CHANGING MY MINDSET IN PRIVATE PRACTICE : YEAR 8 | EP 144

And what a year it has been! With so many ups and downs, changes, and new insights. This year has been characterized by personal changes in mindset and approach to my practice, and professional development within my Canadian private practice and podcast. 

Today’s episode will be a deep dive into my personal story, in celebration and reflection of year eight in private practice! I’ll share with you what I’ve learned, struggled with, and overcome, plus advice or tips I have picked up. 

Thank you for your support and for going on this journey with me!

In This Episode

• November 2023 
• The beginning of 2024 
• Spring and summer of 2024 
• Towards the end of this year
• The struggles of year eight 
• Cultivating a “maintain mindset” over a capitalist-growth mindset
• The future of the Fearless Practice podcast

November 2023

Eight years ago, I started my Canadian private practice in November. Now, every November, I reflect on how far I’ve come. 

A lot of my time and energy at the beginning of this year was focused on finalizing that website. Unfortunately around this time, along with the struggle of the website situation, I had to hire a new admin staff, which added a lot more work to my plate. 

‘It was a very busy time. Now if you don’t remember, in year seven [last year], I had decided to redo my whole private practice website, and unfortunately, that was still going on months and months later! … Everything always takes longer than you anticipate, and that was true with my website.’ – Julia Smith 

I was looking forward to the holidays in December! But it wasn’t enough to make me feel creative again.

The beginning of 2024 

I sunk deeper and deeper into a work hibernation for the first few months of this new year. I just focused on the basics which allowed my creativity and urge to work harder to slowly appear again in the Spring, instead of forcing myself to keep pushing when I was feeling burned out.

Spring and summer of 2024 

One of the biggest changes was that  therapy for registered counselling therapists and psychotherapists became tax-free in the spring of 2024!

‘This news was so lovely because it allowed us to reduce our prices for our clients!’ – Julia Smith

Going into the summer of 2024, I began to feel the burnout creeping up on me again, so I decided to switch things up and pursue a solo project, which was to get involved in the SEO of the backend of my website. I took courses in SEO and redid the backend of my website to optimize it better, and I had a lot of fun!

Towards the end of this year 

As you may know from episode 141, I took up the project of adding direct billing in the private practice, which so far has been going really well! 

And to end it off, a wonderful twist this year was that my first admin – who had been with me since the beginning – came back! She missed us and working with us, and the stars aligned for there to be an opportunity for her to rejoin the team. 

It’s been great to have the three of us back together again, working in private practice as a close-knit and content team. 

The struggles of year eight 

Even though this year has been lovely on many levels, there have been some tough moments. One of them is that Jane, my associate, and I have yet to complete a second season of our private practice’s podcast.  It’s something that we want to pursue, but we’re still trying to figure out how to do it in a financially viable way. 

Managing stress has also been another hurdle. Specifically, financial stress has been a concern.

‘The ebbs and flows of private practice are always stressful, and this past year was different than other years. Usually, there’s a pattern of the flows being in September or October and in February or March, and that didn’t happen last year … that definitely put a lot of stress on just not knowing when the next flow was going to be and how long the ebb was going to be.’ – Julia Smith 

Running a podcast is expensive! And it got even tougher when the usual financial pattern of the year was different. In year eight, this year, I had to use a bit of my emergency savings fund to keep the Fearless Practice Podcast going.

Cultivating a “maintain mindset” over a capitalist-growth mindset 

Due to money stress, I focused on ways to grow my practice and income but that mindset ended up not being helpful. What this experience has taught me is that adopting a perpetual-money-growth mindset can cause you even more anxiety. 

‘If I have more, I’ll be happier, and that’s the capitalist bullshit that can seep into me. So when I took a step back and realized, “This mindset is not working for me”, growing isn’t going to make me happier. What’s going to make me happier is not being so stressed out.’ – Julia Smith

Now, I’m approaching my work as maintenance of my professional and personal dream life that is based on satisfaction and peace. Instead of chasing growth, I am now actively looking at my work-life balance in terms of maintaining what I have instead of continuous expansion. 

The future of the Fearless Practice podcast 

We’re thrilled that Jane App is sponsoring the podcast for another year! 

This means there will be a whole other year of the Fearless Practice podcast! Thank you to my podcast editing team along with Joel, Niam, Brittany, Claire, and you, our audience! We look forward to another year of sharing stories and knowledge about Canadian private practice, and building a stronger network across Canada and even beyond.

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