We all have them -- the weeks with the empty schedule, the weeks no one seems to want or need a massage, the weeks when everyone cancels. I think this kind of week throws everyone's confidence into a tailspin.
(Has everyone discovered I'm a fraud? Has everyone decided they don't need me? Has everyone found a better MT? Will I ever have another client? Will my schedule ever be full again?)
It really takes nerves of steel some days to be self employed.
I'm having that kind of week. One appointment for the whole week (and, boy, am I grateful for that one appointment!). When it's happened in the past (and it has, plenty of times) I could always look back at the healthy plump weeks for encouragement. Now, since I'm re-starting my practice, I've got nothing to look back at for encouragement.
So, I'm feeling very discouraged and blue and maybe just the tiniest bit panicky this week. I'm giving myself a "buck up" talking to, falling back on the advice I give other MTs when they have this kind of week:
* One bad week doesn't equal a dead practice. It's just one week. Heck, I've already got two clients schedule for next week!
* I'm working on some plans to market my practice. I realize I haven't done any serious marketing in years because I didn't have to. I'm a little rusty.
* If there's no work, then I might as well play. Museums, rivers, trails, and I've never been up in the Washington Monument. I also have a large address book of people I haven't seen in more than a year.
* As that crazy King Louie sings in the movie "Madagascar" -- I like to move it move it move it...as hard as it is to do, movement can have a powerful effect on the "veins full of sand" blues. Might as well walk over to Fragers Hardware and pick up a few things the house needs. At least it's a day full of sunshine!
I'm choosing not to give up and not to give in. I'm choosing to believe in me and my work. Nerves of steel...
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