Empowering Women in Chiropractic - Are You A Goal Digger? Cathy Sarvis DC

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You need to be a goal digger, a goal getter, a goal setter, and a goal worker, and you need to be there for you. And you need to be that for your patients. Hi everybody! Happy New Year! Dr. Cathy here. I'm so excited to join ChiroSecure's Empowering Women in Chiropractic to impart some wisdom onto you, to share some excitement, to hopefully inspire you, motivate you, and absolutely empower you to make the transformation that you need.

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But also the transformation that you need to deliver for your patients. So, let's jump right into it because there's no time like right now. It's January. It's a new year. It's a new you. It's a new start over. I mean, think of all the things that we have going on in the world right now. They just signed a treaty for a six week peace, peace in the Middle East.

That's amazing. We've got a Martin Luther King Day in this month. We have the inauguration in this month. We have the big playoff game for football in Atlanta. We have so much going on and your patients are watching all of this. They're absorbing all this and they're digesting it and trying to figure out how to make sense of what's going on in the world.

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And in the meantime, they're also maybe doing dry January, or they're doing their New Year's resolutions, or they're making decisions to start getting healthier, right? Isn't that the biggest New Year's resolution that everyone makes? But they don't get specific enough in it, which is why most people don't succeed.

But you're not most people. I'm not most people, and you, in your practice, are not leading most people. You're leading the people who are willing to make the effort. You're leading the people who are willing to make a change. And you're leading the people who are willing to put in the work to

So, let's jump right in and talk about how do you really set goals for yourself, for your practice, for your team, for your finances, for your health, for your relationships. You have to look at all aspects of your life and say, What am I happy with that I've done already and what would I like to improve in the future?

It's kind of like taking a mental inventory of where are you right now? What did you do to get here? What was the road like? What was the journey like? What were the ups and the downs and the mistakes and the challenges and the victories and the obstacles that you had to overcome in the past six months, past year, past five years, past decade, in the past of your life, to bring you to the point where you are right now.

And then once you acknowledge where you are, Right now you have to stop and be real with yourself. Am I happy? Am I? fulfilled am I Satisfied am I challenged in a way that's going to help me grow am I full of joy? am I waking up on a daily basis loving my life or Do you wake up every day like it's a chore?

Do you dread the next morning? Do you go to the office thinking it's a job or it's work or it's another day of things to do and it's another person complaining about their problems? Do you look at your bank account or your scale or your investments or your lack thereof of investments and say, Oh, this is not where I want to be.

See, the reality of life is you are exactly Where you chose to be by your previous actions. And so when we stop and we take inventory of our lives It's taking inventory of this is where I am and this is how I got here And if this is where you want to be Celebration awesome good for you But if this is not where you want to be and you thought you would be so much further along in life, or you thought you'd be fitter, or you thought you'd be more flexible, or you thought you'd have more energy, or you thought your schedule would, would free up, and you thought you'd have more time to be a mom and spend with your kids, or you thought you'd have more money in the bank, or more investments, or more properties, or more, more, more of whatever, and you look at your life and you say, This is not.

what I thought it was going to be, then I need you to step back and look at your decisions. I need you to step back and look at the choices. Step back and look at the experiences and the things and the people that you have allowed into your life. And I know that's a hard one for some of us to do. And I know I've been there.

I've done the hard work. I've been in the bad situations. I've felt stuck. I felt like there was no way out of a dead end scenario. And I did the hard work of making the change and you can too and I'm here to tell you you can You just have to make a decision That wherever I am right now, whether you like it or not Is not where you should end up next year because there's always room for growth.

There's always room for change There's always room for improvement. There's always room for adventure. There's always room to create new memories and that's What I want for me I want it for my children, I want it for my husband, I want it for my staff, I want it for my patients, I want it for my family, my friends, and I want it for you, because I want you to be able to be fulfilled, so that every day when you wake up, you are like, Yes!

Yes, this is the life that I wanted. Yes, this is the life that I chose. And you should wake up with that feeling of yes, every day. You should wake up that Feeling of gratitude. You should wake up with that feeling of entitlement or willing to work for what you want. Not because you think you deserve it, but because you worked to deserve it.

Like, I am entitled to this life because I worked my butt off to create it. That's the feeling I want you to wake up with. And when we talk about a new year, We can't just jump into the new year without reflecting on the old year, on the years gone by, on the decisions made and the results that we've received.

