***The End of Burnout

The numbers of chiropractors that burn-out of practice early is something that makes my heart bleed! I contend that one of the main reasons this happens is because many do not understand this key concept of service and end up giving and giving until ....... there is nothing left to give their practice members, their families or themselves. They leave practice feeling hollow and empty and the ranks of gifted chiropractors in the world decreases yet again! THIS HAS TO END! One of the implications of accepting the supposition that part of the purpose of your practice is to fund your personal life is that you need to define what your dream personal life looks like. You need to define things like; how many hours you would love to work, what kind of a home you would love to live in, how many weeks you would work every year, how much vacation time you would take and what would you do with that time off. What I find most doctors I have coached and consulted with over the years do, is go to work from chiropractic college with no set idea about WHAT success in life and practice looks like to them........ that certainly was the way it was for me! They just want to go to work, see some practice members and start making money. They chat with their friends about how to grow their business, some go to seminars and get exposed to new ideas and some of the smart ones even hire a practice coach! They eventually get busier and buy into the Western cultural mythos, which says that "bigger is better" and "more is better." They get caught on the "rat's wheel" of life and start to carry pictures of their children around with them so they remember what they look like! THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DEFINE SUCCESS FOR THEMSELVES IN THEIR OWN IDEAL and are therefore powerless to answer some simple questions like "when is enough, enough" and "why can't I ever seem to get ahead." When they are at the office they worry about their family and friends and when they are at home they worry about their practice. THEY ARE RARELY EVER PRESENT ANYWHERE AND OFTEN GO ON TO LEAD UNFULFILLED AND FRUSTRATING LIVES! Taking that dream lifestyle and putting a dollar figure to it and then converting that into a "debt of service" (how many practice members you need to serve to live your dream lifestyle) is a very liberating experience. 99% of the doctors I have walked through this process have told me it is the first time in their practice life where they have actually KNOWN FOR CERTAIN how many visits they need to see to live their dream life. They can finally answer the question of "when is enough, enough" with respect to marketing, number of visits they need to see and the number of dollars needed to live their dreams! Gone is the frustration and procrastination of not following through on projects because finally a BIG part of the "WHY" they practice has been answered. As one of my old teachers said to me years ago, "WHEN THE WHY IS BIG ENOUGH, THE HOW'S WILL LOOK AFTER THEMSELVES."