The Private Practice Success Podcast

36. Your Mid-Year Check-Up: Are you on track with your 2025 Goals?

• Gerda Muller • Episode 36

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In this episode of the Private Practice Success Podcast, Gerda guides you through a practical but empowering mid-year check-up for your private practice. 

We are 6 months into 2025, which means it is time to pause, reflect, and honestly assess how you and your business are tracking against the goals you set back in January. 

Whether you’re on-track or feeling a bit off course, this episode will help you get clarity, regain focus, and set yourself up for a strong finish to the year.

In this Episode, you will learn (among others):

  • How to objectively assess your progress towards your 2025 goals.
  • How to rate your practice across the 5 Key Growth Drivers of allied health business and what to do if you find problem areas.
  • Why working harder isn’t always the answer and how to focus on the right strategies for your stage of business.

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Allied health practice owners who want to check in on their business progress and reset for the second half of the year.
  • Business owners feeling stuck in operations and looking to step back into strategy so they can regain momentum.
  • Anyone who has set big goals for 2025 and needs a practical, supportive nudge to get back on track.

Tune in for a no-judgment mid-year checkup and walk away with a clear framework for evaluating your business goals - no matter what curveballs 2025 has thrown your way.

Want more info on The Ultimate Admin Course?

Email Gerda at gerdam@private-practice-success.com and she’ll send you all the details. 

Want Gerda's Help with your Business?

Gerda helps allied health group practice owners go from overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid to fully empowered and financially thriving. If this is you, then make today the day you reach out. Complete this super short Triage Form here bit.ly/triageformpps and Gerda will personally reach out to you. 

Here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about :)

Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

Well, hello there, fabulous private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 36. 

Today you've got - not psychologist Gerda in the house, not group practice owner Gerda in the house - no, you are going to be spending some time with Nurse Gerda. So step to my office as we spend some time together to do your midyear checkup. 

Just like it is important to have your own personal health - and I will also add in a mental health checkup - on a regular basis, today's podcast episode is all going to be about giving your practice a quick midyear checkup.

Believe it or not, it is freaking June, 2025. We are literally six months into this calendar year. I know we all say time flies, but honestly it is true and take it from me - the older you get, the faster time flies. It just is what it is. I tell my kids that every day. They don't believe me yet, but it is true because I am living it every day.

We are in June, 2025, so it is super duper important that we do a pause and a check in to see how you and your business is going.  I am going to start off by taking a wild guess and say that you probably kicked off 2025 by setting some cool, maybe lofty, maybe big, maybe inspiring - insert any type of adjective that is jumping into your head right now based on your experience - but I'm just going to go with some pretty cool goals for your business when you kicked off this year. Obviously we want to make sure that you get there. 

I don't know about you - but I find goal setting and planning incredibly inspiring, and I get a lot of joy out of doing it. I like to plan. Unfortunately, sometimes the planning is as far as it goes, which is why we are doing this checkup today.

If you are like me, you probably carved out some dedicated time at the start of your year to plan out your 2025. I know that some people like to do that planning at the end of the previous year, so maybe you did your 2025 planning and goal setting at the end of 2024. There's no right or wrong. 

I always do it at the start of the year. You may or may not know that I actually run an event every year, and I've been doing it now, I think this was the sixth year, don't quote me on that. But let's say five to six years now, I've run the Blueprint Planning Session at the start of every calendar year where I take my attendees through a whole process of assessing their previous year and then planning out their year ahead.

I know for a fact that people that attend that, they set some pretty cool and very clear goals for them and their practices for a 12 month period - which we are now halfway in. Maybe you did that by yourself, or maybe with your team back at the practice. Maybe you even wrote your goals down on a piece of paper that you put up on a wall somewhere.

Maybe if you've got my PPS planner, you've popped it in there because there's actually space to do all of that in there. Maybe all your goals are in your Asana or in your Clickup or your Trello, or maybe you just like to be old school and put it in a hard copy diary, or maybe it's in an Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't matter where it is.

Documenting your 12-Month Goals

I'm guessing, and I'm hoping, you actually documented your goal somewhere. Because if you've not documented it, it's even easier to get off track. You might have documented it - but it doesn't mean you actually pursued it, it doesn't mean you implemented it. That is what often happens when people plan and set goals - they just stop looking at it. This is why we want to talk about it today.

