Business Success: Collecting qualifications. When is the right time to stop?
October 14th, 2011Where does the desire come from?
The process of starting training as a holistic practitioner starts with the deep desire to engage with and help people. You start to research where you’d like to train and what you’d like to do, this idea stems from the fact what you’ve been doing to date isn’t fulfilling enough. Earlier in life you perhaps drifted into your main line of work. It was what seemed sensible at the time or you had the social pressures of family expectations. Maybe your experience has been different; you have a main earner in your partner, so working as a practitioner is more a case of transforming what you like to do with your time, into a main income. Whatever your story, most practitioners stumble at this significant hurdle –
When are you qualified enough? When is the right time to seek clients?
What most DON’T realise is in order to be a successful practitioner qualifications are not enough. Qualifications are the beginning of something they are certainly not your destination. They start you with an element of experience and right practice, BUT they do not guarantee you, by any stretch of the imagination, a client base. You are qualified enough to start to practice in your area of expertise the moment you have completed your one main qualification. Beyond that, you’re putting it off, you’re procrastinating, in the hope that extra bit of knowledge is going to magic you people who want your service.
Who are typically the most successful in our industry?
The fact remains, the most successful people I have seen in the field are those who have no choice but to engage with what they do. They have little to fall back on, they’ve had to make it work. If life is too easy, it’s too easy for most practitioners to hide away under the excuse they’re not enough and need more knowledge before they can begin. It is these practitioners who rightly so, become easily incensed by inferior practice and performance. “How do they get away with it?” they protest.
Are you hiding?
It’s not so much of the lesser, so called gurus or therapists, ‘getting away with it’ that’s the problem. It’s the talented therapist’s lack of true motivation to start. Those who are less able, capable or sociopathic to the extent they don’t care if how they influence vulnerable people, are often getting ahead of those who are the really talented ones. Why? It’s easy for them. Those who are capable are busy hiding behind yet another qualification or ‘I’m not good enough’ belief to even surface from the woodwork. They don’t push themselves, sell themselves, or believe enough in themselves to help people achieve results.
Why are you doing the general public a disservice?
So if you’re busy hiding behind yet another qualification ask yourself why. Why are you not sharing with others the benefits and results of what you offer? – The reason is you’re scared to sell yourself.
Everything in life is sales.
It’s a hard pill to swallow but it is the truth. To make it in any industry you have to push yourself the extra mile, you have to overcome your fears, you have to provide your clients with something unique, you have to care about them enough to want to offer something special, to make that extra bit of effort.
Start today
Make that little bit of effort. Talk to people about the results of what you do. How you can help them make an adjustment. Stop hiding, leaving the gap wide open for charlatans, and less caring people to fill… Heidi Sawyer has a multiple six figure business doing what she loves. Heidi is the founder of Holistic Business Success Training amongst a variety of highly successful holistic business brands. She is a Hay House author, speaker, and her best-selling courses are sold into 55 countries worldwide.
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Hi Heidi
I wonder if you can please give me a little guidance, I have always been interested in pursuing holistic healing but not sure which direction to start. First I condsidered reflexology but then found I am very intrigued by Reiki, I am just very confused as to which direction to start.
Lee-Anne
Hi Lee-Anne
I always say start with what fascinates you the most. The majority of holistic practitioners have a variety of therapies they are trained in. This is because one usually leads to another and the fascination continues. There is though a point at which you do need to stop and ask: How many qualifications do I really need? Reiki is always good for you to deepen your interest in holistic therapies but it isn’t always the best option if you want to work within the holistic arena. The reason being is there are a lot of people trained in Reiki. You have to have a desire to make it a specialist type of Reiki and a deep passion for it to work for you as an occupation. As an interest, and part of what you do then absolutely fine.
Reflexology is always a great starting point if you are a practical person and need to build your confidence. It also works very well for practitioners who are ‘feeler’ types. Feeler types like to work with their hands and acquire the feel for something through doing rather than theory. For reflexology anatomy and physiology is also required which I never think is a bad thing. I do believe all those interested in healing should have a basic knowledge of the human body and how it works. It makes a tremendous difference in your ability to recognise how to read the energy of certain imbalances.
