Every Practice Will Be Judged

It doesn't take long after opening a private practice to realize that people have opinions about how you run it.

Some opinions are offered with genuine curiosity. Others come as well-meaning advice. Sometimes they're simply observations. And sometimes they're judgments disguised as innocent questions that leave you wondering whether you just passed or failed some invisible test.

How many clients do you see in a week?

Do you work Fridays?

Do you take vacations?

Why don't you offer direct billing?

Why do you charge that much?

Why don't you charge more?

If you've owned a practice for any length of time, you've probably been asked at least a few of these questions. I know I have.

Recently, someone told me that I "must be addicted to crazy" because I don't take regular vacations. It wasn't the comment itself that stayed with me. It was what the comment represented. That person had looked at one small part of how I run my practice and concluded they knew whether I was doing it well.

The truth is, I've done exactly the same thing.

I've looked at another therapist's full caseload and wondered if I should be working harder. I've listened to someone describe their thriving practice and questioned whether I was doing enough. I've caught myself wondering if I should structure my business differently because someone else's seemed to be working well.

I don't think any of us are completely immune to comparison.

Owning a private practice can feel surprisingly lonely. There isn't a manager telling us we're doing a good job. There isn't an annual performance review confirming we're on the right track. Much of the time we're simply making the best decisions we can with the information we have. When that uncertainty exists, it's only natural to look around and wonder how everyone else is doing.

Sometimes we ask questions because we're curious. Sometimes we're looking for ideas. Sometimes we're looking for reassurance that we're doing enough. And sometimes, without even realizing it, we're trying to measure our own practice against someone else's.

The problem is that comparison is built on incomplete information.

When someone looks at your practice, they don't know your financial goals, your family responsibilities, your health, your stage of career, your values, or the kind of life you're trying to build outside of work. They don't know whether you're intentionally growing your practice, intentionally slowing it down, or simply navigating a challenging season.

In the same way, we rarely know those things about the people we're comparing ourselves to.

Yet we still make conclusions.

We assume someone with a fuller caseload is more successful. We assume someone taking several weeks of vacation has found the perfect work-life balance. We assume someone charging higher fees has a healthier business. We assume someone working fewer hours isn't working as hard.

The reality is that we usually don't know enough to make those judgments.

One of the most important lessons private practice has taught me is that there isn't one picture of a healthy practice.

Some therapists genuinely enjoy seeing twenty-five clients a week. Others do their best work seeing twelve. Some recharge by taking extended vacations. Others build enough flexibility into their schedules that they don't feel the same need to step away. Some love supervising, teaching, or writing alongside clinical work. Others simply want to spend their professional lives sitting with clients and then going home to their families.

None of those choices is automatically better than the others.

The question isn't whether your practice looks like someone else's.

The question is whether it fits the life you're trying to build.

That doesn't mean we should ignore feedback. Some of the best decisions I've made as a practice owner have come because someone asked a thoughtful question or offered a different perspective. Wise feedback can challenge us, reveal blind spots, and help us grow.

But not every opinion deserves the same amount of influence.

One of the most valuable skills we can develop as practice owners is learning to pause before accepting someone else's conclusion as truth. Is this feedback based on an understanding of my circumstances? Is it helping me think more clearly? Or is it simply someone else's preference for how they would choose to run a practice?

Those are very different things.

The longer I've owned a practice, the more I've realized that resilience isn't about getting people to stop judging you.

That will never happen.

Resilience is learning to hear other people's opinions without allowing every opinion to become the blueprint for your own business.

Because every practice will be judged.

The goal isn't to avoid that reality.

The goal is to build a practice that reflects your values, your circumstances, and your vision well enough that other people's opinions become something you thoughtfully consider rather than something you automatically believe.

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Stop Comparing. Start Evaluating.

It is natural to wonder whether you're doing enough as a practice owner. Most of us have asked ourselves that question at one time or another. The difficulty is that comparing your practice to someone else's rarely provides a meaningful answer. You are not building their business. You are building yours.

A healthier approach is to step back and evaluate your practice on its own merits. Is it financially sustainable? Is your workload manageable? Are your systems supporting you or creating unnecessary stress? Does your practice align with the life you want to live, or has it gradually become something you never intended to build?

Those questions tell you far more about the health of your practice than someone else's caseload, fees, vacation schedule, or business model ever will.

If you're looking for a place to start, our free Private Practice Health Assessment is designed to help you take an objective look at your practice across key areas of ownership, sustainability, operations, and overall business health. Rather than comparing yourself to another therapist, it helps you understand where your own practice is thriving and where there may be opportunities for growth.

Explore the Business Health Diagnostic