My business celebrated its first birthday in February. Note that I didn’t say my business celebrated its first year in operation. Gratitude is a practice. And I’m currently writing a gratitude list every morning within my first hour of rising. Just to get me in the right mindset for showing up to my life. I hope you’ve got something similar to keep you connected to what you love about your job.
The more often I look at my practice through this lens, the more excited I am about mundane things. Things like billing, file updates, or my monthly reporting procedures. But there’s a difference between gratitude and celebration. I feel excited to discuss the place of celebration in business health, and even branding and marketing. I’m writing today to ask you to consider how you are celebrating your private practice and letting other people in on the celebration as a marketing tool.
Business celebrations?
Culturally we have showers and parties for weddings, babies, engagements, and other significant life events for ourselves and others. What about for our businesses? What about to lift up and celebrate fellow professionals? I’ve been percolating an idea recently for a professional “shower,” for friends, colleagues, and other professionals to submit what they’re especially proud of and want to be celebrated for, and then utilizing a scheduled, quarterly event to celebrate these life events. I think it’s important for us to view our successes as worthy of being showered with praise or celebration. Why couldn’t this be a networking or marketing event at the same time? No reason. Get creative.
Here are some simple options or ideas for how to celebrate yourself, your business, and get your name out there at the same time:
- Throw your business a birthday party. Nothing fancy, maybe even only online or through social media. Let people know that you have a thriving, fully private practice, and people will get curious about what you’re doing right.
- Be the person who throws the next professional celebration “Shower,” for others to have opportunities to celebrate themselves, and you’ll get a name and reputation in your community as a supportive professional. Sponsored by your business, of course.
- Start a book club with other therapists in your community, again, either online or in person. Get excited about learning something new, and build your referral network!
Being in business for yourself is an amazing opportunity. An opportunity to learn how to play, bring joy to your life, and even make great money doing it. Why not use celebration and gratitude as tools for building your referral network, getting other people enthusiastic about circular support and leadership, and getting out of the loneliness trap in private practice. Slow Down School is all about getting intentional about what you want to do with your practice. Make this the year that you start scheduling your celebrations. So that you can be checked in to what’s been working for you, and grateful for all of the work you’ve done in the past to get you to this point. Celebrate yourself.
Elizabeth Pace is a therapist and clinical supervisor in private practice in New Orleans, Louisiana. What she loves the most about private practice is supporting others as they question their old ideas about “doing it right” and start to cultivate a newer awareness about the kind of life they want to fearlessly pursue. Another passion is advocating for and advancing the counseling field through presentations on professional development, financial literacy, and coaching others towards the personal and professional goals that bring them joy, excitement, and financial stability!
You can visit Elizabeth’s website here!
