The Power of Celebration

Welcome to this final episode of Illuminate Your Practice for 2020 and it is New Year's Eve. 

My content for you today is all about closing out the year in the best way possible. Honestly, when I was looking at the schedule and knew we'd have an episode that released on New Year's Eve, it was hard for me to decide what specifically I wanted to talk about with you because there's so much I love; the reflection process, the analysis process, and of course the planning process. 

I want to invite you to make sure that you are on my email list because obviously, you know, the social media things. Sometimes they get a little tricky and it's always I want to stay in touch with you to make sure that you are aware of all the things I have planned before anyone else.

 --> To be first to know about the upcoming exclusive seminar with Monika Buerger, From Plateau To GROW! workshop, hop on my email list, and join us in the free FB group for women in chiropractic - Illuminated Insiders.

 Alright, so today is brought to you by my hot tub and what I mean by that is this so my husband and I are pretty good about our end-of-the-year routine. Just meaning every year we have certain things that we always do but then we tend to add more analysis and more planning as we really just grow.

My husband is a financial analyst; So he actually is basically a halftime stay-at-home dad and then he works for our consulting company for the rest of his time. So he does all kinds of amazing financial and statistical analysis for our members; He runs all of our financials for both companies. 

 So when I tell you that this episode was brought to you by our hot tub, it's because we literally sat in her hot tub with a bottle of champagne and we talked about all of the blessings from this year and what I have seen in coaching over the years is talking about the wins, celebrating the progress, and really taking a moment to honor how you are.

Moving forward is really difficult for most people; most of us are wired to just keep going on to the next thing and we don't take time to actually think about how far we have come.

Now more than ever it's so important for your nervous system, for your brain, for your health, to stop and think about what you have to celebrate. So this episode is all about the power of celebration. And for those of you that find it hard to celebrate, I just jotted down a whole bunch of categories and I'm going to talk about each category just to get your brain going and kind of move it in the direction of highlighting the amazing positives from this year. And hopefully, this will be a great addition to whatever you typically do for your year-end analysis and planning. I will say this is a really great thing to add-on to really ask yourself what you need to do to analyze and plan. Quickly take a pause on this episode and go get a notebook and hit play again and let's go through this together so that we can just get some good mojo going for your body for your brain and hopefully start a new habit of being willing to celebrate the wins. 

 #1: Did you have some amazing progress this year with your mental or emotional health? 

We've all been under a lot of stress this year. But I have seen with clients and patients and other people I'm close to that has meant they have really prioritized this area of their life. Maybe you started seeing a therapist for the first time to really be able to talk out some of these things? Maybe you started meditating? 

Maybe you started journaling? 

Maybe you started a gratitude practice where you do something specifically around gratitude every day? 

Maybe you started parenting differently when it comes to mental-emotional health -- you started talking to your kids about what to do as a family to limit that stress. 

Maybe you even broke through some triggers that you have always known you had triggers around XYZ issue and you finally figured out how to adapt to those better how to identify them earlier.

 I mean there are so many different things but I started off with this one because I think this is the area that all of us can really focus on growing every year because you can't do too much of too much self-care when it comes to your mental and emotional health. 

#2: Your physical health. 

Did you work out more this year? Did you prioritize exercise because it helps so many other things right? I know for myself I would not have been able to get through this year without exercise. I can immediately tell when I basically fall off my own wagon of what I like to do every week. 

This year did you find out about any other like physical things that are allowing you to now make different choices? We identified some food sensitivities with my kids and so that evolved how we take care of them and we saw great changes with them.

 Maybe you figured out how to love your body differently this year instead of constantly wanting it to change or evolve. 

Maybe this year was it just about acceptance? And honestly, that's to me is one of the most beautiful wins. You could give yourself because a big foundation of both mental and physical health is love like you have to really honor what you have so that you can have a moment at least every day where you are expressing that blessing and you feel some deep respect for your body. 

 #3: Your family.

Did this year bring you more time to enjoy them and have the true quality time where you weren't distracted? 

You didn't feel like there were a million things on your to-do list that were pulling you away mentally so you couldn't be present with them? 

Maybe you took up a new hobby with your family this year? 

Maybe you deepened your relationship with your significant other and you reconnected or you evolved into a new communication style or pattern that's working really well for you? 

Maybe your parenting skills really grew this year? 

Maybe you're enjoying parenting more than you ever have before? 

Maybe you are understanding the personalities of your kiddos more than you ever have before? 

 There are so many different things that could fall into this family parenting quality of life situation. I can tell you for myself the fact that I got to spend more time with my kids just period this year was a huge blessing.

