“No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

–Seth Godin

If you’re in a busy market, competition does a funny thing to your brain. It makes you want to stand in rows with everyone else who offers what you do, and raise your hand like a schoolkid and hope for the best.

When your practice slows down, the same thing happens–fear and anxiety freeze you, and you want someone else do the work. To tell you what to do next. To fill your appointment book for you.

Don’t be seduced. Yes your clients need to choose you, but no, you don’t have to stand in line with every other practitioner with your hat held out. Before your clients can pick you, you need to pick yourself.

What Waiting to be Picked Looks Like

• When you put an ad in the Yellow Pages and hope for the phone to ring, you’re waiting for clients to pick you.
• When you market yourself as what you do, not who or what you help, you’re waiting to be picked.
• When you say, “I just want to treat clients and not worry about this business stuff,” you’re waiting to be picked.
• When you ignore the obvious problems in your practice and hope they go away, you’re waiting to be picked.

What Picking Yourself Looks Like

• When you decide that being in practice also means being in business, and you learn those skills the same way you learned acupuncture, or massage, or chiropractic, you’re picking yourself.
• When you decide what you love, and go looking for it, you’re picking yourself.
• When you decide that you’re going to focus more on your great work, and less on that of your competition, you’re picking yourself.
• When you stop telling yourself that you suck at “this business stuff,” you’re picking yourself.
• When you tackle problems in your practice head on, you’re picking yourself.
• When you tell people, “I can help with that,” you’re picking yourself, and making it easy for them to pick you, too.

Picking yourself is about choosing by taking action. That makes people pick you. It also dials down the fear and anxiety almost instantly.

Waiting is a form of dying. That includes waiting to be picked. Stop it. Pick yourself first, or no one else will.