The other thing that often happens when we do our goal setting and our planning is we go - Yes, it's documented, I'm going to keep it front of mind - and then slowly but truly, we go off track. 

Operational Distractions

Take it from me, I have personal experience in knowing how easy it is to get lost in the overgrowth of operation -  in the weeds of operations - because that's what we do. That's probably what you do. Something is happening, there's a crisis, there's a challenge in the practice. What do you do? You run in, you like that firefighter. You are the first one through the door and you go in to fix it. Before you know it, three days have passed. Three weeks have passed. Three months have passed. And you're still on the ops hamster wheel and you, you go, oh my goodness - I've totally lost track of the projects, the big picture stuff that I was meant to be working on. 

Again, it's my hope that you listening to today's episode is going to get you out of that burning house and go, okay  let's get out of the weeds, let's get out of the overgrowth.  I know I'm mixing my metaphors here, but go with whichever one works for you - so that you can go back and sit at the top of the mountain, as I like to say - where you, yes, you, still see the overgrowth, you see the weeds in the valley. You might even see the fires, the smoke that might be smouldering there. But it's only when you sit at the top of the mountain that you can truly assess:

Has what I have been doing down in the overgrowth, in the operations, in the weeds - has it been effective? Has it worked, or has it been a waste of time? Have I just been on that freaking hamster wheel? Have I been trying to put out a fire with my right hand when, right behind me on my left hand side, there's a new fire popping up?  Because that can be incredibly demotivating and disempowering.

Are You on Track to Achieve your 2025 Goals?

I want you to honestly ask yourself: Am I on track to achieve my 2025 goals? 

It's just me and you here, okay, and there's no judgment. Maybe your answers hell yes, Gerda, and if that is the case, I want to say - fantastic. You are kicking goals and what you need to do is you need to keep riding the momentum of all the goals that you are kicking.

For you I want to say - have a think about what has allowed you to stay on track, because you know what? That's pretty good. Going for six months and being on track - that's actually the exception. And I know that might sound, no, that can't be - but most people get distracted. Because shit happens. Things pop up. We procrastinate. Things get hard.

If you are on track. Pat yourself on the back and say, well done me - but also become conscious about what has allowed you to stay on track. Maybe you've been really good with your boundaries this year. Maybe you really drew a line at the start of the year around certain things and you've actually stuck to it. That is an immense achievement being able to do that. You want to consciously identify what you are doing differently so that you can continue to do that. Because the worst thing to happen now is for you to start getting off track.  Let's bring it into conscious awareness - what has allowed you to stay on track?  

Don't Break What's Not Broken

Don't do new things - just keep doing the behaviours that have allowed you to stay on track. One of the things that people do is, when things are working, they mess it up.  Things work in their business, in their marketing, in their recruitment, in their financial side of their business - and they go, huh, I'm going to try something different. No, don't be one of those people. 

If something is working, keep doing it. Don't break what's not broken. Just keep engaging in the same behaviours, but also become aware - maybe it was a mindset shift that has allowed you to stay disciplined, to stay consistent, to stay motivated. That is also the mindset that you want to keep cultivating and that you want to continue embracing, because it's obviously working for you.

Now, if you like a lot of people, maybe the answer to that question - Am I on track to achieve my 2025 goals? -  is that I'm not quite where I wanted to be. If that is you, know that you are not alone.  I have just said that it's actually the exception rather than the rule to be staying on track. 

The thing is this: staying on track all year round with your business goals is hard - even when it's just business as usual, even when there's no significant challenges. But then what happens? Life happens. Business life happens.

The Impact of Unexpected Curveballs 

Before you know it, there's been a curve ball - or two or three or ten or twenty - that has been sent your way, making it even harder. It's really easy to get discouraged, especially when those curve balls keep coming. 

Take it from me, as a business consultant to allied health practice owners - people have been getting a lot of freaking curve balls in 2025. I know because people tell me about it. That's my job: to help people with curve balls. That's what I do, and I'm pretty good at it, so know that it happens. 

It doesn't mean that you are failing. It means that you are running a business - because business is hard. It's challenging. But that's also what makes it exciting. That's what makes it fun. That's what makes it so satisfying when you achieve those goals - because you know this wasn't a walk in the park, and you deserve the rewards of the goals that you have achieved.

