The Private Practice Success Podcast

54. How Smart Practice Owners Plan their Year & Why They do it in January

• Gerda Muller • Episode 54

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In Episode 54, Gerda reveals why January - not December - is the secret weapon for smart, sustainable business planning in private practice. She shares her own experience of ditching frazzled “December brain” for the clarity and creativity that only a well-rested January can bring.

You’ll discover why most practice owners start the year already behind, how reaction mode keeps you stuck, and why planning all by yourself rarely works. Instead, Gerda recommends and unpacks the power of a facilitated, intentional planning process - one that’s realistic, energising, and designed for the unique rhythms of allied health.

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

  • Why January is the best time to plan your year and how a rested brain leads to better business decisions.
  • The dangers of starting the year in reaction mode and how to break the cycle.
  • How to design a year that’s intentional, aligned, and actually executable (no more wishful thinking or burnout).

Who This Episode Is For:

  • Allied health practice owners who want to lead their year, not chase it.
  • Business owners tired of repeating the same patterns and ready for real change.
  • Anyone craving more clarity, structure, and support as they map out a successful, sustainable year ahead.

Tune in for a practical, honest, and inspiring conversation that will help you start your year with purpose and in turn build a practice you can’t stop smiling about.

>> REGISTER for the 2026 Blueprint Planning Session HERE <<


Connect with Private Practice Success & Gerda here:

 Well, hello there amazing private practice owner. My name is Gerda Muller, and you are listening to the Private Practice Success Podcast, and this is episode number 54. 

Today I want to talk to you about: How Smart Practice Owners Plan their Year (and why they do it in January). Now I am a big believer in starting your year with intention, clarity, and a plan that actually gets you to where you want to go. That means that we most certainly need to talk about January, not because it's the start of a new year, but because January is that one time of the year when your nervous system finally exhales. 

Because if you do what most practice owners do, you would've had an opportunity to step away from your business. You've probably closed the practice doors for at least a couple of days, maybe even a full week, maybe even a full two, three weeks. So you've stepped away from your business, you've caught up on some sleep, you've watched a lot of Netflix and you've had long lunches.

If you are like my household, you would've watched a lot of cricket - he Ashes Boxing Day test. You finally had a moment to be human again - maybe for the first time in many, many months - and that is exactly why January is the only time that you should be doing your annual planning. Not in December. Not sometime during the year when things start to quieten down - January.

December Brain VS January Brain

This is when we want to plan for our here ahead, because there is this thing that I like to refer to as: December brain versus January brain, and I've experienced this first hand.

For the first couple of years of being in my own business, I tried to do what everybody else was doing and telling me to do, and that was to plan for the new year in December. And I would sit there frazzled and exhausted with a half dead brain and a to-do list, the freaking size of Perth (No offense, Perth), and every year the same thing would happen. I would either just rush through it because it's something I had to tick off my list, or I would just procrastinate and ultimately avoid getting it done. I'm going to admit that that was what I did. On the odd occasion that I actually sat down and did it, what I planned out wasn't really something to be proud of, because I did it whilst frazzled and exhausted. And then I changed one thing, one tiny little thing because I realised what I was doing wasn't working for me. One year I just had to realise that I can't keep on going like I was, so I moved my planning session to the second week of January. 

After I'd squeezed every last drop out of December, I went, let's just use December to carry through that momentum to the day I walk out of the practice and close the doors. Then I'm going to go on holiday, I’m going to sleep and have lots of naps, reconnect with my kids, go to the beach, remember what fresh air feels like, and I'm going to come back in January and plan then.  And guess what? Everything changed. My thinking became clearer and my goals were very realistic, but my vision became even bigger, but still doable - and finally my plans became executable.

It wasn't because it was “new year, new me”. It was simply that a well-rested Gerda makes better decisions than the exhausted December Gerda. And that might also apply to you of course.

Why Most Practice Owners Start the Year already Behind

Here's the truth that no one tells private practice owners:most of us start our year,  our new calendar year already behind. Not because you are doing something wrong on purpose, but just because given the nature of our industry, December can be really chaotic. January for a lot of people is full of anxiety about cashflow. You're probably spending a lot of December and even January catching up on admin. Your kids are on holidays - and we love having them on holidays for the first two weeks - but geez, you know how long the holidays are? My son is home for eight weeks, and I love him, I love him so much, but that's a long time when you still need to run a business. 

