Set Up For Success 2:

Work-life balance, can any psychologist achieve it?

“How much are you paying yourself this month?” 

I probably shouldn’t have wanted to throw the lamp at him when my husband asked me that but in all honestly anything not tied down was at risk on that evening.

It seemed so unfair, I’d worked so hard, so many hours in front of clients, in excel spreadsheets, manually typing invoices and (of course) agonising over my inferiority as a therapist and, despite having a huge caseload, I was paying myself far less than I earned in the NHS. In fact, it was looking a lot like minimum wage.

All of the self-flagelating thoughts were running through my head. Had I been reckless with money? Was I incompetent? Stupid? Bad at business? 

But the truth was none of those things. I had one core problem: I didn’t take myself or my expertise seriously enough. I didn’t believe (deep down) that I deserved a healthy business so I didn’t educate myself on what it took to create one.

That’s why we need to work on our minds as well as our spreadsheets when we set up in private practice, especially if we need to replace our old incomes. 

I’m here to help you do that so you don’t have to *almost* commit a criminal offence to work it out.

What is a “healthy” business?

In the first year of my practice I would describe the business as unhealthy in all areas. It wasn’t meeting my financial needs and it wasn’t allowing me to flourish professionally. In fact, it was leading me closer and closer to burnout as I went to sleep every night wondering how on earth I was ever going to replace my NHS salary in my tiny windows of childcare.

Coming through the other side of this experience made me re-think the platitudes around work-life balance. This experience taught me that when we say work-life balance, what we really mean is are we making “enough money” in the amount of time we want to spend working? 

For that reason, work life balance looks completely different in different phases of life depending on your relationship to work, your other responsibilities and your financial situation. 

When I was 25, working 50 hour weeks for £26,000 looked like good work-life balance for me. I ran marathons, had an active social life and cats. Fine.

At 35 if you had asked me to work a 50-hour week I would have literally drowned in nappies, school emails and overwhelm. 

There is no one-size-fits-all all business template that will bestow you with work-life balance. Finding the right balance for you requires understanding your own personal and professional values, your financial needs and designing a business model that allows you to live with enough of both.

The bit most of us miss

So, rather than giving you practical stuff as you read this on your sun lounger (I really hope some of you are doing that) I want you to stick with the mind today. If you are planning a new independent practice I want you to jump into it really clear on what it needs to give you professionally and financially to allow you to feel healthy.

Here are some journal prompts to help:

• Think of 5 pivotal moments in your career. For each one consider - what motivated you at this point of your life and what did this experience leave you with? You might want to think about learnings, passions, experiences, skills and perspectives gained. 
• What is the common thread that runs through these important experiences? How have they shaped you as a professional? 
• What abilities do you have that created your best work during these moments? When did you feel that you were most, in-flow and using your natural talents? 
• Is there anything you should be doing more of in your career now to experience more of that feeling of being in flow and using your natural talents? 
• How much money would make you...