Next, I want you to go just one step deeper. So we started off by asking this general question: Am I on track to achieve my 2025 goals? And it's either, Yes, I'm rocking this, or Oh, I'm not really there. I'm not where I hoped or wanted to be - that's okay. 

Let's go that step deeper. I want to encourage you to get clear on how your practice is traveling when you assess it across some of those key growth drivers that we find within an allied health practice.

The 5 Key Growth Drivers

Those five key drivers are the following. 

First, it's your client numbers. So ask yourself: what are your client numbers like right now? In other words, does your team have a fully booked diary, or are there a lot of open appointments? Are the referrals still coming in as they should? Is the phone ringing? Are the emails coming in - whatever way you get your referrals. Do you have a wait list? Are you worried about client numbers? 

So what are your client numbers like?  If you had to give it a rating, would you call it a problem, a weakness, a strength, or a superpower?  Those are the four ratings that I use when I look at the growth drivers. 

The second growth driver I want you to think about is your team, specifically your team capacity.  Team capacity could mean two things. Firstly, it could mean the number of clinicians that is the team that is there to do the billable work, because in private practice, that's how we earn money, that's how we get paid - by having clinicians doing billable work. That's where the money comes from. So do you have clinicians in your team to service the clients that you have and to fill the rooms?

The other part of team capacity: what is the capacity of those clinicians to actually do their work? Maybe you have enough clinicians, but they are not at the level of productivity that is really required. Maybe we are talking about admin team members - maybe you've got a full admin team, but they are also not functioning at the level of productivity and efficiency that you require.

So again, you want to ask yourself when it comes to your team capacity, would you rate that as a problem area, a weakness, a strength, or a superpower? Between me and you, of course, you want all these things to be superpowers or at the very least, a strength, right? And if it's a problem or a weakness that tells you it's something that you need to deal with.

The third growth driver I want you to think about is your systems. When I use the word systems, it's really that big word or overarching word for policies, processes, and procedures. Your systems are the frameworks that exist within your business. It is the scaffolding that holds it all together.

Again, you want to ask yourself: are the systems in my business a problem area, a weakness, a strength or superpower? In other words, do they exist? Are they documented? Are they regularly updated? Do the people in my business - my team - know where it is? Do they use it? Do they consult it? Do they understand it? Do they operate according to it? Based on your assessment of that, you want to give it the appropriate rating scale. 

The fourth growth driver I want you to think about is your cash flow. That is the flow of money coming in and out of your business. And ideally you want to have a positive cash flow. In other words, there's more money coming in than is going out, which is pretty straightforward, right? So again, you want to assess: is the cash flow in my business a problem, a weakness, a strength, or  a superpower. 

Finally, we want to look at profit. What is the profit like in your business? Are you actually making a profit or are you making a loss? Maybe you're just breaking even. If you are making a loss, how big is that loss? How significant is it? If you are making a profit, is it like five bucks, a hundred dollars, $500, $5,000, $50,000? $500,000? Only you can assess based on what you normally do in your business. So you need to ask yourself, is your profit a problem area, a weakness, a strength, or a superpower?

It's really important for you to know how your business is going across those growth drivers. Obviously, something that is a problem or a weakness needs to be addressed. If something is a strength or a superpower, it doesn't mean you now just let it go. And yes, I said earlier on, do not break something that's not broken.

What I also find is that when somebody has a growth driver - like let's say clients for example - that is doing really well, and it's like, oh, that's my superpower, Gerda. You know what tends to happen? They take their focus away from it, and they start working on the stuff that is a problem or weakness, and guess what happens in three months time?

Those things that were a superpower and a strength, all of a sudden it's become a weakness. Then they go, “We don't understand how this happened.” It's because they've not ensured that the stuff that is a superpower or strength becomes automated and systemised. It needs to be running by itself. 

You might have heard me talk about a self-running practice. A self-running practice requires a self-running system. So we need to always be putting self running systems in place to ensure that once a growth driver is above the line -  as I like to refer to it, where it is a strength or superpower - we don't divert our attention until we are a hundred percent certain that it'll stay there. That we've got processes, self-run processes and systems in place to make sure it stays there. But anyway, I digress. All I want you to do today is just assess, because this is a check-in of how you are travelling. 

Next, I want you to ask yourself: how am I traveling with these? Have things improved in those areas over the last six months? Have things stagnated over the last six months? Have things worsened despite my best efforts? Because six months in business is a short time, but it's also a long time.

