How To Build A Career Of Helping Others So You Never Have To Look For A Job Again
Fun fact: we have a free resource that can help you.
southworks via Canva For most, work is an unavoidable part of our lives. By virtue of spending 40 hours a week working, the way we feel about our professions has a direct impact on how we feel about our personal lives.
The 9-to-5 lifestyle often feels like pushing your way through a dark, dense forest: A difficult journey with no true end in sight. Corporate America isn’t always the best environment to cultivate a healthy work-life balance, and if it's not serving you, it's important to know that you don't need to stay tied to it.
Sometimes, the best way to live is to be your own boss. And if you're dream is to be in the business of helping others, you're in luck because the healing and helping professions are a growing industry with a wide array of opportunities.
Starting your own business can be an intimidating process, but YourTango’s free virtual summit can help you establish roots and grow a flourishing practice. Take the first steps to establish your own heart-centered practice, with our Expert Healers and Helpers Summit.
RELATED: 6 Things We Get Completely Wrong About Loneliness
It's Time To Start Your Own Practice.
The idea of starting your business might make you feel like you’re back in that deep, dark forest. Where do you start on your journey? By taking one, small step forward.
The potential for growth when creating your own healing practice is huge, and entirely worth the work. Taking risks, such as leaning into your calling to help and heal others, is often uncomfortable at the start, if only because it feels so new.
But starting a practice is also empowering.
Imagine you’re a kid again, standing on a diving board, looking down at the water in the pool below. That mix of anxiety and exhilaration comes from trying something totally new and challenging yourself to be bold and brave, and take the next step.
By moving outside of your comfort zone, you’re showing up for yourself pushing yourself to grow as an individual and a healer.
No matter how you show up for others, being a part of the helping industry serves a larger purpose: Your work helps make the world a better place. Helping just one person changes their life, setting them on a path towards healing themselves.
3 Helpful Tips To Help You Be Your Own Boss & Grow Your Practice
1. Own Your Schedule
Guy Winch, a therapist and YourTango Expert, who will be presenting at the Healers and Helpers Summit, offered professional touch points as guidance for people who are just starting their practices.
He explained that helping industries are still businesses. Even though your aim is to put people first, you still need to consider your own needs and run your practice in a way that serves you.
Winch describes his approach to his practice as “cautious,” in the sense that he makes sure to care for himself within the confines of his job.
For him, this means only scheduling a certain number of clients per day and per week.
“I do not see more than 5 clients a day,” he explained. “My sessions are 55 minutes, almost an hour. I don’t see more than 5 a day, because I can do 5 a day and not ruminate at the end of the day.”
“If I do more than 5, it’s difficult to shed at the end of the day,” he shared.
“I really keep within those parameters,” he said. “The thing now, is there are more opportunities than time— It’s a great position to be in, [but] I have to make very careful choices.”
His advice on making careful choices around how we divide our time is beneficial to people at any stage in their healing career.
Overscheduling is a direct route to burn-out, which can be harder to recover from than prevent in the first place.
Winch revealed that he marks on his calendar when he’s “supposed to be resting and recharging. I don’t leave it blank. It’s a useful way to remind yourself what that is for.”
“There are three things you have to do when you recharge: You have to rest to recover, recharge, and connect,” he explained. “Recharging is something that fills the battery, resting just doesn’t deplete.”
He also emphasized the importance of refueling our emotional worlds and spending time with the people we love.
2. Charge Your Worth
In his clinical practice, Winch provides different pricing options for clients. In offering both single sessions and ongoing therapy, he charges different prices for each.
Setting your own pricing can be an intimidating process, yet charging what you’re worth shows that you value your expertise and yourself as a whole.
3. Balance Work With Creative Outlets
Winch counterbalances his professional practice with his creative practice, stand-up comedy.
Being a stand-up comic functions as a “palate cleanser” for Winch, an outlet that he says is “extremely rewarding, because it [gives] me free reign to be whatever I want.”
Cultivating creative energy is a valuable way to recharge. It offers a resonant reconnection with yourself and the community around you.
When working for yourself, it’s easy to slip into a pattern of overwork, which depletes your ability to serve others well. We have to fill up our own cups before we can pour from them.
Winch describes working in a healing profession as an act of great value, something that can "pivot" the direction a client moves in. Healing professions have great impact, both for the people you work with and for yourself, as its a space where you're always learning and growing into your most authentic self.
For more information on how to join this transformative journey, visit the Healers and Helpers Summit website, explore what is on offer, and register for the event.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture and all things to do with the entertainment industry.