The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer
Hello, folks, this is episode number 260 of the practice of therapy Podcast. I'm Gordon Brewer, and Happy New Year. This is the first episode of 2023. And I'm so glad you're with me on this journey and listening to the podcast. And if this is your first time listening in, hope you will take time to follow us wherever you might be listening to the, to your podcasts, whether it be on Spotify, or Apple podcasts, or any of the other numerous pod catchers out there. I hope you'll take time to subscribe or follow whichever, whichever way they stated there. But welcome, glad you're here. And I hope that you're as excited about the new year as I am, I'm really looking forward to jumping into this new year. And you know, I don't know what it is about starting a new year, maybe it's just that we, I think leading up to the holidays, we probably put a whole lot of stress on ourselves around, getting ready for the holidays and getting into that whole holiday mode. I know for me, this year has been a little bit more stressful than usual, in that I had a lot going on here. Leading up to the holidays, one of the big things was my family came to visit me up here in Kingsport, they all came over from North Carolina and they came to our house this year. And that was so much fun. But there was a lot of prep work and getting ready to to have a house full of, of, of, I guess nine extra bodies that we weren't used to having in the house. And so that was it was a lot of fun. And I really enjoy getting to see all of them, particularly my mom who's 87. And I don't get to see her that often. But getting ready getting getting being able to spend a little bit of time with her was was a good thing for me. And getting through the holidays. But now that we're in the new year, I think as most of us start the new year, our thoughts begin turning to okay resolutions, what do we want to accomplish in the new year? What's it going to look like? What are we going to do differently? What what are we going to do the same in the things that we look forward to? You know, it's almost like when, when the calendar rolls over to January 1, there's kind of like this magical reset button that we that we experience, except for when it comes to doing taxes. Of course that well, that's got to be done as well, in this first month as far as, particularly if you have employees getting all the WTS ready, and the 1090 nines and all of that sort of thing is part of owning a business and part of owning a practice, particularly if you've got a group practice. But anyway, I'm looking forward to the new year and got lots of great stuff kind of on my agenda so far with the practice of therapy. And one that I want to mention to you in this particular episode is the Google workspace for therapists course that I've got out there, it's been out for several years. I've gone through a few updates over the years. And it's a whole lot of work that I put into that when you figure out okay, what is Google change? How do you need to do things differently in the context of private practice? You know, how are the best ways to use the tools within private practice. And that's what the course is about the Google workspace for therapists course that I've got available. But as with everything as things change, particularly with Google that's constantly changing, it's time for an update. One of the things that I did back, I guess it was pre COVID, probably around 2019. I started a Facebook group just called Google workspace for therapists Facebook group. And it was really intended for people to share ideas around how they're using Google workspace helping others troubleshoot using Google Google workspace, particularly in the context of private practice. But anyway, one of the things that I want to do and that's this Facebook group kind of has inspired me to do this. There are a little over 9000 members in the Facebook group, which is just just blows my mind, but I think during COVID It just kind of took off. As people were thinking about, you know, doing telehealth and figuring out ways to use different tools. Google, Google meat is one that you can if you've got Google workspace, you can set all of that up as HIPAA compliance, HIPAA secure a I'm with all of that. But one of the things about Google workspace is that you can set it up to be HIPAA compliant or HIPAA secure. Not to go too deep into the weeds around that. But my point in all of this is, is that it's time for me to update the course. And what I would like to do is invite you to to be a contributor to the course, if you're using Google workspace. And you've got some hacks and tips around using Google workspace, I'm gonna take a little more collaborative approach and putting the course together. So if you're interested in maybe contributing to the course, I've set up a Google form, no surprises on that, I suppose, a Google form, where you can submit your ideas to me to possibly be a contributor to the course. And so if you go to practice of therapy.com/gw, SW updates, that's the URL practice of therapy.com/gw SW updates, that will take you to a Google form. And you can fill out the form and maybe submit your ideas to me, and then I will be in touch with you about how we'll record the the the updates and all of that sort of thing. And then there will also be a, an opportunity for you to become an affiliate of the course and make a commission on the sales of that, of that particular course by being a contributor. So anyway, check that out, go to practice of therapy.com/gw SW updates, to apply to be a contributor to the updates of the course. So as we get into this next episode, there are at this next episode, but this episode, I want to talk with you a little bit about goal setting and just thinking about ways to maybe approach your New Year in a little different way, particularly around the things that you want to accomplish. But before we get to that love for you to hear from our sponsor of the podcast, therapy notes.

