Dear Holistic Practitioners,

I write this letter to you because I care about where your work is going….

I want you to know that running a holistic practice business is tough. It comes with the territory of being a small business owner.

There are so many things to take care of including creating services/products and improving them every so often; watching the bottom line; taking care of staff; recruiting the right people; making a profit; knowing how much to charge for your services and/or products; pay the rent; creating advertising and marketing strategies; time management and so many more.

I seem to be building a case for you not to go into business. But in the small business world, this is reality. Not only do you need to have the courage to face up to these, but know that the challenges do not stop. You can be sure that you will never have a dull moment if you truly want to experience success in your business.

Most of the time, holistic practitioners expect things to just flow and get easy. Well, you will have one challenge after another and they are not going to go away. But they will make you tough.

The truth is far too many of you do not have what it takes. (Yes this is the tough love I was talking about)

But what appeals to so many of you is the sense of freedom. Many of you do not want to be tied down but are free spirits and you see being employed by someone as clipping your wings. So you decide that being on your own is the way to go.

So let’s get real here, you need to do something about your work and business. I know some of you are struggling to pay your bills. Some of you give too much of your time and resources for free. And there are some of you who are so disorganized with your time and energy it is no wonder that you are struggling to get clients.

And yet you lie to other people and to yourself daily that things are ok and you are fine. But your internal stress levels are sky high, because you feel that admitting to your stress goes against every fibre of your spiritual beliefs.

Sometimes you feel so alone, looking at other people and thinking how did they become so successful in their practice. But if you really know what is going on with your peers, you may be surprised to know that they are going through exactly what you are going through, with a few exceptions.

So how do these few exceptions do it? How do they actually make their business ok?

Firstly, they have a dream and they believe in it enough to do whatever it takes to make things not just ok, but great. This means no excuses, no buts. They know that just believing in their work is not enough, they have to do what it takes to make the belief real.

Secondly, they get help and are open to receive guidance from the experts. They are not embarrassed to get help because while they are pretty spiritual, they also make sure it is important to be down to earth.

They also do what it takes to obtain the funds to seek the help they need, because as much as it may be difficult to get the funds, they value their own holistic business even more not to let it sink.

And they live by this philosophy: “Let Spirit Guide Me In The Direction Of My Business, And Let My Common Sense Guide Me In How I Run My Business”

They are able to admit to themselves that they may not necessarily have what it takes to run their businesses especially when they are floaty and have great ideas and they have real difficulty in grounding these ideas.

Thirdly, they admit that as much as they want to be of service to humanity, they need to feed themselves and pay the bills, and also have a little extra to enjoy the comforts of life. They are ready not to shun money and they are also ready to stop judging people who have money.

And most of all, they realize that by calling people who have money materialistic only makes them feel more like a poor church mouse rather than feeling more spiritual than these ‘materialistic’ ones. They know that there is something not working with their philosophy about money. Because if their philosophy was right, then they would not have to struggle with money.

So there you have it, the main three areas that the few exceptional holistic practitioners are able to overcome. They go deep and they face their challenges and they stop coddling themselves with spiritual justifications.

When they make it bigger, they serve so much more. Don’t just think about it, act upon it.