On this Physical Therapy Profit Academy Tutorial, we’re going to show you how to BEAT the number one thing that limits the success of many PT Owners, and how to use it to set you up to win.
“Overwhelm” is a “disease” that kills business success.
It drains enjoyment out of life too.
What we do – starting, growing and scaling our small businesses – certainly isn’t for the ones who want the easy ride.
Those are the therapists who remain in the big hospital systems!
When you are growing that business, there will always be times where you feel like it’s getting too much for you to handle.
But most of the time WE make that problem worse than it needs to be.
Why?
Because running your own clinic is always made more difficult by the amount of things that you *THINK* you need to accomplish, in the often short period of time that you give yourself to do it.
Make sense?
But, there are things you can do to defeat “Overwhelm”…
Traditionally, it’s a not a word that I like to use.
It’s not even a word that I like looking at as I write this blog post.
But because I know it’s going to make a significant difference to your life when you know what it really means – and how to beat it – I’ll talk about it for the next 1000 words as though it’s a long lost school friend who I never really liked anyway, that just happens to stop me in the street to chat…
I’ll respect it and honour it’s existence, but I won’t give it too much thought after the blog is over!
So, Lets Talk About “Overwhelm”…
If you’re feeling “overwhelmed” right now it’s because you’ve got so much to do and you want to achieve it in a short period of time.
Correct?
It’s a constant feeling of NOT being 100% of where start, or what to finish next.
But all that’ll start to change when you SHIFT your definition of what “overwhelm” actually is.
It just means that you’ve got “OPTIONS”!
And, a lot of them!
Is that such a bad thing?
I’m not sure it is.
Because contrast that with many small business owners who are just completely “stuck”, unable to find ANY ideas to improve their business or quality of life…. then when you think of it like that, you’re already in a much better place.
Overwhelm is happening because you’re looking way too far into the future…
Trying to see the end of the thing you’re about to start – before you’ve even took the first steps to doing it.
It’s a surefire way for disaster!
And I get why you might feel like that too…
As small business owners navigating the new health care economy, it’s tempting to feel like you always have to do something “new” to try and keep up.
Well, you do!
(Have to do something!).
The question is, what?
And what will take you to where you want to get to – your end goal of owning a business the fastest!?
Here’s The Thing:
Some would say it’s a lot harder to build a PT business with the LACK of referrals coming in from doctors these days…
…I’d say it’s never been EASIER to grow a PT business because there are literally millions of pages packed full with information, marketing tips and strategies, and tons of people saying different things about what works and what doesn’t, right at your fingertips.
Granted, not all the information will be valuable to you.
In fact, most of it will be a waste of your time…
And of course, that’s the problem!
Committing your time and energy trying to figure out just what kind of work you need to be doing to successfully Market your clinic, is one of the BIGGEST questions to ask yourself, daily.
Would I have LOVED to have had a solid Marketing plan clearly laid out in front of me when I first opened up my clinic – The Paul Gough Physio Rooms?
(Especially when I competing against a completely FREE health care system…)
100% YES!!!!
But it didn’t happen.
No magical, overnight plan arrived on my desk while sipping on my coffee one morning.
So what did I do?
I made a decision.
And then I took some action on that decision.
I started with one Marketing course.
Implemented ONE thing of what I learned.
Not all of it, but just enough to give me some confidence and drive me forward towards making another good decision, about investing more of my time into creating a full scale Marketing plan.
Soon enough, I started to realize that I was in a much better position when I said “NO” to seeing some of the patients wanting to get in…
…because I was certain that my time was better spent creating more marketing systems at my practice that would work FOR me, (than repeatedly seeing patients that meant I had no way of growing past where I currently was).
Make sense?
And even after I invested a lot of my time and money into all of these Marketing materials, I’d be kidding myself if I said it didn’t leave me “overwhelmed” from time to time…
…feeling a little stuck and even frustrated knowing that I knew all of this amazing stuff, but I just couldn’t find the time to get it all in place fast enough – while still running a business and finding time for my family.
True Story:
Now, that feeling of being “stuck” or “overwhelmed” is exactly how one of the PT’s in my “PT Entrepreneur Community” was feeling this week…
After weeks of learning game-changing Marketing strategies to help launch his clinic off the ground and away from relying upon doctors referrals, on my Accelerator 3.0 program, he found himself going over everything he was taught, feeling like he knew what he was doing at the start, but then all of a sudden it felt as if his brain had “forgotten” what to do, or even HOW to start!
