October, if you weren’t aware, is National face your fears month. Fear: f** everything and run, or, face everything and rise. Your choice. Our thoughts are powerful. Choose the ones you want to hold onto wisely. Delete self doubt. You don’t need it. Practice what you teach your clients. Take control of your happiness.

As a therapist, you came into this field to help people. But now you’re feeling burnt out and thinking about getting into private practice. But that feels very scary. Anxiety and imposter syndrome are sitting in the front seat trying to take the steering wheel. What do you do?

Going out of your comfort zone is, well, uncomfortable. Doing what it takes to build a business despite anxiety and imposter syndrome is challenging. Growth frequently comes with challenges. Imposter syndrome, feeling like you don't deserve the success, feeling like you got here by luck or circumstance and not your own work can hold you back, but are within you and within your control to change. Lean into these challenges.

What do you want your life to be like a year from now? 5 years? 10 years? What will your reward will be in these timeframes when you open your private practice? Find the silver lining, remember the problem you solve and why you're doing this. Then take a deep breath and go for it. Certain parts of it may come across awkward at first. That's fine. You’re learning. We don’t get good at something until we practice it over and over..

If you’re hoping that by sticking with habits, like marketing or self-care long enough, your new habits will become “fun”, it is time to adjust your expectations. Habits are not stored in the emotion part of the brain. They are not going to be “fun”. The experiences with the habits can be fun or boring or really difficult, but the habits themselves are just habits and won’t be fun. Therefore, it helps to make the experience fun each and every time.

Marketing your private practice or small business is about getting in front of your target audience frequently. It is not about perfection. You will get better with practice. There is such thing as too much practice. Hone it in and get your clients through consistency, not perfection.

Marketing your private practice or business can lead to a ton of fears such as not feeling good enough, feeling like a fraud, and being afraid of rejection. Imposter syndrome popped up for me several times throughout my journey and it very well could again. I understand where you are and at least in part how you feel. Right now marketing your private practice or business is not habitual for you. In order for something to feel easy, it has to be an action done without thinking about it (ie a habit). Make marketing your private practice or business a habit and the imposter syndrome will go away.

Marketing your private practice can be very scary as an introverted therapist. It took me a long time to enjoy marketing myself, but when you find the ways that work best for you, it becomes that much easier. And when you practice, it becomes that much easier. Until one day it is just part of your routine to market your private practice.

Overcoming anxiety is not easy. We have high expectations that the tools we are using will make us feel better quickly and we get frustrated when that doesn’t happen. Overcoming anxiety will take longer than you want. Let go of the expectations and let go of the outcome.

To be successful at building your private practice, you must go out of your comfort zone. You have to wake up every morning with determination that it will succeed. You need to look at just the step in front of you and not the entire staircase. Push aside the anxiety and fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection. Put in the hard work and go to bed with satisfaction.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” - Winston Churchill. This is such a great quote. Overcoming our fears means we have to keep going at it until it works. It can be done!

Don’t let fear of rejection stop you from marketing your therapy private practice. Check out these tips and let people know you exist!

There are many reasons therapists struggle with marketing their private practice. But there are just as many reasons why therapists make some of the best salesmen out there. Check it out!