Some Days Everything Goes Sideways
- Foundations For Practice
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
There are days in private practice when everything seems to work exactly the way it should. Clients arrive on time, technology cooperates, referrals come in, emails get answered, and you finish the day tired but satisfied. Those days are wonderful because they remind us why we chose this work.
Then there are the days nobody really talks about.
Recently, I had one of those days. Our website developed a problem that prevented people from getting where they needed to go. Online sessions were interrupted by internet issues. Something unexpected happened at home that needed immediate attention. At the same time, advertising was running, sending people to a website that wasn't functioning properly. It felt like every system I depended on decided to stop cooperating within a few hours of each other.
If you've ever owned a business, you probably know that feeling. You don't get to finish solving one problem before the next one appears. Your mind starts racing. How many people tried to visit the website? How much advertising money is being spent while the page isn't working? Will clients think the internet problems are unprofessional? What else is about to go wrong?
As therapists, we're trained to stay regulated when life becomes difficult. We help clients slow down, think clearly, and respond rather than react. Yet when you're the business owner, it can be surprisingly difficult to take your own advice. It's easy to find yourself mentally jumping from one fire to the next, trying to restore order as quickly as possible.
One of the realities of private practice that isn't discussed very often is that ownership means carrying responsibility for far more than therapy. When something breaks, there usually isn't an IT department to call. There isn't a marketing team monitoring your advertising campaigns. There isn't an office manager quietly solving every operational problem behind the scenes. Often, it's just you.
That can feel overwhelming, especially when several problems arrive at the same time.
Over the years, though, I've noticed something about days like these. My first instinct is always to fix everything immediately. Sometimes that's necessary, but often it isn't. One of the most important lessons business ownership has taught me is that not every problem has to be solved in the next fifteen minutes. Some things genuinely are urgent. Others simply feel urgent because everything is happening at once.
I've also learned that difficult days can completely distort how we see our businesses. A single bad day can make it feel as though everything is falling apart, even when it isn't. The website gets fixed. The internet reconnects. Advertising can be paused. Clients are often far more understanding than we imagine. Home settles down again. What feels like a catastrophe on Tuesday afternoon often becomes little more than a story by the end of the week.
That doesn't mean the stress isn't real. It absolutely is. But difficult days are not reliable indicators of whether your practice is healthy. They're reminders that businesses are run by human beings. Technology fails. Life interrupts. Plans change. Unexpected problems happen. None of that means you're failing as a practice owner. It means you're doing something that inevitably involves uncertainty.
If there is one thing owning a practice has taught me, it's that resilience isn't built on the days when everything works perfectly. It's built on the days when almost nothing does. Those are the days that remind us why good systems matter, why we need margin in our schedules, why we need to take care of ourselves, and why perfection was never the goal in the first place.
Eventually the website comes back online. The internet reconnects. Home settles down. The fires go out.
And tomorrow, you open your office, log back in, and keep going.
Building a Practice That Can Withstand the Unexpected
No private practice is immune to difficult days. The goal isn't to eliminate every problem. It's to build a practice that is resilient enough to recover when they happen.
FOUNDATIONS FOR PRACTICE provides practical resources to help clinicians build sustainable, resilient practices that can adapt when life inevitably goes sideways.