And then you've got your team away. Maybe, you're back in January, but clients, even though they might have booked and said yes, they're coming - don't show up. And you are already trying to fix problems before you've even asked that bigger question of “Where am I actually trying to go this year with this business?”

So you might feel like you get back to the new year, open the doors in January, and you feel like I'm hitting the ground running. But the problem is, a lot of people are running in the wrong direction. And when you do that, your year becomes this blur of just reacting to stuff. Just having to consistently problem solve, putting out fires the whole time, juggling staff, constantly being driven to just fill diaries, do marketing, marketing, marketing, and then managing cash flow. Surviving another school holiday that’s here before you know it - freaking April School holidays. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Or managing waitlists, or a lack thereof. And just hoping, continuing to hope that things are going to settle soon, stabilise. “Between me and you” if you've been doing this thing called running an allied health private practice for more than a year, you're probably going to realise that things rarely settle, do they? Because if you don't start the year with clarity, you know what happens? The year will just take the reins and it'll start deciding for you, and that is when you end up burnt out - not in December - September is when you are already feeling the burn. Resentful, overwhelmed, consistently stuck in the weeds, consistently losing money or just treading water instead of growing. 

It's not because of a lack of motivation or lack of discipline, because you've never stepped into the driver's seat. You started the year without a good plan. A plan written with a January brain instead of a December brain. You didn't have the thinking space to properly design the here you actually want. I don't know about you, but I don't want that, and I don't want that for you.

Why Planning in January Works

The month of January, honestly, it gives you something no other time of year can. You know what that is? I've already alluded to it: it's a rested, regulated nervous system. When you have that, you are not making fear-based decisions. Instead, you can think creatively, even though maybe if you are like me, I don't think I'm a creative person, I've always judged myself as not being creative because I can't draw or paint to save my life. But you know what? You don't have to be artistic to be creative in business. But if you don't have a rested brain, you can't be creative.

When you can step into creativity within business, you're going to be open to way more possibilities to a bigger vision, to a greater expansion. And when I use those words, I'm not saying add another 10 clinicians, okay, let me just make that clear. There's a lot of different definitions of what possibility, vision, and expansion can mean to you as a practice owner. The other thing it allows you to do is to engage in more realistic thinking, because you want to be grounded, not reactive. But you also want to think really clearly where you can actually zoom out and see that bigger picture of why it is that you're doing this and where you are going.

This combination of feeling rested, being grounded, and being more creative -  that is exactly what you need in order to design a year that is going to move you truly forward, instead of just repeating the same old freaking pattern. I know it probably doesn't feel like that in January because everybody's on this new year wave, but if you are really honest with yourself, what has actually changed? What has actually changed for you over the last 12 months? Were you still where you were exactly last year this time? Still struggling with the same problems. If that is the case for you, that's a big red flag, and I need you - I encourage you to please pay attention to that. Do not ignore red flags, do not ignore your intuition - that's the stuff you need to trust. 

That is why I do my own business planning in January. It's why I run my annual Blueprint Planning Session with my Private Practice Success Academy Members in January. I feel so strongly about the importance of doing that Blueprint Planning Session, that, that is one of a very few events (well, if I think about it, it is one of two events that I run for my paying clients that I do mentoring and coaching consulting with) that I actually open up and give tickets to members of the public. Because I feel it is such an important day on your calendar as a business owner.

Because when you spend that time with other like-minded practice owners and a like-minded business coach, and therefore facilitator like myself - you don't get to just kick off the year, you actually get to design your year, and you design it with intentionality.  Take it from me, that makes all the difference.  I'm hopeful that I have by now managed to convince you as to why January is a great month for doing your planning.

Why Planning Alone Doesn't Work

Next I want to talk to you about why planning, and doing that process all by yourself, doesn't work. Because the thing is this, I speak to a lot of practice owners and a lot of them tell me,  ‘Gerda, I'll just do my planning by myself. I'm an introvert. I need thinking and reflecting time.’ Or, ‘You know what? I'm just going to block out a day, and I'm going to get it done.’ Or ‘I'm going to write down some goals.’ Or ‘I'm so freaking busy, but when I get a free moment and I find an hour in my diary, I will do it then.’ And my question to them always is: “How did this work out for you last time, you tried to do it this way?” Because here's what actually happens, and they admit this to me, what happens? We get distracted or you get stuck, or you get overwhelmed. 

