If you're anything like me, getting to the point where you were ready to open your doors and call yourself a practitioner felt like achieving a huge goal. It was like climbing up a mountain and getting a chance to turn around and see the magnificent view.
What a lot of us don't realize is that there's actually another entire mountain that you still have to climb from here: learning how to run a business and promote your work/find clients.
For a long time, I thought maybe there was some way to avoid climbing that second mountain. A shortcut, maybe? A workaround?
Part of me thought that my work should be excellent enough that people would just .... find me. Somehow. I'd grow naturally, organically, and become known as the go-to person in my field.
It took me longer than one might hope to conclude that this was not an "if you build it, they will come" situation.
I eventually realized that I would need to just go ahead and start walking up that second mountain. I had to learn how to talk about my work, how to really understand what my clients were looking for, and how to meet new people and invite them into my orbit.
Not only did I have to learn how to do these things, I had to actually do them
I'm still working on it, and it isn't a fast climb, but it does provide the fodder for a lot of personal growth. I am learning a lot about myself and my work.
If you're standing at the bottom of that second mountain, the biggest piece of advice I have for you is to just go ahead and start taking some small steps.
Don't wait until you know what to do (no one does at that point), and don't pretend like the mountain isn't there and throw your hands up in frustration when you don't have any new clients.
Good luck & happy climbing.
Take care,
Camille