The Importance of having the Right Plan and the Right Tools 

In six months, things should have improved - if you had a plan (the right plan for your business), and you've implemented it using the right tools, i.e., strategies and tactics, it should have improved. 

The thing is, you can be busy with stuff and strategies that sound really awesome and fancy - but if it's not the right strategy for your level of business, you are not going to get the results that you are after.  It is so super important to have the right next thing for your practice, then using the right strategy for the right level of private practice development that you are at - that is what helps you move forward, and not keeping you stuck - hitting your head on the freaking glass ceiling of private practice growth.

So yes, this is some loving accountability. My goal today is to help you get your head out of the potential sand - there goes another metaphor Gerda - for you to walk back out of the burning building, for you to get out of the weeds of operations, and go sit on the mountain and assess where things are at - let's get honest with myself.

Why just Working Harder is not the Answer

You know what we tend to do? We just go, I'm just going to work harder, do more hours, go in on weekends and just work harder. But working harder, nine out of ten times,  isn't the answer. And yes, we all know about the saying - don't work harder, work smarter.

But sometimes we think we are working smarter, and we are not. Because you need to know what the smarter is for your business, at the size of your business, at the time of your business. A lot of times people just do things for the sake of feeling productive. 

We’re feeding that anxiety monster. Because at the end of the day, let's be honest, it's often driven by anxiety - which really is fear. Fear of failure. Because many of us have put everything on the line for our private practice business. We have sacrificed. We have sacrificed time with our kids, our husbands, our wives, our families. We give up so much. And we can't afford this to fail. Which means a lot of time our thinking - and therefore our behaviour - is driven by keeping that anxiety monster at bay, that fear at bay. By feeling like I'm doing all of these things, it helps me feel better in the moment. 

But at the end of the day, I want success for you. I want each and every one of you to be able to build a practice you can't stop smiling about to build. A practice that can run in your absence - if that is what you want. That practice that gives you choice and real freedom - that thing that we are all chasing -  it's there. It is available to you. But there's a pathway to getting there. So please don't forget that this is exactly what I am here to help you do.

I's why I started Private Practice Success Australia. To teach and help other practice owners avoid the mistakes that I've made. Because it is hard and you know, I've had to learn the hard way through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and it can be easier. Honestly, you do not need to do this alone, and it doesn't have to be this hard.

You deserve support as the business owner. I know how you are. You will be the first one to invest in your team with its admin or clinicians. You will give the last dollar in your budget for your team. But I really want to encourage you to say yes to also supporting yourself as the business owner.

Only you can say yes to that - not your team. If you ask them, they would say, “Yes, of course you should do it. Yes, of course you should get business coaching, mentoring, consulting, whatever it is that you need - why wouldn't you do it?” But we think we don't deserve it, and that other people need to come first, and all of this keeps you stuck. 

The question to you today is this: are you going to accept some help? And do you want my help with it? I'm asking you straight up - do you want my help? Because I am here and I can help. 

Now, I'm not the only person that does this in the Australian allied health industry. There are quite a number of business coaches, mentors, and consultants for you to choose from. And I would encourage you to choose someone. I would love it to be me. I'm putting up my hand and saying that I am here - willing, ready, and able to help and support you. But it doesn't have to be with me.  If I'm not your cup of tea - go and find your cup of tea - but have the freaking cup of tea. (And there goes another metaphor - thank you for your metaphor patience today). But get the help that you need. 

If you are interested in hearing how you could work with me, there is a link in the show notes of this episode that takes you to a triage form. It is a short form where I ask you a couple of questions so that I can get some extra information about your business. Based on that, I can get back to you and tell you exactly how I can help. 

If you give me that information and I go, “Oh, I don't think I'm the right person.” Guess what? - I know a lot of other people in this space. I will point you in the right direction and I will go, “Okay I think given this is your specific challenge, so and so will be a better option for you,” and I will direct you to somebody that can help you, because my goal is for you to get the help you need. 

And if you don't want to do a form, that's perfectly fine. Flick me an email. It is gerdam@private-practice-success.com. I really look forward to hearing from you. 

Thank you so very much for tuning in. I truly hope that this midyear checkup and check in was of help. And remember, I'm here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about. 😊

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Gerda Muller

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