There's all these fires that you need to put out. Or you start doing admin instead of planning, because it's something easy and you feel good about getting it ticked off your list. Or a staff member all of a sudden needs additional support, or your clients cancel, or someone emails you, and before you know it, the day that you were planning to do your planning, is gone. Or if you actually manage to spend some time on it, it's just these little notes in a messy list in a notebook somewhere that you never look at again.

So trying to plan out your year on your own doesn't work, because first and foremost, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what should come first a lot of the time. I'm not saying you don't know your own business, but a lot of times we can't see, is it the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest? I can never get this flipping metaphor right, but you know what I'm saying. Because you don't get objective feedback from somebody else and none of us, even me, okay. I'm not special, I can't see my own blind spots. You can't see your own blind spots. We need somebody to point it out for us. 

A lot of times we also underestimate the time that things are going to take. And a lot of times, and again, I'm always speaking out of experience here, right? We just get stuck inside our own heads. And I'm very, very guilty of it. And when I get stuck inside my own head, I just go around in circles. It's why I still do business coaching myself. I need outside eyes on my business, because a lot of times we are just too close to it, we can't see these things. So it is so important to have somebody that can tell you, Okay, stop. Let's just step back here for a moment. Let's just look at the bigger picture. And that is the value that you get from having a facilitated planning process.

When you have a good facilitator (like me, wink, wink), it does three things for you. First you actually think bigger - not in a chaotic, think bigger way - but in a strategic way. Secondly, it helps you to think clearer, because you can now sift through the noise and find clarity. In my world, in the Private Practice Success Academy, we always talk about the right next thing for you and your business, and knowing what that is for your business. Given your Level of Private Practice Development, given your season of life, given your individual constraints in your world. What is right for you? And then thirdly, it helps you turn your ideas, because I know you have got a lot of ideas into real plans. Not vague goals, actual plans that you can follow through on. 

I can tell you the number of practice owners who've told me, ‘Gerda, if I realised one thing in the Blueprint Planning Session, it is that I'm never going to plan on my own ever again.’ And that is a really big insight, and it's probably the best insight that anybody's ever shared with me when it comes to my Blueprint Planning Session. And people do share a lot of insights with me and I absolutely love to receive those. I'm just sitting here thinking of somebody that did share something that really stood out for me at the start of this year when we did the 2025 Blueprint Planning Session. We'll just call her Bree; I'm just making up this name.

Bree came into the Blueprint Planning Session feeling very scattered. She told me that her recruitment wasn't working. Her admin systems were really shaky. Her cash flow was unpredictable, and the diary of her team was like all over the place and she kept saying, I know what to do, Gerda, but I just can't get myself organised enough to do it consistently. During the session, her realisation/her big takeaway was that she'd been running her business on reaction mode for the last two years. Just reacting, reacting, reacting. And my response to her was, ‘Well, no wonder you're feeling behind, okay. No wonder when something pops up, it feels twice as big as what it really is, because you've been stuck in reaction mode for all this time. No wonder following a recruitment process feels so exhausting, because you've been in reaction mode. Reaction mode is like operating with the switch on the whole time, you never get to switch off, no wonder you are on the brink of burnout. And when you are reacting the whole time, you never have that opportunity to step back and reflect, analyse, prioritise, plan, schedule, implement.’

So Bree, in her situation, was trying to build a business, while standing inside a business that felt like it was constantly on fire. Let that sink in for a minute. Because that is what it feels like for a lot of practice owners, maybe even for you. I always send a follow up email to people that attend the blueprint planning session and ask them how they're traveling. And she emailed me back and she said, ‘Gerda, for the first time ever, I feel like I am leading the year at the practice, instead of chasing it. I feel like I've finally stepped into being the leader. I've stopped chasing, and I've started leading. And you know what happened for her? 

Her recruitment turned around. Her team stabilised. Her confidence multiplied by a hundred. Her decision making improved, and her whole practice/her business calmed down, while still growing. Not because she became a different person, but because she planned differently. She decided to do her planning differently, and she allowed me to walk her through that process, and I always take it as such a big honour being the one to help practice owners with that. So a lot of people actually come to the Blueprint Planning Session and they never become a paying client of mine, but they show up every year, year after year. I call them my Blueprint Planning Session alumni. Because that is what they are, they just come and they show up, and then I'll only see them again next year in 12 months’ time, and I'm cool with that. 

