If you did an audit of business right now what would you say was the most valuable of assets you have as a healer or therapist? Laptop? Remedy making machine? Collection of resources you have bought to support clients? Your couch? Your precious oils? This is a serious question. Come on what is it?
I know what my most precious resource is but actually it took me a while to find out. You see it’s only when we burn out, feel tired, unable to work that we begin to realise that we are the very reason our clients book in with us to help them on their healing journey. Sure, the remedies, the couch and the products we use are integral to our work, but actually our clients book in with us because they know, like and trust us.
It takes a while for that to sink in at times. But when you start off treating one person in a family and then you end up treating the whole clan, or when your phone rings and you get that new customer calling you because they were told how well you work and how their friend just swears by you, you then realise that you are your most valued asset you have in your work.
However, as sensitive souls who most of the time favour the constant giving and nurturing of our clients, the investment in our greatest asset can seem indulgent, guilt-laden and something we will do at a later date.
But let me ask you this… if your car needed a new windscreen would you buy it? If your fridge needed a new light installing would you buy a bulb? If your optician told you they were getting their premises refitted would you question it? Or maybe your hairdresser just told you they were buying the new range of dyson hairdryers would you tell them not to bother?
For me getting caught in the daily grind of being a homeopath and talking about wellbeing products was, I could see enforcing limiting earning behaviours and actually making my job a bit more stressful. My case load was growing but I needed time out to rethink how I actually worked. There must be better ways to implement systems, have better boundaries, streamline, and ultimately have more downtime. So I took a step back. Invested in myself and worked with a coach, did the hard graft of changing things and do you know what I actually took more than 2 steps forward afterwards!
What I ask you to do as someone who deeply cares about the wellbeing of others is to think about how does what you do actually give you time to enjoy your own work life balance? How can you expand and grow in what you do? What projects do you dream of working on in the future but can’t even envision because the day to day stuff seems so flipping overwhelming?
This time in lockdown is actually a gift for our industry as it has given us the time to think about how we can come back bigger, better and bolder and support a world who actually need our services to get over this crisis we are in. If it helps to reframe the ‘I can’t invest in me’ narrative you hold, then think about how much investing in your own growth will improve the service you give to others.
Jo’s next round of her 12 week Resilient Therapists course starts on 2nd February.
