One Promise You Must Keep

Blog pic backside 2aIt’s rolling round to the time of year when we reflect on what was and prepare for what’s to come. Attached to that thought, we start making promises, i.e. resolutions, to ourselves. Many of our promises don’t last more than a couple weeks into the new year. Often that is o.k. We aren’t perfect or superhuman. We could consider this as a lesson of forgiving ourselves for not following through. And then maybe the aspiration wasn’t important enough to keep up.

However, here is one promise you want to keep from breaking: self-care. Listen to your own counsel and practice what you encourage others to fit into their lives. Self-care comes in many different forms, even in your business practice. However, you might ask how self-care takes fits into your business. Self-care is limitless and is only constrained by self-imposed boundaries.

To figure out the kind of self-care that you feel you and your practice could use, ask yourself where do you need the most help or support in your business?

  • Is it remembering to have your new clients complete all the necessary forms to satisfy compliance standards?     
  • Could you use help in managing your client appointments and bill payments?
  • How’s your social media doing? Do you need reminders to post a message or picture?

You might not be in a position to hire someone or a service to do these things for you or maybe the volume of clients doesn’t warrant too great a time investment by you. Regardless of the amount of time needed, even 15 minutes of daily appointment follow-up phone calls can seem like another thing to remember.

While having a set of practices or a computer application to do these things for you might not seem like self-care, it is. Think for a minute how the simple process of writing a “to do” list removes worry from your mind about forgetting an important phone call. Apply this kind of technique to your practice. While there is always the “old-fashioned” method of writing things down, what kind of automated systems could you use? To some extent, you can set it, then forget it:

  • Tasks: There are many project management tools out there, but you can also set up Google Calendar to help you with managing tasks
  • Billing & appointments: consider online schedulers which automate many back office procedures
  • Social Media/Marketing: resources like Hootesuite can compile as many social media and marketing platforms as you want then send out the announcements based on your marketing calendar

While some of these suggestions might sound like more work, you actually free up your time, and your mind, from business management responsibilities and possible worries. Looking at this from a self-care perspective, setting up protocols, automated or not, helps to ensure that important aspects of your business are managed. By saving you time and worry, you’ve taken action to set yourself (and your practice) up for success and a support system. Wouldn’t you agree that these are two self-care practices that you encourage your clients to set up in their lives? Make a point of doing this for yourself, too. It’s a promise you should keep.

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