I'm happy if that's the only touch point I have and I get to make a difference in their world, I'm incredibly happy with that. Obviously, a lot of people come to the Blueprint Planning session and go, ‘That was really amazing, Gerda. Now I need your help with implementing this plan and executing it. I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel. I want to use your resources. I want to have your accountability,’ and they decide to stick around. But you don't need to do that. Yes, that's an option, but just being there in that virtual room will still make a huge difference to your 2026, I can guarantee you that.

Needless to say, this is your official invitation to join me at the 2026 Blueprint Planning Session. But I want to be clear that my Blueprint Planning Session is not about fluffy vision boards. It is not about setting a hundred goals for the next calendar year. It's not about unrealistic expectations. It is not about complicated strategy because that feels important somehow. And it's not a bunch of motivational hype that's going to fade in two weeks’ time.

What I do with people that attend, I really ensure that you get reflection time. We want to do a deep reflection of the year we just had. Then we want to step into strategic clarity about what's right for your individual business. We are going to have structure around all of that. We are going to make sure that when we plan, yes, we are going to think big, but we are still going to be realistic, okay? And we are going to make intentional decisions together. And then you're going to choose the highest impact actions for your business. Stuff that's going to truly move the needle, not just keep you busy, but it's going to help you achieve that vision that you have for your business over the year that is 2026.

In a nutshell, the entire process is going to guide you to understand what's going to move the needle of progress for your business. It's going to allow you to let go of anything that drains your time, your energy, your money. Going to make sure that we build capacity around achieving those goals for you and your leadership team. We map out your here with the least amount of overwhelm. Because it's so freaking easy to get overwhelmed. Now, I'm going to be honest here, I also don't want you to be underwhelmed, okay? Because that would be really disappointing. 

We don't want overwhelm, but we also don't want underwhelm. We want the right level of whelm that's going to make you excited to run this business, because business inherently is challenging. So we want to make it fun, and that's why we need to have the January brain so that we can think creatively and clearly and realistically. Because at the end of the day, what I want for you, and because really that's what I want for my business, both my group private practices, including my business that is private practice Success Australia, that is also a business, right? It is a really, really great business to have. But I want sustainable growth in all of my businesses, and I want to know that whatever plan I devise is one that I can execute, okay. And that is what we're going to be doing. You'll be doing it with me guiding you every step of the way. 

Because here's what I know for sure, you cannot build a thriving self-running practice on wishful thinking or good intentions alone, and you can't get that by just working more hours. Working more hours, doing the wrong things isn’t going to get you there. What you need is real clarity, the right strategy, an intentional plan, making smart decisions, and then consistently implementing those plans that you've made. But clarity doesn't just appear on the 1st of January or whenever you open your doors. You have to create it. And you create it best when you are rested, AKA, after your December holidays. You create it best when you are supported in doing it, AKA, come and join me, let me support you with it, and when you are guided through a process. And the cherry on the cake - when you're surrounded by other practice owners doing the exact same thing, cheerleading you from the sides (yes, it might be in a virtual zoom room), but it's still so much better than doing it by yourself.

So if you truly want your 2026 to be different - and what you want from the year is going to be different for everyone -  It might be more revenue, more profit, more cash flow, just more flow in how you do things. Or maybe for you it's more structure, is it more support, more balance, more harmony? Maybe for you, you want less overwhelm, less reactivity, less guessing, less chaos - all of that. You get to decide whether you achieve that, and it starts with how you step into the year. 

So if you've been listening to this episode and you're thinking, ‘Yes, this is exactly what I freaking need!’ Then again, this is your personal invite to join me for the 2026 Blueprint Planning Session. It's happening on the 9th of January. It starts at 11:00 AM Australian Eastern standard time, that is Queensland time, and I ask you to avail yourself for three hours okay? That's actually not a lot. But for three hours, we are going to be spending time together to do what I've just explained to you, so give yourself that day. It's a single, powerful, transformative, three hours to design the year that you actually want to have - clarity, direction, and a plan where you get to sit in the driver's seat. 

To get the link, go to the show notes. I'll pop the link for all the details in there for you, and grab yourself a ticket. Let's make 2026 the year that you finally stop reacting, and start leading your business. 

Thank you so very much for tuning in. And as always, remember that I am here to help you build a practice you can't stop smiling about.  😊

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Gerda Muller

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