He’d got a little lost!
Happens to all of us, right?
But the thing is, there’s always some ‘grey clouds’ at the beginning that you’ve got to breakthrough no matter what you’re trying to do.
And once you come out of the other side – through the haze and moist – that pivotal moment will hit you when you finally “get it” and it’s THEN that you’ll understand exactly what it is you’re doing, and WHY.
Is there any other way than persistence?
Maybe not.
But persistence is made easier when you know with absolute certainty that what you’re trying to achieve by doing what ever it is that you’re doing, is worth the energy you must expend.
Holding onto the dream at the end is important…
…but not nearly as important as LOVING the journey that you’re on.
And “learning” is one of the highest and best uses of our time that any of us can do. Even though it’s difficult.
The HAPPIEST (and wealthiest) people I know are non-stop learners.
But is learning always fun?
Not always.
Remember when you were a kid…
Was learning easy?
Of course not.
It’s why you went to your parents to ask for help when you got stuck on topic!
How you learn hasn’t changed….
What you feel when you’re learning a new thing hasn’t changed…
What’s likely changed is the “support” team around you.
Back then, you had your parents, now it’s just YOU.
A solo-business owner trying to do EVERYTHING on his or her own.
But here’s the thing:
Whenever you get “overwhelmed” or you feel your brain hurting and you THINK it’s telling you to STOP…
…all it’s doing is trying to figure out an ANSWER!
Which more often that not, it provides not long after.
And when it does, it all becomes a lot easier…
Why?
Because something called ‘Accelerated Learning’, kicks in!
Once you do learn something new it’ll go to the back of your brain to be stored there for when you next want to know how to use it – and it’ll come to the front as and when you need it.
The “thing”, it’ll become second nature.
Like driving a car.
Difficult at first.
Now you don’t even think about it.
Marketing becomes a lot like that too.
The more you do, the faster you master it and the more success you have with it, and the MORE of it you want to learn and do.
A self perpetuating cycle begins – a positive one!
You’ll no longer think about all of the little things like “what button goes where” or “what a landing page is” or “how to set it up…”
…instead you’ll be thinking about your clients, their pain points, what words to use to motivate them, what the REAL reason is you’re running your ads and how your patient is feeling and how they’ll value your solution as a result of seeing your marketing, if you use a different word here not there…
…as well as the IMPACT it has ON your business, and your LIFESTYLE.
Focusing on those type of things provides a lot more motivation to see it through, don’t you think?
So, if you’re ever feeling “overwhelmed”, it’s likely because you’re still stuck trying to figure out the “trivial many”…
…when what you need is to be focusing on the vital few, (which is usually the overall business STRATEGY)!…
But here’s another thing:
It doesn’t matter what level you’re at in your business, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a PT for, or how great of a Marketeer you become, this feeling never goes away…
It’s something you have to learn to “accept” – especially if you want to KEEP getting to that next level with your business and lifestyle success.
It’s a natural progression…
And the business owner who WINS, is the business owner who learns to live with that feeling of always being “overwhelmed”, because he or she is likely to be the one who is AWLAYS learning something NEW!
And then IMPLEMENTING that something new.
So todays message is this:
If you’re planning on being successful – get used to LIVING with that “feeling of overwhelm”…
Just change what it means to you…
…and how you see it!
And the key to dealing with “having too much to do”, or, “too many options” is to bring your focus back to NOW…
Into the PRESENT moment.
Focus on what you can DO NOW…
…DECIDE WHAT THAT IS…
…then take action on FINISHING IT!
I call it “falling in love with the process” – and NOT falling in love with the results.
If you’re obsessed with the process, you’ll enjoy it and finish it and often the results will come with it, naturally.
If you’re obsessed with guaranteeing results, or you won’t do it unless it’s 100% going to work – you’ll set your self up for a lot of frustration AND failure as well as starting a lot of tasks but never finishing any.
Sound familiar??
Last thing:
Having too many things to do in your business is WAY better than having nothing to do at all and being the not-so proud owner of a business that’s just “standing still”.
I LIVE by the belief that I’m either moving UP …
…or I’ll move out!
I don’t care which one it is, but I refuse to be sitting still!
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