Every year, the calendar turns exactly the same way. The days, the weeks, the months, the holidays.
Twelve months from today, if you are so lucky, you will get to do it all again.
The question is not whether the calendar will turn.
The question is: will you be different when it does?
This is your special Weekly Report for that exact moment in time, so you are not reacting to the New Year after it is already here. By then it is not “new” anymore. We want to get out ahead of the turn and deliberately create the future.
Recently I just finished guiding my Wealth Group Mastermind family through this same process up in Woodstock Village, Vermont, a true winter wonderland. Every December we do what I call a “year-end, year-beginning” session. It is about the creation of the future and the planning out of their dreams.
You are going to walk through a streamlined version of that right here.
Step 1: Same Calendar, Different You
Start with one simple reality: The calendar is the same every year. You do not have to be.
I always begin with three questions. Let these sit in your mind while you look back over the last 12 months of your life and practice:
- What do you want more of?
- What do you want less of?
- What do you want none of?
Look back and ask yourself: What did I love about this past year? What went well? What do I like and want to keep doing? What did I not like? Where did I feel stress, anxiety, distraction, or delay?
Those last pieces are critical, because anything that creates ongoing stress has to be redesigned or removed.
Redefine Success (Future, Not Past)
First and foremost, you must redefine success for the coming year.
Success of the future might be completely different from success of the past. It probably is.
I do not like “resolutions.” Resolutions imply that we are fixing something broken behind us. I prefer visions. I want you to envision success of your future and let that become the plan we create. Not a fix. A design.
Step 2: Reverse-Engineer Your Dreams
Next, we get into one of my favorite concepts: Reverse-engineering your dreams.
I want you to live out your bucket list, not just talk about it.
If you were reverse-engineering a patient’s pathway to health, you would begin from a state of ideal and work backward to today. We are going to do the exact same thing with your life and practice.
Ask yourself:
- One year from today, what will be different in my life?
- What will be different in my practice?
- What experiences, trips, projects, and personal milestones belong on my bucket list for the next 12 months?
Then, 1: Build your bucket list for the year ahead. 2: Outline it. 3: Organize it. 4: Put dates to it. And 5: Commit to getting it done.
We are not just planning production. We are planning a life.
Step 3: Set Profit-First Practice Goals
Now we translate your dreams into practice numbers, but not the way most doctors do.
Most set arbitrary goals: “We are going to grow 10%.” Or “We are going to hit 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 million.”
Those are random. They have nothing to do with what the practice is actually worth to you.
Here is the correct order…
First: Decide Your Personal Profit Target
The true goal is not gross production. The true goal is profit, otherwise known as your income.
You want to know:
- How much will the practice pay you for doing the dentistry?
- How much will the practice pay you for owning the business?
Two streams of income. This is what I wrote about 20 years ago in The Dental Practice Shift, and it still applies perfectly today.
This is your earned and your invested income and wealth building from your practice.
Second: Translate Profit Into Collections
Once you know your profit target, you add your overhead. That gives you your collections target for the year.
It is that simple: Profit goal + Overhead = Collection goal
This is not, “Let us grow 10%.” This is, “What is this practice going to be profitably worth to you next year?”
I also use a concept called the Magic Number, which is a precise method to determine an accurate income goal for your life. We are not going into that here, but understand that your profit goal should be engineered, not guessed.
Step 4: Put Your Calendar To Work
Once your collection target is clear, we bring it down to earth using the calendar.
You must know your 2026 calendar in detail, every single day. I already have each of the 365 days of my year allocated. I know exactly which are clinical days, free days, personal days, and so on.
Do the same:
- Lay out all 365 days.
- Block out vacations, family events, major commitments.
- Decide how many clinical days you will actually work.
Then take your annual collection goal and divide by your clinical days. Now you know the necessary dollars per clinical day
Step 5: Create By Buckets
Now comes my favorite part: The creation side of your practice.
To hit these numbers, you cannot just “hope” the dentistry shows up. You create it through diagnostic opportunity.
Here is how to think about it.
1. Start With Diagnosis
Diagnosis is tied to case acceptance percentage. Typically, we want roughly 3x your collections goal in diagnosed treatment. In other words, your collections are your agnostic goal, and your diagnosis must be a multiple of that in order to realistically collect it.
So you ask: How much dentistry must be diagnosed in a year to support my collections goal?
2. Identify Your Buckets of Opportunity
To diagnose that much treatment, you need to know where it will come from. I look at your practice in buckets… New Patient Bucket; Hygiene / Recurring Care Bucket; Doctor-Side / Existing Patient Bucket.
Then there are the 3 R’s Bucket: Retention, Reactivation, and Referrals
If you are a specialist, you might also include: Friends and family referrals, or continuation of care from referring offices.
Each bucket represents sources of people. Then we add sources of procedures…
3. Design Your Procedural Pie Chart
Go into your software and pull last year’s revenue by category. Look at how much came from following… cleanings and exams, general or restorative dentistry, implants, TMJ / sleep, wisdom teeth and surgeries, aligners, and any specialty procedures
You will end up with a procedural pie chart of your current reality.
Now ask:
- A year from now, how do I want that pie chart to look?
- Where do I want more revenue? And Where do I want less?
- Does my desired future mix match the dentistry I actually love doing?
Then plan out your future by aligning your schedule, marketing, team training, and patient experience with that desired mix.
The more you engineer your practice like this, the more likely you are to succeed at a high level and success on your own terms.
Bringing It All Together
With what we’ve gone through just now, you have a master plan for the next 12 months of your life. Not more of the same, but something dramatically different. Something that actually serves you and the practice you want to lead.
Think of this coming year as your bridge into your future self. A year of prosperity, health, and everything you want, all reverse-engineered at every layer.
I cannot wait to see what you do with it. It’s happening very soon as the calendar is just about to turn, turn, turn.
