When you started graduate school to become a psychotherapist, you had a vision of your life after graduate school.

Otherwise, you would not have embarked on such a time-consuming, expensive training.

As the years go by, our the reality of our work shifts our expectations and often the work we do after graduate school is not what we expected when we started.

Sometimes our professors and supervisors/mentors explicitly tell us we can't have what we want. I recall my grad school advisor telling me I could not have a career where I did some research, taught classes, and provided psychotherapy to clients. Lucky for me, I didn't listen to her and now I have a very diverse, exciting career that allows me to see clients, write, research, and teach.

Let's do a simple exercise. Please take a minute to answer these questions. Do not censor what you think or write.

• What does your ideal practice look like?
• Where do you work? When?
• How many clients do you see a week?
• What issues do your clients bring?
• How do you get paid?
• Who pays you?
• How much money do you make a week, month, year?
• What services do you offer?
• How do you provide them?
• Do you offer products or information for sale?
• Teach classes or workshops?
• Provide public speaking?

If you could wave a magic wand, what would your practice look like TODAY?

Now step back and look at your answers to these questions. Do you have your dream practice now? If not, how can you create it for yourself?

Do you believe you can build your ideal career? Or have you let others dictate your current reality?

I challenge you to shift your thinking to what is possible with the skills you possess. It is absolutely possible to create your custom-designed, ideal career. I've done it and some days am amazed that I am free to work by MY schedule, pursuing MY interests and not settling for someone else's definition of what my skills are worth. I don't settle and neither should you.