The Next Five Years Begin Now

It may seem very strange to be thinking or planning quite so far into the future when you have just started putting all your efforts into a new business. But if you truly want your business to succeed you should already be looking to the future with some tentative plans of your own that you want to work towards. So allow yourself to dream a little and indulge in some creative thinking. If you could wave a magic wand and make your wishes come true, what would they be for your practice in five years’ time?

Why It’s Important To Plan

A practical plan for the future growth and direction of your practice is essential. If you have formulated a business plan you have set up your own personal blueprint of what you want to achieve and the very fact of putting this on paper will clarify your thinking, help you set realistic objectives and allow you to monitor and adjust your progress as necessary.

Planning For Success

The key to success for your practice is to evaluate:

• where you are going
• why you want to go there
• what objectives you want to achieve
• when you want to achieve your objectives
• how you are going to achieve your objectives
• whose advice or support you might need in order to achieve your objectives.

Where Are You Going?

In order to answer this question you need to consider your long-term vision and ask yourself what the main aim of your business is – what is your ultimate goal? Once you are clear about this everything else you do will be directed towards achieving this. Your long-term vision will reflect your goals for the next three to five years and it can be strategic rather than financial. For example:

I want to be able to offer the best possible assistance to anyone seeking an alternative to drug-based pain relief.

Now you have your vision statement it should remain fairly fixed. This now gives you the opportunity to start working on the various elements necessary to achieving that vision.

Why Do You Want To Go There?

You may know that you want to be able to offer effective non-drug pain relief, but now you need to examine why. What are your motives for wanting to achieve this vision? These could include:

• a wish to specialise
• a particular interest in that topic
• some personal reasons.

 

If you have a particular interest in pain relief, and it is an area that the therapy work you are engaged in is known to have some positive influence on, you can take this further and explore the idea of specialising in this subject. Your personal motivation and commitment to achieving any vision statement needs to be high, but if you find that whenever you talk about your subject to other therapists, clients or friends you start to get a ‘buzzy’ feeling, and others comment on how you get ‘carried away’, the chances are that you are already highly motivated.

A personal reason for achieving a vision can also be a very strong drive. It may be that you yourself have a condition which requires regular pain relief and have found your techniques to be wholly beneficial for your own purposes and now wish to share these with others. Or it could be that you have a close family member or friend who has benefitted from your work to date but still needs some more help – hence your wish to research this further to be able to offer the best possible assistance.

What Objectives Do You Need To Achieve?

These are the short-term goals which you need to achieve in order to attain your vision statement. They will need to be reviewed regularly and updated, in order that you remain on course to achieving your long-term goals. Spend some time breaking your vision down into its component objectives. These could be short-term goals such as:

• to complete a review of the current literature on this subject
• to search the internet for any research on this topic, on-going or otherwise
• to investigate what expertise is available
• to ask for volunteers for testing new techniques
• to update my research methodology and statistical techniques
• to find a person who can ‘supervise’ me during this work.

 

This is not an exhaustive list. Once you have set your vision statement you need to allow yourself time to brainstorm all the necessary steps you will need to take to achieve your long-term goal.