TAKING THAT HUGE LEAP OF FAITH
I thought I would write a blog to explain the transformation I have experienced over the last year in particular, in the hope that it encourages others to do what intuitively they feel needs to be done. Or where they hear a nagging voice that keeps giving them a push, but due to various reasons it gets ignored! This is also a timely blog, given that it is new year, and often we start a new year with the best of intentions to make some changes, and we get towards the end of the year and look back and feel immense disappointment that all those best-of-intentions have not been realized! So…… here is my experience of following your gut, intuition, that nagging voice, whatever resonates with you! This sounds clichéd, but with great risk, comes great reward! I want to start off my experience with this as it has taken a great risk and overcoming what is probably an irrational fear to realize the happiness and joy I now experience daily! What has changed you ask? Well, after much ‘energetic nudging’ by the universe, and many kicks up the behind from the universe, I finally have bitten the bullet and started practicing solely from a home-based clinic room. This may sound very low risk to majority, but what one fears another won’t find at all scary. THIS is the important message. We all have fears that prevent us from doing what we need or want to do. It is important to respect and recognize that these fears to the person experiencing them are very real. I was getting so many indicators that I should leave a clinic based consulting situation and practice from home for ages. Such as, people approaching me in the car park of a shopping centre specifically asking me if I offer my services from home (after they saw my business advertised on the side of my car). Clients contacting me for a session and preferring to see me from home rather than a clinic. I was so closed to the idea, I didn’t see what was right in front of me. There was a huge interest in people sidestepping a clinic based service and going to my house. I persisted with requiring clients to see me at the clinic (which was taking 50% of my fee charged – 40% for rent, reception and other expenses associated with a clinic and 10% GST). I kept plugging away, trying to improve my service to my clients at the clinic. I introduced a service of calling all initial clients the day after their initial with me. This required me taking contact details home, which were in my phone and then contacting them. Clients then had my direct contact details and would contact me instead of the clinic when they wanted an appointment. I still booked them into the clinic! All things were nudging me towards a home-based business, but I kept resisting. I look back now and I see that these nudges probably started about 3 years ago!!!! I was becoming increasingly irritable with little things that occurred in relation to my practice, but still did not ‘see the forest for the trees’!. Anyway, I started to relax my stance on seeing clients at the house and gradually my business at home started to flourish. I wasn’t pushing things, it was more a case that clients would need to see me on a different day or time to when I was available at the clinic and unless I was willing to lose them as a client, I needed to compromise. I found it odd that clients would actually prefer to see me at my house rather than the clinic. I didn’t offer health fund rebates at my house. These were all registered at the clinic, yet people would forego the rebate to see me at the house!!!! Gradually my client base at home was getting to a point that I was struggling to fit them in around my commitment to the clinic. I still persisted with my clinic practice. It was like my safety blanket! That was all I had known since qualifying as a therapist over 13 years ago. I had been with the same clinic since qualifying, which in the alternative therapies industry is almost unheard of. There is often a high turnover of staff as people often follow their intuition and believe in moving on when an opportunity arises. Not me!!! I just kept persisting! I was the longest serving staff member at the clinic and saw myself only leaving when I retired! I don’t know what gave me the final push I needed, other than taking a serious look at my client numbers at the clinic and home and logically realizing that, I can do this! The figures support the fact that I can work from home. What are you waiting for? I was so fearful of handing my resignation in and no longer having the safety net of the clinic. I also valued the networking and comradeship of the other staff at the clinic and knew I would miss this terribly. I realized that leaving the clinic didn’t mean the end of these relationships with other staff members, I just needed to ensure that I worked at these and also made efforts to attend meetings with other professionals in my field of work that were available to me, but I had not utilized up to this point. Essentially all the obstacles that I perceived, were able to be overcome, if I changed my mindset! So with this all in mind, I did the hardest thing, which was hand my resignation in. It was bittersweet, but it is the best thing I have done as I felt a stagnancy energetically that I needed to shift. When asked why I was leaving, I really couldn’t put a finger on why, I just felt this very strong push that I needed to do it. I had not other offers to work elsewhere, nothing. I just had this knowing that it needed to be done! As soon as this was done, the stagnancy lifted and I have never been busier! Traditionally, the Christmas/new year period is the quieter time of our business. Not this year! I was struggling to fit clients in and accommodate everyone! My business is flourishing like never before and I am now being challenged in other areas. I have had to overcome the fear of setting up an online booking system. Again, why I had this limiting fearful approach to this I do not know! But once I tackled this and got it up and running, I found another level of stress lift, as I no longer needed to send out reminders to each client before their appointment. Clients can now book repeat sessions online, meaning a more convenient streamlined process reducing the chances of me losing clients due to them not being able to get hold of me whilst I am consulting! So the upshot of taking the risk, is that I am now my own boss completely. Today, I am sitting in a café writing this blog and I can determine when I work and when I have a day off! I can work smarter not harder! I can earn more per session, meaning I don’t need to see as many clients in a week. I no longer feel beholden to anyone else when trying to juggle and accommodates clients. This gives me a great sense of freedom that I didn’t realize was lacking before. As for me personally, it has changed me. I have less stress, which means that I am a happier person and I am able to give to my clients more completely. I believe that when we are truly happy, this is apparent to those we meet and people will tend to gravitate around people that emit this positive energy. I am finding that I am getting more referrals/recommendations through word-of-mouth. This is indicative of client satisfaction. So the moral of the very long blog is, follow your heart and your dreams. When you are truly doing what you are meant to be doing, the energy flows and things happen as they should. This journey of mine has not been an easy one, but the rewards have been vast. I initially worked for the government for 18 years. Finishing my government career at Centrelink. I know that if I hadn’t taken the initial leap of faith and studied in Bowen Therapy and Reflexology, my health and wellbeing would not be where it is now and I have no doubt I would have been a very unhealthy version of who I am. I hope this encourages someone else to follow their dreams and also listen to those subtle nudges that your intuition gives you. It is scary, but so worth it! Kind regards, Dayna
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AuthorDayna Willesee Archives
February 2019
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