So looking at where you are right now gives you one of basically two options. I mean there's a gazillion, but let's say there's one of two options. I like the path that I'm on and I want to continue going on that path because it's leading me exactly where I want to go. Or, The path that I was on didn't exactly take me where I want to be or I changed decisions of where I want to go and so now I have to veer off and make a different decision.

So, you either stick with what you're doing and you do it better and you do it with a little bit more enthusiasm and a little bit more effort to get you to your goals faster or you make the decision now that it's time for a change. Right? And anywhere in that realm, in that range, in that area of your life, you could say, some things are right on track and some things need a little shift, some things need a bigger shift, and some things need an overhaul.

And you make that decision. So, take inventory. of your life. I love to do this with people because this is something I've done for the last 30 something years. I started doing this as an aerobics instructor in the 80s, right? And I love doing this with people because it's a chance to look at where you are and acknowledge the good and bad of how you got here.

And when you do that, you empower yourself by realizing all of the challenges you've overcome. Some of you have survived horrific divorces. Yes, some of you have survived the loss of a loved one. Some of you have survived being betrayed in your business or in friendships or in relationships. Some of you have survived the loss of a dream, whatever that dream may have been.

And some of you have overcome so many obstacles and challenges, whether it's In your learning abilities or in your financial abilities or in your decision making process or in the relationships that you've surrounded yourselves with some of you have overcome so much just to get to where you are and you need to celebrate those victories.

As you look forward to what you want to create, because if we don't give ourselves a little bit of credit for the things that we've overcome and the things that we've done and the success that we've had, and the failures that we've gotten up off of our butts and gotten back into it, if we don't give ourselves some credit, Then it's like setting goals with no rewards.

Like what is the purpose? Why? Why do we want to keep doing it? If I can't even acknowledge the good that I did before, why do I want to work any harder to create any more good going forward? It's just going to lead to more work. If I grow the practice, I got to do more work, right? If I see more patients, I got to physically see more patients.

If my kids get involved in more sports, then I have more things on my schedule. So, You have to look at it in a way that says, you know what, this is, this is what I want to attract into my life. This is what I've worked so hard for. If you want to grow your practice, celebrate that and say, yes, yeah, I'm willing to work more.

I'm willing to bend over the table more. I'm willing to see more people. I'm willing to change more lives. Look at all of the areas of your life. And start taking inventory. And maybe you're going to open up a book and you're going to write things down. Maybe you're going to do it on your phone or on your computer.

Maybe you've got post it notes all over the place. Maybe you're going to make a vision board. Whatever it is that works for you. Something that will be a daily reminder. Start thinking about the different areas of your life. Your relationships with your family and your friends, your professional, your office, your staff, your patients, the things you do for the community.

How about your pocketbook, right? You can call that your financial, right? How about that? How are you doing with your money? How are you doing with your investments? How are you doing with paying off debt? Getting your head above water for some people. How about your fitness and your health? How are you doing with that?

Are you working toward goals? Are you just haphazardly doing things? Do you have a plan? Do you have a vision? Do you have a vision of who you want to be physically in the next year or five years? Right? Then what about your social? What about your spiritual? What about your adventure? What about your fun?

Start building things in. What are the people you want to attract into your life? What are the experiences you want to have? What are the adventures you want to go on? What are some of the memories you want to create? And whether you have a spouse, or children, or you're single, or you have aging parents that you're taking care of, how do you want your next year to look for you?

And how do you want to look How do you want it to look for your office? And then think about all of your patients who may or may not have set their own goals, who you can have conversations with about, Hey, Mary, what is it that you want to achieve this year with your health? And how can we be one of your health partners to help you get there faster?

More effectively and maybe even save you some money along the way because we're going to help you in your health journey, right? Maybe you want to start doing nutrition workshops in your office or fitness workshops in your office Or you want to bring a personal trainer in or a group fitness expert in to come do a presentation to your patients So that you can build a little bit more value and also get them to commit to taking better care of themselves with chiropractic as a big foundational aspect of that.

Maybe you want to partner up with the local dentist or orthodontist or eye doctor, ear doctor, podiatrist, whatever it is, and start saying, hey, how can we help our people in our community get healthier and live a better life and live a pain free life or, you know, get those kids in braces and get their spines straightened out at the same time.

You may decide that you want to create these partnerships this year so that you have those. Third party professional referrals, which are usually treated with a little more high esteem by your patients. You may decide that you want to get out of your office and start giving talks in the community and teaching people how to have a healthy pregnancy with a better birth outcome or how to avoid, uh, you know, back injuries when they're working as mechanics or working on a construction site or how to help the kids stay healthy when they're going back to school with everybody coughing and sneezing and sniffling all around them.