 #4: Time management. 

Maybe you got super clear this year about what is actually a priority. So perhaps you learned that things that you used to really stress about that really in the grand scheme of things aren't that important? 

Maybe you got clear that you want to shift your schedule. I had many clients that change their patient hours during the height of everything that was going on in the spring and then they're like, yeah this works. I can see the same if not more volume in fewer hours, and then I can have a better balance and quality of life.

Are there wins and things you can celebrate this year with regard to how you managed your time with regard to changes that you want to make moving forward?

Let's just celebrate that you did it. I mean many of you had to wear new hats that you never wore before; there were so many additional things that had to be done in new different ways and you made it through all of that and some of you probably made it through thriving.

 #5 Milestones 

How can you think about when a particular milestone journey started and take some time to just go down that little memory path and just be in awe of how far you have come. I will tell you for me moving to our new office in 2020 it was a huge thing; I spent a lot of time in the summer when we moved just thinking about how that first office that I built how different it was, how different I was, how much my dreams had evolved, and I think it's so powerful and healthy to go back to the beginning of where it all started for. 

Honor that version of yourself so that you can honor this version of yourself even more. 

 #6: Team

Did you have team wins this year? 

Did you hire an additional CA? 

Did you hire your first CA? 

Did you hire help at home? 

Did you hire a nanny that you love? Did you hire a part-time helper at home for like virtual school that is going to be able to continue and help your family? 

Did anything change with your current team? 

 Even just taking some time to write out how you feel supported by your team. So healthy to celebrate that and also a really great gift of clarity for you to write that out so that we can figure out how to amplify those feelings next year because if you sit down and you struggle to put into words how you feel supported by your team.

Or maybe you don't have a professional team yet and you're feeling a lack of support, then this exercise is all about future pacing and thinking about what you need in order to be able to get to the end of 2021.

 I'd love to have all of you get to that place where your team is truly just the heart and soul of what you do both personally; your personal team and your professional team. 

 #7: The Art Of Chiropractic. 

So what amazing things happened this year when it comes to taking care of your people? 

Did you have some really interesting cases? 

Did you have amazing patient wins? 

I'm going to invite you to sit down and pull up your schedule and bounce around, month to month in your patient schedule for the year and look at the names on that schedule and just write out things that happened in your relationship with these patients this year. Them continuing to show up and have their power turned on and talk to you about their nervous system and their stress. Them showing up and allowing you to care for them is a massive thing to celebrate; it's so so important that you take a minute and honor the fact that you are able to care for people when they need it most that is something that none of us take lightly and actually letting that sink in.

You strengthening that boundary of leaving it at the door and ensuring that you were mentally, emotionally, physically present for every adjustment because in my mind every single time you are giving an adjustment, it's like you're having this heart-to-heart conversation without words sometimes and if you found that particular piece of your art leveling up this year, I want you to spend some time to really applaud yourself for making that a priority because I always think about with our patients. Where would they be without Chiropractic in their life? 

 #8: Leadership. 

Did you learn to lead yourself first? I could give you a lot of examples with myself this year, but one of the biggest things that I am celebrating and this came from some mistakes for sure over many years; I would say that my leadership ability to really honor and listened to my gut and lead from that place has been challenged more this year than ever and I'm landing in a place at the end of the year where I remembering that I really do need to listen to my intuition. My leadership is always a focus every year but this year especially things just got very clear to me that the space within my circles - my team circles and my personal circle, I've always been really really clear on how important it is to have good boundaries with that space and only allow people into that realm that truly fuel me, but this year more than ever that involved intuition.

 As we're getting close to the end of the year, I'm really looking at how I lead and what I choose to do, and what things are prioritized when it comes to that leadership structure and relationship and there are many things that need to be celebrated, but also analyze and both perpetuated and change for next year. 

So what has evolved for you when it comes to leadership this year? What are some things that have really been a point of pride for you? That's definitely something that you can think about and you can really anticipate how to continue to improve those skills because now more than ever people need leaders and you have the capacity. If you don't already consider yourself a leader, you are a leader because you are leading someone in conjunction with someone when it comes to their health journey every single day.  

 Your capacity to lead and you put intention towards improving that skill set, the more fulfilled you will be, and the more supported your people will be and that is such a beautiful thing to focus on. 

 #9 Stability. 

 Were things relatively stable in certain ways for you this year? Just meaning did your income not have a huge up and down did it stay relatively stable? 

Did maybe your significant others in common jobs stay relatively stable? 

Did your family unit stay stable?

