire trees, bushes, and flowers. It slowly kills plants by depriving them of necessary sunlight and nutrients. Once it shows up, kudzu is difficult (if not impossible) to remove completely and it multiplies at a rate of 150,000 acres every year. Scheduling Institute is in Atlanta where kudzu is rampant, so we see it everywhere: it’s nothing short of devastating.
What’s Really Choking Your Practice’s Recovery
Excuses are like kudzu. It may seem harmless to make one little excuse, but one excuse leads to another and then another and before you know it, you are 150,000 acres in and have an excuse environment in your office that will be very hard to control. Excuses are dangerous and can destroy parts of your practice if they become part of your culture. They will suffocate your hard work and suppress your progress. Excuses can extend the consequences of the shutdown period and all the new realities of the COVID-19 world way beyond what is necessary.
Proactively fight off excuses about why recovery can’t happen to prevent them from taking root and taking over your practice recovery. This starts with you, the leader, and should funnel down to your team and even your patients. You must create a “no excuses” culture and become completely intolerant of people making excuses. The most important rule you must follow is – you can’t make excuses. You set the tone for what is and what is not acceptable in your practice, and this is an area you must laser focus on if you are going to build your business back up during the pandemic.
How to Slash Through The Chokehold On Your Full Practice Recovery
The best way to combat excuse-making is to make results happen in the areas you have control. Set new goals for the year, make plans, and do everything you can to achieve them. If you fail or don’t make it all the way, learn from the mistakes and write down what you do differently, but DO NOT MAKE EXCUSES! If you waste time making excuses, especially for things that are completely out of your control, you will completely miss the valuable lesson to be learned.
Commit to being aware of your tendency to take counsel of your fears, and be intentional about not letting yourself make excuses. It’s not easy to combat this, but it starts with focusing your energy on what you DESIRE and driving toward it. Don’t leave room in your mind for fear to set in, and remember that life is a long journey. We all have had major setbacks this year, so don’t expect to snap your fingers and have everything go back to “normal”. Revise your goals to realistic ones for the rest of the year and strive to get better one day at a time.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Jumpstart your faith and enthusiasm by pursuing something you are passionate about – your practice. Share your desire and intentions with those around you so they feed that desire, and simply refuse to allow anyone to feed the fear.
An excellent way to do this is to spend ONE DAY with Jay Geier in a workshop designed to reset, reframe, refocus and ultimately rebound your practice to a level higher than it was last year. Learn how to develop a game plan for the next 6 months that will allow you to focus on the growth and profitability of your practice during the pandemic, rather than spending your time focusing on the pandemic itself.