To give you an example, I always pick up cholestrol issues as a sticky feeling to the blood. It’s shown to me as glue in the blood. I also get a very distinct sugar feeling in the blood and a sense the person’s skin colour is wrong if they have undiagnosed diabetes. I get a strong heat feeling to heart issues. These are all things I have learnt over the years to recognise and when they show up for someone I always recommend they go for a check-up. On numerous occasions I’ve been right. One lady was diagnosed with diabetes after I said she was the wrong colour and her blood was sugary, another was told if she didn’t then start to manage her cholestrol she’d have a serious health issue in a short period of time (she went for a medical after I felt her blood was sticky) and a man came up to me at an event to shake my hand. Apparently I’d told his wife he was on the verge of a heart attack because he had too much heat in his body. He did have one, it was immediately recognised (the symptoms by his wife) and her quick actions saved him. So Lee-Anne go with what fascinates you the most and build it from there. Heidi x
Heidi,
I am standing at crosswords trying to unravel this puzzle of my life. I know what I want to do, but fate has stepped into my life over and over again. So many traumatic incidents have occurred that caused me to stop pursuing my vision. I believe I am a healer. No, I am a healer. I see spirits and I am clairvoyant and clairaudient. I have been seeing spirits since I was a child. This is the first time I have told anyone about this. I am taking care of my mom now because she had a stroke. It has been so many distractions. I really want to follow the path of my grandmother who was a healer. I love this journey. Can you give me some advice? Thanks
Ida
Hi Ida, in order to help others in terms of healing you have to go through your own. From what you’ve written it sounds as though you have old wounds to heal due to the traumatic incidents. Challenges in life are usual for the natural healer. If you didn’t know what trauma was how can you properly help others? Part of that healing will no doubt occur in the time spent taking care of your mother. At the moment it sounds as though taking on the responsibility of helping others in addition to your mother would be too much. When you are ready, the first part will be about letting go of the past. That’s the path of the healer. You’ll not be able to help others beyond your willingness to help yourself. Start with yourself in order for you natural abilities to shine through. Heidi x
Hi Heidi,
I have some question regarding myself. I had studies few fields (reiki, psyck-k, ayurveda, aromatherapy, feng shui, angels, etc), some of them with certificates others with training/readings but still not sure what to do and where I am heading. My current job is in the finance world and at the moment I am at a crossroads in my life plus I am pregnant and it´s the first time in my life I feel having big instrospection, helping others get into a second level.
Since I was a child I wanted to help others, in the beginning I thought I could study to be a doctor but I like arts, maybe I am a bit of a mess. I am very intuitive person with a lot of fears because I started to feel things a very early stages but my mother always push me away, saying it was my head or I was negative, etc. But at 19-20 years old I had stronger experiences (1st astral trip, I knew about that few years later), strong dreams about things happening or messages from death people. Years later I saw entities at my house I was so affraid that I closed that door, since them I feel them, talk about them, see objects moving or know about people I haven´t seing before. I am not sure if that is what you referred as having natural abilities? Should I go into deeper levels? I went to past lives but still a bit confused about the whole lot.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you so much and kind regards,
Angélika
Hi Angelika
It’s very usual if you already have strong intuitive abilities for them to increase during pregnancy. You will find this extra ability stays with you even after the birth. As a natural sensitive you will continually feel a compulsion to develop your psychic and most likely healing abilities too. This will follow you through life. There are numerous opening signs including much of what you have described.
To discover if you really want to develop your psychic abilities to a high level I suggest you read my book. The reason I say that is because it has all the opening signs and what you can expect as a sensitive to happen in your life.
Hope that helps Angelika,
Heidi x
Hi Heidi,
Thank you very much for your quick answer. It´s funny because I ordered your book yesterday, I had strong feelings for that and I followed it.
Thank you very much again.
Kind regards,
Angélika
Hi Heidi,
I have finished reading your book,why my mother didnt want me to be psychic. I enjoyed it very much, please can you help me, I have qualified as a reiki master, and I am currently in the middle of a hypnotherapy course. I have seenand heard spirit since I was small, and frequently go astral travelling. I am about to sell my house and move back to my mothers as my marriage broke up. I have come a long way since then emotionally and spiritually, but I cannot decide where to start with my self employment. I am watching your holistic business videos and am enjoying them immensley, and I will have to stop giving freebies, but it is so hard to ask for money, love Donna.
Hi Donna,
I’m really pleased you enjoyed my book and I hope it’s given you a lot of courage with your abilities. Whilst you are going through the very emotional time that you are at present, your confidence with your next move isn’t going to be on top of the world. Your best bet is to take things one step at a time. Decide to stop doing freebies (you can do those for people in desperate need when you have a sustained business) but charge a rate that you are initially comfortable with. Decide that now. How do you decide? You think about your clients. What would be a rate you would pay where you would feel it was a professional rate? That means what rate would you pay for the service you offered that didn’t seem too cheap or over-priced? If you’re too cheap people will assume you’re not very good or you’ll attract people who will happily take advantage of your low self-worth reflected in your prices. If you go above the price right now that you’re comfortable with then you’ll stall on getting clients and will over compensate going a long way over time at each session. Later, when you’re feeling yourself again after this phase in your life (your relationship changes) then move to the correct price for your service which will be a bit higher than you’re comfortable with. This I recommend because it stretches you to always do your best and never become complacent. Heidi x