Create A Clear Vision Of What You Want
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
(Carl Jung)
Ariana Institute offers online and onsite Practice Building and Marketing Courses for Massage Therapists.
The majority of practitioners would rate practice building somewhere between getting a root canal without anesthetic and driving on a busy six-lane highway downtown in rush hour.
It is perceived as something they dread, or at best, just tolerate, or they place practice building in the same crass, unbecoming, and distasteful category as used car salesmanship, late-night TV infomercials, and multilevel marketing.
Most practitioners would prefer practicing their art instead of putting energy into getting and keeping clients. But even the most skillful practitioners don’t automatically have as many clients as they’d like. Potential clients don’t automatically know about you, just because you do good work. Give yourself a moment to go inside. Think about tangible and tasteful ways to cultivate referrals, increase your presence in your client’s lives, and fill your practice, all the while staying true to your values and principles. Examine how attitudes about money, value, socioeconomic class, and the age-old clash between commerce and healing, can affect your ability to truly useful to those you serve. Take a few minutes to close your eyes and quiet your mind. Now, picture in your mind what your ideal dream business would look like. Consider that time and money are not an issue when doing this.
Think with a beginner’s mind about your massage therapy practice, your training, your background, your uniqueness in the massage community.
Focus on your intentions in terms of growing your massage therapy practice while remaining in alignment with your values, passions, and purpose.
Once this internal process is complete, take a moment to record your insights about your ideal business. Review them and then share them with supportive friends and mentors. Think about ways that you can implement plans to move toward achieving your goals. Track your efforts and determine where you get the most return on the investment of your time, energy and money. Remember to be patient with the outcome and honor the process. You never know how the seeds you plant today may blossom in the future.
I can give you a six-word formula for success:
Think things through – then follow through.
(Eddie Rickenbacker)
Ariana Vincent directs the Ariana Institute in Houston, Texas, which offers continuing professional development for massage therapists. Ariana is a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist and Massage Therapy Instructor who has practiced massage therapy and bodywork for thirty years. Her highest aspiration, personally and professionally, is to facilitate the integration of mind, body, and spirit, and to ultimately allow a state of balance to effortlessly and peacefully become an integral part of everyday life.
