Ask Annie: How can I build a program? My private practice is full!

Rebel Therapist

Here’s the question I answered from a listener I’ll call Susan:

I pretty much constantly have a full caseload. I know that staying full and seeing this many people is burning me out. How do I find time to build a program with a full caseload? I'm really struggling on how to shift slowly out of private practice and into something more sustainable for my own mental health, while also being financially stable. I love my clients but it's exhausting. I hate telling people no, but I'm maxed out and turning multiple people away every week. I've spent the last couple weeks setting schedule boundaries of when I am and am not seeing clients.

Here's some of what I talked about in my answer:

• Get clear on why you want to create a signature program. If you love your reason, it’s time to take action sooner rather than later.
• Evaluate your capacity to do this including money, time, energy, health, support and other areas. If you don’t have the capacity to start your program, look at some ways to build your capacity.
• Break this process into a short-term project and longer term work flows.
• Mitigate the financial risk with some of the choices you make about your signature program.
• Analyze what helps you get challenging things done.
• A list of different tactics that have worked for me and many of my clients and colleagues.

On seeing more clients than you want to:

“I noticed that a lot of people (and this was absolutely me) feel like: I should be able to do all of this AND all of that because I see someone else doing it…And the thing is, it doesn't matter what someone else's capacity is.”

Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/192