I know when you were in dental school, comparing your clinical skills with others was a natural tendency. Your goal was perfection. Now, you are business owners with your practice and you still compare yourself. I find a lot of dentists will compare themselves to other dentists based on a perception. Either one from social media or a perception of how much production their office makes.
I am not here preaching to you, but to give you some other areas to compare yourself. Success, and thus the comparisons to others, is different for each person. That is true for general dentists or specialists. With the beginning of a new year, your practice goals for the year are probably at the forefront of your thoughts. Especially with getting your business closed out for 2020.
Instead of looking at monetary comparison, reverse engineer what success means to you. Sure, you need enough to pay all of your bills, but the pursuit of money should not be the only thing that defines success for you. I have yet to meet a dentist that said they went to dental school for the money. There was always another purpose.
With the start of a new year, focus on your purpose. Focus on defining what success looks like to you. I am finding great conversations with dentists across the country when I ask them to think about how they define success. We can all agree that 2020 was a stressful, trying year as a practice owner. Things were asked of you at one time that made you pivot and change in ways you could never have imagined. With that being said, take some time to appreciate what you accomplished last year. Thank your team members.
IF you need help thinking through this process or need some assistance with creating a plan around your goal of success, please get in touch with me. Start the year off with a great plan that will give you the success you desire for 2021.