3 Ways to Know that You’re NOT Ready to Start Your Own Practice

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We are going to be talking about another item related to starting your own practice/business as a therapist. We recently discussed 3 Ways to Know That You’re READY to Start Your Own Practice. Today I wanted to talk about three reasons why you might NOT be ready to start your own practice. There are a lot of things out there, including and especially me, encouraging you to start your own practice or business saying that you can do all of these things and it will lead to all of these different opportunities. I do firmly believe that and I really think that every single therapist should start their own practice, whether you see one person a year or 100 people a week. I think that it gives you a lot of different opportunities, but just because you can start it, and the opportunity is there for you, and I want you to do it, doesn't mean you should.

Right off the top I want to point out that it is totally okay if you don't want to have your own business. There are so many things out there right now saying you should start a business doing this, it's so easy to make money doing that, work for yourself, be your own boss, blah blah blah. I can totally see how that might feel like a lot of pressure to start your own business because every single other person is doing it, but I'm here to tell you the exact opposite. It is totally okay to do what you're doing right now.

Whether you're working a regular nine to five, working PRN at a hospital, doing home health, working in a private practice, whatever you're doing right now is completely and totally fine. You're not doing anything wrong and I say that because I know that I've definitely felt a lot of pressure with my business to do things a certain way. You need to remember that this is your life, your career, and what is best for you. With that being said, let's discuss three reasons why I think it might not be a good idea to start a practice, especially as a new grad.

You like the structure of a "9 to 5"

The first reason why I think you might not be ready to start a practice as a new grad is if you really do like the structure of a "nine to five". Maybe it's literally nine to five, maybe it's eight to six, seven to seven, or it is just PRN shifts. Maybe it's home health patients, but you like the structure of having a job and knowing that you are going to have a regular paycheck. For the most part, as far as we know, there are other benefits. You might have continuing education benefits or mentorship opportunities, it might just be the opportunity that makes you feel the safest right now. That's totally okay. If you want to stay there and that's making you happy and helping you do what you want to do with your everyday, it's totally okay to stay there.

That I think would be a reason why you might not be ready to start your own practice. Because if you're really happy with where you're working right now, you don't really need to create an opportunity for yourself elsewhere. Unless you want to of course, huge fan of that! If you are comfortable and secure though in the nine to five structure that's okay. Now is just not the right time to start your own thing.

You have other life goals

The second reason why I feel you might not be ready to start your own practice as a new grad is if you have other life goals. For example, I think, and I'm just speaking from what I've seen online, if you are somebody who's really into the FIRE ("Financial Independence Retire Early") situation, that might be a good reason to stay where you are working right now. I say that as a pretty blanket statement because you could also pursue that while having your own business. It's just most of the people that I've seen online who are very passionate about FIRE work really hard at a job and they max out all the benefits that they have there.

You might have other life goals. Maybe you are in this job and you are totally okay compartmentalizing everything that happens there at that job and you're not looking for anything extra from that. You may be looking at it as a way to finance travel or something similar where that's your main thing of your life and your job is your job. Maybe you are somebody who is wanting to start a family as soon as you can and so it makes the most sense to stay in a position with benefits and a regular salary. There are lots of different reasons why staying in your regular job, with regular benefits, regular pay is maybe the best decision because you have other life goals and other things that you want to focus on completely outside of making money, outside of therapy, outside of the workforce in general. You don't mind going to that job so that you can focus on other things. That would be another reason why starting your own practice obviously might not really make a lot of sense.

You're not planning on staying in this industry very long

Third reason why I definitely think it would not be in your best interest to start your own practice would be if you're not planning on staying in this industry for very long. There are people that I've talked to who yes, they did go through school, they did get a degree, but they ended up doing a complete cruise shift. Now they're in a different industry, a different area, and they close the chapter, or at least put a bookmark in it for right now, so that they can go and do something else for work. Of course it wouldn't make sense to to start your own practice as a new grad if you're not going to be in this industry for very long and that's all okay.

The main point of this blog that I want to make is that while I am a firm believer in having your own business, especially having a tiny private practice as a therapist and starting one as soon as you leave school, it's also completely okay to not do that. I really want to emphasize that because there's a lot of messaging out there that you really need to, but you really don't have to.

Still not sure if you should be starting your own practice. Check out How Do I Know If Starting My Own Practice Is Right For Me? and Pros and Cons of Starting Your Own Cash-Based Physical Therapy Practice to help guide you!

Listen to this episode on my podcast!