You may decide that this is the year you're going to start doing talks in your community or talks online. Webinars, maybe podcasts, maybe a YouTube channel, maybe just your Facebook or Instagram or TikTok that you're using for your office to educate people. So whatever it is that you want to do, think about how.

When you set your goals, think about how your goals can help other people achieve theirs. You know, there's that saying we, we can achieve our goals a lot faster when we help more people achieve theirs. You want to help other people get healthier and you become a health partner for them or you become their doctor or you become the go to expert in your community that they're going to not only come see you or But refer to you, share you with their doctors or their therapists or their personal trainers or their nutrition store or whatever it is.

Share you with their co workers or their HR department. Think in bigger terms, not just of yourself and your goals, but how your goals can be accentuated and exaggerated and can grow with the help of your patients, your community, as you help them achieve their goals. So, what I really recommend to people when we do goal setting, and I do this very, very often with people, I do it with a lot of my clients, but I do it in groups.

We just had, uh, 16, 20 people at my house the other day where we did a vision board workshop. And what I do with people is I want you to not just say, I want more. But I want you to quantify it, and then I want you to break it down into step by step by step actionable items that you're going to do. Let's say you want to lose 10 pounds in the next 10 months.

That means you've got to lose one pound per month. That means you need to lose a quarter pound per week. That means you need to do a little bit more activity because you've got to burn 300, uh, 3, 500 calories to burn a pound. So what do you need to do to do that, right? And so when you start breaking things down into easy step by step strategies, attainable goals, actionable steps, it becomes a lot easier to see am I on track Or am I just doing the same thing that I've done all along, and I'm just going to continue to get the same results.

Remember that whole part about taking inventory of your life and where you are right now? Take inventory of your practice and where it is right now. Take inventory of your team and how they are performing right now. And then from that point, now you make the goal, but you got to make little steps to get to the goal.

Those strategies, those actionable items, those steps are what keep you on track. It's what keeps your staff on track. It's what keeps your patients on track. And it's what's going to make sure that you are staying on track to actually achieve your goal in the timely manner that you're trying to. So the last aspect of this, I'm going to give you two, actually.

I'm going to give you two more aspects of this. One, Is to have a reward when you achieve your goal and it doesn't have to be every single step along the way but when you achieve your goal or intermediary goals There has to be a reward system built in and it's not food. You are not a dog. Do not, do not reward yourself with food.

It's not food. Unless it's like we're gonna go to a fancy restaurant. We're gonna have a special occasion that includes food. Don't reward yourself just with food. Reward yourself with more me time. Reward yourself with a getaway. Reward yourself with a gym membership at a place that you've been waiting to join.

Reward yourself with a special something that you've been wanting to buy for yourself, whatever it is, but have rewards built in to keep you motivated. And have some way to stay accountable. Now you may need somebody like me who's an accountability partner. You may need something on your phone that's going to remind you to do this.

My husband just got us a skylight box and so it's got chores for the kids to do and this way he can, you know, stay engaged while he's serving overseas and, and we can kind of stay engaged with the kids and the kids can, you know, make sure with him that he's, he's doing stuff and they're doing stuff and, and it's pretty fun, we're just learning how to use it.

But it's one of those little tools that you can use. You may have a chart on your wall. You may write something and paste it to the outside of your shower door so that you're looking at it every day when you're in the shower. You may put something on your mirror. You may put something on your dashboard.

Whatever works for you. Everybody's different. It might be a timer on your phone. It might be just somebody who calls you and says, Hey. How you doing? It might be somebody who texts you and says, Hey, here's a little motivation for the day. Right? I have people that I, that I am an accountability partner for that text me their workouts at the beginning of the week.

They text me pictures from the gym, or they may send me messages saying, Hey, you know what? This is what I've been doing, but I'd like to add something more. So if you don't have someone that can do that for you, or you don't have a system that works for you, or you tried some systems and they didn't work, then it's time to reach out to me or somebody else and have someone that can not only hold you accountable, but help you achieve better goals, bigger goals, more fulfilling goals.

In a shorter amount of time who can help you expand your vision and have a greater vision, not only of yourself, but of your worth of your deservedness, who can help you create some affirmations, some visualizations so that you can manifest what it is that you want. Because here's the reality we as chiropractors.

Give our patients so much hope. We give our patients a new lease on life. We give our patients the freedom to do things Without pain, without disability, without restricted motion. You know, we give our patients the opportunity to express their lives fully. And when we give and we give and we give, sometimes we end up a little bit empty.