Well, as we move into 2023, you know, I think naturally most of us, as I said a little bit earlier tend to think about resolutions and goal setting and how we want to do things differently in the new year. Things we want to accomplish for ourselves and the different domains of our life, whether it be at home, be at work, or be with our health or with our faith communities or whatever, whatever you're involved in, we probably all have different goals around those different things or things that we'd like to accomplish our I would say, maybe even go out and say that things that we dream of that are differently, that are different, in some some way. Kind of like a you know, the old saying, I want to be X when I grow up or this or that when I grow up, I tend to think about those as being part of our lifetime goals of things. But anyway, I wanted to spend a little bit of time just kind of sharing with you things that I've learned around goal setting and how to be a little more efficient in our productivity and all of that sort of thing in the new year. So first of all, I think where any of us needs to start when we're thinking about goal setting or resolutions, or however you want to put that is to start with your why. And what I mean by that is is what is your internal or underlying motivation for changes you want to make are things that you want to accomplish. You know, one of the things that I had, had worked on for myself. And this has really been like a two year process for me. But a few years ago, I really kind of had a bit of a health scare, my wife had gone into the hospital and our head really just developed some really bad heating, eating habits and wasn't exercising enough and I had put on just a lot of weight. And I was looking at some older videos of myself that I did and I was just kind of like whoo, I didn't realize I was that heavy but I was and over a two year period I lost about 40 pounds I've lost about 40 pounds which not saying that in a bragging way but it's I really feel much better physically and just have much more energy and better able to do just a lot of things and I have had to buy a lot of new clothes, which is maybe a perk of that. I don't know but anyway, you Over the last ever less two years, I had set that kind of that goal for myself. But the goal wasn't necessarily. And this is what I mean by thinking about your why my goal wasn't really losing weight, my goal was to get healthier. So I think when when you think about your goals, is to really think about what is it that you really want to accomplish, or what is your why behind what you want to do. So it might be within your practice, you want to increase your caseload or it might be that you want to add clinicians to your practice, or it might be around just becoming better organized in your practice of being able to being able to get your systems and processes working better within your practice. But whatever it is that you want to accomplish, one of the things that I would encourage you to do is to spend some time doing what I like to call a brain dump, of just really writing down all the things that are on your mind that you want to accomplish, or that you need to attend to over the next year. And my a lot of them might be kind of short term kind of goals. In other words, things you want to get to in the in the coming week or the coming month. But being able to think about it in that way. Really thinking about what is the what is the outcome that you're looking for. There's a, an acronym, and I've talked about this in previous episodes, and I really get this, this, this idea, this concept from Michael Hyatt and company and Michael Hyatt has written a book called free to focus and we'll have links here in the show, show notes in the show summary, and I'm gonna tell you a little bit about the full focus planner that I use as a way to is a tool just to help me stay organized day in and day out. But he talks about setting SMART goals, sma RT, which is just an acronym for, for these five things, your goals need to be specific, they need to be measurable, they also need to be attainable. And then relevant and time specific. And so that's where you get the acronym SMA RT, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time specific. And so as you write out your goals, think about them in in the context of this acronym. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time on about smart goals, you can Google it, you can look it up, there's a lot of information on there. But I've also put together a worksheet that you can use it's a, it's a free download you can get for me by just simply going to practice of therapy.com/smart goals. And you'll be able to get that download that free PDF for me by just going going there and what we'll email it to you through that magic of automation. But anyway, that that worksheet will go into that. The other thing that I would say, around setting goals, as I mentioned, is looking at your why looking at your motivation around setting goals, but work backwards from that. In other words, if you're going to go from point A to point B, what are the different steps you need to take along the way in order to get you there. So going back to kind of my, my journey of getting healthier. One of the things that I knew I needed to do, which we all know this, it's not any big secret, I had to eat differently, and I had to move more, you know, you have to consume different kinds of food or less food, but also you've got to exercise more. So I thought about that in in the context of kind of what are my daily habits? And how do I plan around either mealtimes and times I spend exercising and all of that sort of thing. And so I work backwards from that of really creating a new routine for myself. What part of part of my journey with that as I also incorporated intermittent fasting, so I knew that I didn't need I would need didn't need to worry about eating until starting at two o'clock in the afternoon. And if you're interested in any of this stuff, you can email me and I'll tell you kind of the plan that I used or how I did it. But I'm not going to go into all of that. But anyway, I thought about it in the context of what does it look like daily in order for me to change something and it you know, I talk with clients about this as well about when they're wanting to create change in your law in their life. Obviously if you want to change what change in your life, you have to change something and so, really change occurs at the level of our daily habits. So every one of us probably goes throughout our morning routine, in the same order in the same way. So for example, if you brush your teeth after you get out of the shower in the morning, if you want to create change or experience change, brush your teeth before you get into the shower. And I promise you, if you ever do that, then you're gonna have to stop and think Did I brush my teeth today or not. And so that's how we create these different changes in our lives, is by doing it at a small daily level. And I think the other thing too, that is important around creating change and creating goals is to is to limit the number of them on a daily basis. In my planner, the full focus planner, and if you want to learn more about that you can go to practice of therapy.com/full focus planner, and that is an affiliate link to be fully transparent. But anyway, the full focus planner system is centered around your weekly big three, and your daily big three, but also your quarterly big three. So three big things that you want to accomplish on on a quarterly basis, which of course are multiple, you know, the your quarterly big three are going to be like projects that have several steps to it, your weekly, big three might be like a smaller part of the project that has several steps to it. But your daily big three are just usually just specific task related to those bigger big threes