I know that so much was unstable, but if we can take a minute and just honor and recognize what did to stay steady; How can we celebrate? How can we celebrate what was stable for you? 

Because this is something that I've talked to a lot of people in the last few months about the survivor's guilt situation where if you did have a relatively stable year when it comes to those big things. A lot of people are feeling guilty and I know I have felt this way a whole bunch of times throughout the last few months where things are just terrible and falling apart for other people and you're like gosh I wish I could fix that for them. 

We have also prioritized how we give more locally to families that we know are in need this year. So, that's great, but in the grand scheme of things you feeling guilty that things are stable and therefore then not actually being happy about what you have, that changes the vibration you're putting out into the world and it actually could perpetuate more of that same sadness and grief and difficulty and I'm certainly not saying don't feel those feelings because I'll never tell you that. I'm all about feeling your feelings, I just want to make sure you feel the happy feelings that are

in there too, and the happy feelings will come from expressing gratitude for whatever stability you did have this year. 

 #10: Financials and metrics for your practice or your career. 

So first, I really think it's important to analyze not just the traditional things that we think about when it comes to our practice. So not just patient visits, new patients, collections, but especially if maybe you had like a s'more static year like you had some months that were down and but then maybe some ones that were up. So maybe overall the year is relatively flat to last year when it comes to like your practice numbers or your income, but that's why I want you to go deeper and just say, did you have better retention this year? Did you have an improved conversion to Wellness? Did you have more referrals? Maybe you had more family members getting under care this year than ever because you are having those conversations about stress at a more intentional level than you ever have before. Maybe you fixed your pricing and so your OVA improved.

 There's a lot to celebrate when it comes to that exchange of value. This is something I work on with my clients all the time because based on the area that you live in, your OVA is really important because this is something that even just a few dollars more per visit can make a huge difference to you annually depending on how many visits you're seeing.

So that could be something really important to celebrate this year. If you worked on that maybe 2020 brought different personal spending habits, like maybe you specifically were shaken up a bit and you changed how you prioritize where your money is going. Maybe you paid off a ton of debt. Maybe you sat down and just got clear about your financials for the first time and created a plan and maybe you started contributing to your retirement for the first time ever? 

Did you have more new patients? Did you have more visits and honestly, let's even go beyond that and say regardless of what those numbers were where they more of the people that bring you joy? Did you have people in the practice this year that were just your people? 

Were you able to steer the conversation in your practice more often than not towards health and adaptability to stress instead of just staying in the muck of the news and the rates and the changes and Etc? 

So I know that some of you listening are students, some of you are docs in a team-based practice, some of you own your own practice. I know that there are lots of different setups but based on the nature of Chiropractic I would venture to guess that the largest percentage of you own your own practice or maybe have plans to do that in the future.

This morning, Joe was reading me an article from Fortune Magazine, and he was saying that in there it says 20% of businesses fold in the US after their first year, 30% in two years, 50% by year five, and seventy percent by year 10.

So if you do own your practice, I want you to think about where you are in that one to ten-year journey, and gosh if you're like me and have been in practice for over 10 years 70% of your cohorts are out of business. I want you to think about how important it is for you to look at your ability to perceive, persevere, and move forward and grow we are in the business of creating an improved quality of life and improved health for people. 

 Dig into this process of Celebration and I would love to hear whatever rituals and traditions that you set up with this particular thought process at the end of the year. How are you going to celebrate please share those with me because I love to teach this stuff and honestly, especially for my women listening we suck typically at doing this. We really do because there are so many wants and needs and hats we have to wear that we just rush on to the next thing and I promise you if you can at least just give me one to two days where you can bask in your glory awesome things that happen. 

This is the first step to continuing to tell the universe what you want more of and honoring your power honoring the innate wisdom the work ethic the clarity that you bring to the table and choosing more of that for next year and saying everything that you have done this year. 

 It would make my day if you do a little cheer and tag me on Instagram or if you go outside do something fun, like jump in the air. 

 There are some people you know that like to just like paint this glorious picture that their life has no challenges, but more than ever, I think it's very important for you to be vocal about these things. Especially when it comes to the wins in categories that people don't think about. 

Inspire other women that it's okay to share too. It's okay to take a moment and pat yourself on the back. In fact, I'm going to leave you with saying it's vital for you to celebrate what positive things are happening so that you can remind yourself of your power not just once a year, but hopefully, this will be the start of a regular practice for you to own your greatness.

It's so healthy, and please hear me when I say I'm here celebrating with you for whatever it is. You're most proud of this year. I will catch you in 2021. Have a great New Year's Eve. We'll talk soon.