Some people dream of success, while others work hard at it. Action and change are often resisted when they are needed the most.
If J.K. Rowling had quit after being turned down by multiple publishers, there would be no Harry Potter. If Howard Schultz had quit after being turned down more than 200 times by banks, there would be no Starbucks. If Walt Disney had quit after some 300 of his investors trashed his theme park concept, there would be no Disneyland.
These stories have something in common: If you quit believing in your dreams, you will never see them become a reality.
Accept total responsibility
The next five years can be the best five years of your life, or the worst. The decision is yours. The best part of your life will start on the day you decide your life is your own – and the success of your new practice is your responsibility. You will need courage and strength.
Find your vision
Without vision, without passion, without determination, and without perseverance, you won’t get your new practice off the ground. If you ever get stuck in a rut, climb out. Your perseverance needs to be greater than your fear of failure. History is filled with tales of successful people who lost it all – and then earned it back. Their experience of failing was surpassed by their spirit of never giving up.
Don’t blame the economy
If you’re facing difficulty, it’s not the economy; new practices are opening all the time. It can’t be your marketplace, because there’s probably a competitive colleague near you who is doing exceptionally well.
It can be hard to stay focused on establishing your new practice quickly and profitably. But focus you must! And don’t attempt to do it on your own – get professional help. There is absolutely no reason why you should fail in starting a practice; success will come if you don’t give up and if you seek help when you need it.
Keep your overhead down
Consider the case of a chiropractor who complained that he had no money for marketing or advertising, and his practice was suffering accordingly. He wondered how he could increase his patient volume.
Questioned about his expenses, it turns out he was paying $1,200 per month to lease a Mercedes and had a monthly mortgage payment of $3,000, for a $350,000 house.
He had buried himself in unnecessary personal debt with no money left to grow his practice. His priorities were wrong. The answer to his non-growth was to dump the car and get a nice pre-owned vehicle, move to a smaller house with a lower mortgage payment, and use the money left over to advertise and market his practice.
The bottom line: Buy the luxuries of life after you have built your practice, not before.
Follow in a winner’s footsteps
Don’t wake up to find yourself at age 65, sighing over what you should have done. Just do it, and be willing to fail and learn along the way. At least you will know you gave it your best shot.
Whether you choose to go with it, flow with it, resist it, change it, or hide from it, it’s your decision. If what you did today didn’t turn out as you hoped, tomorrow is a new opportunity to try it again differently, do something else, or to do nothing at all. What’s important is to realize you have a choice.
