Setting the Stage for A Great Life and Thriving Practice
What does it take to live a great life and create a thriving practice? If you are a coach or counselor, your clients come to you because they want to improve some part of their life. In today’s post, I’m going to talk about setting the stage for a great life and thriving practice. By a great life, I am referring to great vertically (you and God) as well as horizontally (you and the world around you).
A great life includes quiet time for you and God to communicate, daily peace, fulfillment and joy in giving of yourself, loving relationships, meaningful work and stability. As a follower of Christ I believe a great life begins with getting our priorities straight.
What God says is first, is first.
Prioritize God’s way
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these
things will be given to you as well.
~ Matthew 6:33 NIV
Growing in faith is a daily mission. Techies might liken this to an app that continually runs in the background of a computer device, constantly making every other experience better. Ever-increasing faith simply makes everything better.
Please God with your faith
The word says we can’t please God without faith but that doesn’t mean that God stops loving us. Nothing can ever stand between you and God’s love for you. Increase your faith with increasing knowledge of God’s word. It will support you and those you help in all areas. As we see more and more evidence in our lives of God’s hand in things, greater confidence is stirred inside us that God will deliver what He promises.
Faith means agreement with God that He always has a good plan for us.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope
and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11
The more we know about God’s promises, the more we realize that although our salvation is assured, we can only receive God’s best, if we align with His principles for our success. God wants us to multiply everything he gives us. See Parable of Talents.
Show God you are faithful with little and He will make you ruler over much.
Balance of Creating a Great Life and Thriving Practice
There is God’s part and your part. They work together to bring about your ultimate success in achieving a great life and thriving practice.
Your part is actually a combination of faith and works.
“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also
faith apart from works is dead.” ~ James 2:26
You are responsible for your vertical relationship first. Additionally, we need to implement actions horizontally that allow more people to know what we do. This will naturally lead to more opportunities for us through God’s favor.
Whether you want to reach more coaching or counseling clients or any other task you are trying to become successful at, the following tips can help.
Start by getting the word out about who you are and what you are trying to accomplish.
This can be as simple as talking with the people you come in contact with. If you go to a coffee shop or some other public place, talk to people. Become interested in them and find out what they are about. Get their stories and see if there is anything you can do to help them out in some way.
Become a people connector. Even if you can’t help someone personally, perhaps you can refer them to someone who can.
Always increase your exposure by using the internet.
Everyone should set up a website with a blog. They are affordable and are quite easy to implement with tools such as WordPress, etc. The key when implementing your website is to create high-quality content on your area of expertise and do it on a regular basis. Put the URL on your business card and share it with others. Write about topics that relate to how you can help or serve others. Consider affordable web site hosting, domain name, website creation and marketing tools from a Christian-owned company at Heavenly Hosting. (Heavenly Hosting, part of our Beautiful Life Int'l family, has been providing web hosting and related services for over a decade with unparalleled support!)
Use social media to get the word out.
In fact, whenever you post something on your blog, tell your social media channels about your post and link to it. Stay away from salesy messages like “hire me” or “buy this” and instead, post useful tips or resources. You can use any or all social media channels to get people to visit your blog. But trying to sell your service or product directly from social media is not very effective. It’s called social for a reason.
Create a newsletter that is related to your topic or specialty.
Communicating regularly with your contacts is a great way to increase your know-like-trust factor. It’s much easier to approach your contacts with regular, friendly articles that educate them on the value you offer than it is to ask directly for a sale. People want to buy from those they like and trust. Even if contacts on your list don’t do business with you yet personally, they’ll gladly refer you to others.
Word-of-mouth
The strongest method of success is when others share their experience with you by word of mouth. When you reach more and more prospective clients, they will tell others about you. This will greatly improve your ability to reach and serve more clients.
How are you creating your great life and thriving practice?
The readers and I would love to hear what's working for you. Please comment below.
© 2017 by Leelo Bush, Ph.D., All rights reserved.
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