Lorraine Cookson

I know, I know, you spent all this time qualifying. Dug into the depths of your soul and fished out all of the ugly hard-to-look-at feelings. You analysed all of your relationships, past, present and even future ones. You haven't been able to finish a sentence in the last few years without hearing your shadow come out too. You have trained so hard. You have birthed not just your qualification but a whole new version of yourself. And then finally when you were done with studying and had your day in cap and gown, realised there were few to zero jobs around. So brightly and positively you stepped into the world of Private Practice, and that shining light was ever so slightly dimmed by jaded peers tut tutting at your newness and inexperience ...

Or perhaps, that's not quite your story? Perhaps you aren't new to Private Practice but are feeling in a rut? Perhaps you have lost a little of that passion?

I do know it sounds like more work but hear me out ...

Without setting your goals, you're drifting. Your Practice is drifting too. Knowing where you are heading and having some parameters around it will help you not only achieve your goals, but you might surprise yourself and actually enjoy getting there!

When you have a plan, you can be clear about your intentions. You can create measurable specific goals and develop a plan to achieve them.

I would encourage you to consider what you currently want from your Private Practice. Is your Practice in a moment of growth and development? Or are you in a moment of reflecting on your Practice and wanted to tighten up or strengthen your procedures and practises?

Where are you in your own life? Do you have the energy and time to grow your Practice? Do you need to protect your energy at this time? If you do, it doesn't mean that you can't do valuable work on your Practice.

If you are able and ready to grow your business, and even if you're not, set yourself some goals. I'd encourage you to set goals for long, medium, and short term.

Consider where you want to be in 5 years' time. Or even 10 to 15 years. What would you like your life and your Practice to look like. What is the big goal here? Write it out for yourself, so that you can commit to that future goal. If you break it down, what are the steps to getting there?

With this longer-term goal in mind, where would you like to be in a year's time? What would your world look like? Does it get you closer to that 5-year plan?

What about the next 3 months? What steps can you put in place that will get you closer to that 12-month plan? Can you break it down even further and plan for the next few weeks?

Goals are achieved with consistent actions. What will yours be?

Sometimes they are exciting goals created by dopamine delivering actions. But many times, they are great goals created by slightly mundane repetitive actions. And it can be really hard to be consistent with those if you aren't clear on where you are headed.

Once you have these goals identified you can focus on achieving them. You might still need support for that, and I can help. Not only do I offer 1:1 Private Practice Coaching, I am running Goal Setting Workshops from December 2023 and throughout 2024 so that you can keep focused on your goals. I also host a totally free Facebook Group dedicated to helping Counsellors with Goals. Contact me for more details.

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