On Friday, in my Weekly Report, I referenced all the “tricks” we play on ourselves and “spells” we might be under that are keeping us from seeing clearly, believing in what is actually possible, and otherwise achieving our goals.
We could take this conversation two different directions. The one where you think about your own thoughts on life, what you believe in, the ways you hold yourself back from enjoying true happiness, or when you let other people’s opinions affect you.
Every person has tendencies where they tend not to be their best self either to the hurtfulness to others or the harmfulness to yourself. Since you are here, reading this, it’s most often you are doing harm to your own mental state as you probably put yourself last and tend to so many others in your life.
We all live under spells carried over from past experiences, beliefs, and upbringings whether the loss of loved ones, relationships, failures, loss of confidence, peer pressure, or being unaware of the long-lasting impact a situation can have.
Here’s the thing: the more you can break free from any negative thoughts, the more you are liberated to live your life fully (and the fewer tricks you will play on yourself or let others play on you).
I’ll take this down a different path next week.
For now, though, I want to turn to the spells many practices and teams remain under that hold them back leading to more stress, working harder, and the need for more patients…
Most likely you and your team have broken these spells long ago and now operate in total control over your practice dynamics and patient flow. However, don’t take that for granted because most remain under the restriction and limitations brought on by illusions that trick them into thinking they are real obstacles.
Little things like patients scheduling when it’s best for your flow instead of when it’s convenient for them.
Or even big things like complete pre-pay and negative accounts receivable.
How about presenting small steps and quadrants which limit the size of appointments in your schedule, instead presenting full mouth complete treatment and moving patients forward faster on their pathway to health.
Then we have the big evil cloud that casts its shadow on everything… insurance often plagues an entire practice from verbiage to systems and everything in between.
And on top of this, we even have practices that stay stuck in problem-focused dentistry instead of moving to a vision of optimal health and creating the possibilities for patients’ future.
I could make this list longer, but what matters is not my list, but yours…
What mesmerizing spells are you under, both individually and as a team, that affect your practice and patients?
How do the sinister mind tricks of preconceived ideas or past beliefs hold you back from pushing the limits on your own performance?
If you were to truly operate from a position of power and control, as if you had a wizard’s wand, what would you do and say differently to your patients? How would you expand on the opportunities you have to help your patients get healthy and help your team win every single day?
So often we are focused on the problem instead of the solution. We are under the spell of thinking something can’t happen before we’ve even attempted to do it. Having negative expectations usually turns out to be correct, but we don’t have to remain under this pessimistic curse.
Have a conversation with your team and see what spells you can break, what tricks you can uncover, and how you can use your enchanted powers to remove all limitations on you way to magical success.