at the quarter level and the weekly level. So that's one of the things that one of the one of the systems within that planner. The other thing too is is that I love about the planner is that it's got a section in there for you to plan out your week. So it's your, your weekly planning or your weekly, weekly review is what it's called. The planner itself is limited to a quarter. So you think about things, again, in small increments. And I think that's the way that you accomplish any permanent changes in our lives is to do it in small increments, and not get overwhelmed with these big huge steps. And so as you think about your goals for the year, I'd like for you to maybe consider, okay, what's the big thing that I want to accomplish, but really focus on what are the small steps in getting there. It's really kind of common sense if you think about it. But I think sometimes we get too focused on the big picture to really accomplish what we need to do on the smaller daily basis. So that would be something I'd invite you to think about. Another tool that I'll mention to you, which has been a new one for me. This year, I hear that in December is I discovered this tool called the rocket book. And if it if anybody has ever used it that comes with, if you purchase a rocket book, they've also got an app that's available. It's a free app when you purchase the rocket book. But essentially, it's like a little thin notebook that song pages where you use the pilot friction pen to write on the pages. And it's like a whiteboard. So comes with a special cloth where you can clean off your pages. But before you clean, clean your pages, you use the app to record the page. And so it's stored in the cloud. So I can tell it distort in my Google Drive and that sort of thing. But it's really a really cool kind of alternative to planners and to goal setting, particularly and writing things down. The other thing I'd say about writing things down, is there is some, there is some merit in writing things down, writing them out longhand, because our brains process information that that way, all of us are so used to being on our phones and being on keyboards day in and day out. I think being able to write things out longhand just goes a long way in helping us to process and reach our goals in a more concrete way. You know, I know with my clients, and even myself I do do a lot more journaling now than I used to. But with my clients, I encourage them to journal because I think when we got things that we're struggling with internally, to be able to take them out of our head and put them on paper helps us process it differently. Almost in kind of almost in the similar way that em EMDR works for, for him therapy for trauma. I think journaling has a way of causing us it's more of a somatic process of writing things out. So, again, I would encourage you to Think about as you do your goal setting for the year is to maybe write it down on in longhand. And the other thing that I've heard, and I don't know if it's really true or not, but it makes sense, you got a 60% greater chance of reaching a goal if you just simply write it out. So again, and setting your goals for the year, I would encourage you to spend some time just writing things down. The other thing, exercise that I like to do, and I'm getting ready to do this in the next few days, to do what I call a brain dump. And what that what that means, at least for me is that it's a brainstorming exercise, or to get a sheet of paper or even a whiteboard or whatever, and write out everything that is on my radar that I want to accomplish, or that I feel like is important for me to do in the next next several months. Again, I keep it to just maybe the first quarter of the year, I'm just thinking about those things in that way. So writing them out, helps us get there. And I think by getting it out of our head and getting it on paper, or whiteboard, or even on your computer in a Google Doc or something like that, when we get it out, it helps us just process it differently, rather than than just kind of mulling it over in our heads. So anyway, those are some tips that I've kind of learned over the years. And just thinking about goal setting. Again, I would encourage you to go and download the SMART goals worksheet that I put together. Again, it's practice of therapy.com/smart goals, is the URL for that. And it's a free download for me, so you can get that if you want to get it. So hopefully this has been some helpful information and maybe giving you some different ways to think about the coming year and just goal setting. And that, you know, whole idea of resolutions here at the beginning of the year.

Well, folks, I hope this has been a helpful episode for you here at the beginning of 2023. And again, happy New Year. And thanks for joining me in this journey and listening to the podcast. I'm so grateful to all the listeners that are out there. And I'm really looking for forward to hearing from a lot of upcoming guests, I've got already got the episodes from for January, and most of February recorded already. So we've got some great guests coming up. You know, the way that I do the podcast is I try to batch it out. So record the episodes, and then we put it on the calendar and kind of get it out there. So got a lot of great guests coming up. And as I mentioned at the beginning, do take time to follow the podcast where, wherever you might be listening to it. And also, if you're interested in contributing to the Google workspace for therapists course, again, love for you to do that love to hear from you, you can go to practice of therapy.com G W s updates, practice of therapy.com/gw SW updates, to get to the form to apply to be a contributor. And also if you're interested in the Google workspace for therapists course, once you enroll in the course you get lifetime access to it and also any of the updates that come so anybody that's already purchased, the course will automatically get those updates when they come out. But if you haven't gotten the course and you're interested in learning how to use Google workspace, in your practice, you can find that by going to practice of therapy.com and just click on the courses button. And that'll get you to the right place to find the course and how you can enroll. And so we're really looking forward to being with you in the new year. And again, thanks for joining me in this journey. And I'm really excited for you to hear more from some of my friends at Site craft network. That was a big thing that started in 2022. And you're going to be hearing more about that. So go check that out at psych craft network.com and hear from some of the other great podcasters in this network that we have here. And again, big thanks to our sponsor therapy notes in be sure and check them out by going to practice of therapy.com/therapy notes and be sure and use the coupon code or the promo code is Gordon gr doe n and you can get two months of their services for free to try them out. So take care folks, looking forward to being with you in 2023 Take care