And when we give and we give and we give, sometimes we feel happy, but we're exhausted. And we give and we give and we give, and we're thrilled because our practice is doing well, our patients are doing great, our community is thriving, but we're empty. We're, we're lacking. We don't have the energy to invest in ourselves.

We don't have the time to sit down and work on what it is that we want. We don't have the vision board created. We don't have the affirmations. We don't have the goals. And quite frankly, we don't have the energy to do any of it. And if that's you and you've been there, I get it. I've been there. I know what it feels like between the kids and the practice and teaching and maybe you're going through some legal stuff or maybe you're going through some happy changes or maybe you're having changes in your family or your extended family, whatever it is, if it's derailing you and not letting you focus on you, that's really hard.

You know that saying you got to put your oxygen mask on first before you put anybody else's on? As women, as nurturers, as caregivers, as healthcare providers, we have a tendency to take care of every single other person and we forget about ourselves. So, going back to how we started, please find the time, especially if it's going to be a snow day again for you, wherever you are, if it's going to be a, you know, snow weekend and you're, you're indoors anyway, take the time to take inventory of where you are.

How did you get here? Is this what you envisioned for your life? Do you feel like there's more out there? Do you feel like you've, you've reached something really, really good, but it's not quite your calling. Like you're, you're being called to do something more and you just don't know what it is. You hear the song, but you don't have the words.

You know that there's more for you, but you don't know what more means and you don't know how to get it. And you're not willing to let go of what you got because it's really good. And you worked really, really hard for it. But you feel like there's more out there. And if you feel that way And you look at where you are and you say, I'm proud and I'm happy and I did a great thing, but I want more.

I'm ready for something different. I'm ready for a challenge. If you're that person and you don't know how to take that next step, reach out to me. I would love to talk with you. I'd love to help you figure this out. I'd love to point you in the right direction or connect you with someone else who could help you on your journey.

But as you take inventory and you start to set your goals, Don't dream small. Dream big. We did a vision board, uh, workshop the other day and I told people, Look, there are a hundred magazines here. Rip it out, rip it out, rip it out. Don't stop and think about it. Don't stop and edit your thoughts. Don't say, ooh, that's too big and, you know, I don't really want that or I don't know if that's right.

No, no, no. Just rip it out. Just keep ripping it out. Just keep ripping it out. And if you're writing it down on a piece of paper, just write, write, write, write, write. Don't stop and censor it. Just write, this is what I want. This is what I want to attract. This is what I want to become. This is who I want to be.

This is where I want to go. Go. This is what I want to experience. Just write, write, write, write, write, write, write. Put it down. Brain dump it. And then, you start to pick and choose. What is it that I want to work on now? What is it that I want to accomplish now? Who is it that I want to become now? Who is it that I want to become in the next six months or in the next year?

And what is the life that I want to be feeling and experiencing? And as you start to write down those goals, and you start to think about big vision stuff, And you have rewards built in and you have accountability to hold yourself responsible to do what it is you said you're going to do and take those little steps, little steps, little steps, little steps that you need to get to your goals.

All of a sudden you become the person you wanted to be and you achieve the life that you wanted to have and you reach your goals and your practice is humming and your community is loving you and you're sharing your information and you're educating people and you're doing whatever it is that you want to do with your family to make the memories.

While you have the time and you're doing all of those things and you're going to bed fulfilled and you're waking up excited. About your life and that's the ultimate new year, new you to go to bed fulfilled and to wake up excited to go to bed happy and to wake up excited to go tackle the day and have another great experience and ladies when it comes to serving your people and serving our profession and serving your family and serving everybody else, we are so good at it.

But I want you to take the time this January to reflect back and look at how can I serve myself better? How can I serve that little girl me? How can I serve the grown me? How can I serve the next version of me so that I am achieving the goals that I've set for myself? Ladies, I wish you an incredible new year.

I'm excited for what this year is going to bring for you, for me, for all the people that we get to touch, for chiropractic around the world and for our hearts, for our families. I'm really excited about what you're going to achieve, what you're going to bring to the world, and I'm hoping that I see you in person somewhere along the journey very, very soon because I miss some of these big hugs and I love getting together, and that's why we're getting more and more women together in Atlanta so that we can kind of hug and break bread and share stories and share laughs or tears or whatever it is that we need to share and then share big vision stuff so that we can go out there and empower each other to create the world that we want to see.

Go have a fabulous rest of your January and I look forward to seeing you soon. Take care everybody

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