6 Ways to Measure Growth in Your Therapy Private Practice that Don’t Include Profit

The most common way for a business to measure its health or growth is by looking at its profit.

As a private practice owner, I can easily do that too. I monitor what I take in (net profit), my expenses, and what’s left (gross profit) monthly.

However, these numbers do not always reflect our growth in private practice.

For example, when I take more continuing education classes in one month, my expenses increase and my gross profit decreases.

This “decrease” does not reflect the “increase” I experienced in knowledge, confidence as a therapist, and professional relationships due to the continuing education.

Another example is when I raised my fees so that I could see less clients and honor my mental and emotional needs. I now see 45 hours of clients a month and make the same amount of money as when I saw 107 hrs of clients a month.

While my profit numbers did not change, I experienced a massive personal shift. I had more time, energy, excitement, and joy in my life. The shift freed up creative energy for me to write essays like this one and do other things I love.

The numbers could never possibly capture all of the good.

I recently spoke with some fellow therapists about this and we came up with a list of other ways to measure growth as a therapist in private practice:

Internal Improvements

• Increased confidence

• Decreased stress

• Feeling more like your true self

• Decreased imposter syndrome

• More time invested in personal therapy

• Feeling more emotionally and mentally stable

Shifts in Time/Schedule

• Having your ideal schedule (for example, not working on the weekends or evenings)

• No longer taking work home at night

• Able to attend to problems and crises that arise

• More vacation time

• More time for personal hobbies and interests

Relationship Improvements

• Emotional availability and presence for relationships

• Improvement in quality of relationships

• Able to spend more time with friends and family

Practice Development

• More time for networking

• Investment in continuing education

• Investment in marketing

• Upgrades to physical office space

• Paying for new software, apps, etc

• Investing in services that benefit the business

• Attending conferences

• Clients reporting more and more growth

• Increased referrals

• The gap between where you are and where you want to be shrinking

• More present for clients

Budgeting/Money

• Choosing where you allocate funding (versus having to put out fires)

• Increase in emergency fund

• Paying for health insurance

• Investing in retirement

• Setting money aside for sick days

• Saving for vacations

• Able to financially attend to problems and crises that arise

• Increase in client fees

• Improved money mindset

• Feeling more financially stable

Daily Life

• More energy for movement

• More consistent with routines (cleaning, laundry, etc.)

• More drive for creative projects

• Schedule that aligns with natural energy flow

• Having extra energy after work

• Waking up feeling excited for the day

In each of these categories, there are hundreds more examples that could be given. What’s most important though is that you select which factors of growth are most meaningful to you.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to experience more growth

in your private practice, I provide business consultation.