www.thebodyworker.com

I am really excited about the arrival of the new year. I have been doing a lot of planning and writing and am cutting back on my massage practice even further (down to 2 days a week) to be able to focus on peer supervision groups, teleclasses and writing.

Some of the things that I have been doing that have allowed me to do that which I find to be important for any business adventure are:

1. Taking the time to plan. Planning is really what will take your business the farthest the fastest. It requires thorough introspection and goal setting and then taking the time to break those things down into concrete action steps. Set up your office or house to create a planning or brainstorming room and set up a specific time where you know you won’t be bothered so you can focus on what needs to be done. I started doing this myself about a year ago and spend my mornings writing and planning while sitting at my kitchen table with a pot of green tea. It took me a year or so to actually get the hang of it and be able to really see what it is that I want to be focusing on and how am I going to do that. Until then I felt like I was just spinning my wheels and just doing whatever came up which is easy to get caught up in because of the internet and the nature of websites.
2. Being self employed it is also easy to play in your free time rather than really working to develop and market your business. I am always amazed at the number of errands I seem to have to run. Setting a regular writing and work schedule even though I don’t have actual massage clients was necessary to keep me motivated and working. If you are trying to start a business or build your business you should set aside time each day where all you do is work on doing that. It is time not doing massage or billing or bookkeeping. Spend the time actually doing things – contacting people, writing letters, developing your website and other marketing materials. Spend your time thinking and doing those things that will take your business the farthest the fastest which brings me to the next point
3. Doing what is hard. So often we just stick with doing the things that is easy. Writing and making websites for me is easy and very enjoyable but it isn’t really getting me as far as I would like. Doing what is hard is setting up teleclasses and other groups. For a massage therapist building a business doing what is hard may be things like marketing which is really just telling people what you do and when and how you do it. Each week if you do something that is hard which really just means that it is out of your comfort zone, pretty soon you will be ready for something that really takes you far – that big opportunity will come to you when you are ready.
4. Take the time to educate yourself. I read each morning about business concepts and internet marketing ideas. I am constantly reading about how to improve my writing, my websites and myself. You can visit the amazon.com bookstore to get an idea of some of the things I am reading or have read. The other place I visit is the Sitebuildit! reference center that is full of free ebooks on writing for the web and basically everything you need to know to build a successful business using a website whether it is for your massage business or some other business you are wanting to start.
5. Find a support group or start a support group. I participate regularly in peer supervision meeting once every three weeks with a few friends of mine to talk about our practices and issues we are faced with. I also participate in regular teleclasses with my coach and I have a coaching partner that I talk with weekly. The more support and feedback I get the more I can see how it is building my self confidence to do those hard things and it is helping me to become more aware that I have some dreams and I can make them happen. Participating with others has really taken me farther than any of the other things because I am able to learn and grow from my interactions. I am going to be offering peer supervision group facilitation and an inner circle coaching group starting in Jan 07. I don’t have all of the details worked out but you can find out more on the website www.massagepracticebuilder.com

Hope your 2007 is the best yet!

While this is really off topic, I feel compelled to include this in
the spirit of the holidays that are soon upon us…
Last week Thursday night we had a terrible wind storm
in the Seattle area knocking out power to about 1 million homes.
I spent 5 days without power which for me also means no water.
While that was personally a challenge, I was so incredibly grateful
for the power being on last night when I came home last night.
What is so interesting is the way a natural disaster can affect your
life.  Basically as we learned from Katrina, no one is coming to rescue
you for awhile but even after that I had not taken as many steps as
I could have to be more prepared.  While the workers are making
a tremendous effort, the bottom line is that we just expect to be
rescued by them.  It particularly stuck me when I ventured to
Downtown Seattle yesterday that had barely been touched by
the storm.  Everything was as normal.  It hit me when I saw
a woman in a fur coat draped in shopping bags and having
a stressful conversation on her cell phone about some holiday
thing.  I wondered if she knew there were people still without
power – heat and light- in their homes and may not have
it back until after Christmas.
While there was a great relief effort and some community
support, I was amazed at how people could just go on
with their lives as if nothing happened.
I kept wondering what it would be like if even half of the people
in Seattle had come out with their work clothes on how long would
it take to clean up all of the trees and get the power back on.

I was also started wondering about if this is what people who survived Katrina felt like or what homeless people felt like – forgotten.

How can the world sit by when a family is alone in the dark and the cold?

I also heard the update on how many billions Iraq is costing us which made me further question just what we are doing on the planet.

Well I guess this could be the never ending saga but what comes to mind is the title of a book called “Bowling Alone:The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert D. Putnam .

Are you bowling alone? Are we all bowling alone?