Episode Companion Guide
Why You Feel Anxious Every Morning in Private Practice
This episode is about the anxious, chest-tight feeling that turns up the moment you sit down to work in your private practice, even on a good day. I walk through why it happens, what it usually has nothing to do with, and the five steps I use to get myself back on track when it hits.
01
The Butterfly Feeling
Why anxiety turns up before you've even started work.
02
It's the Story, Not the Skill
What's really behind "I don't know how."
03
The Yes/No Check-In
One question that cuts through the busywork.
04
The Five-Step Reset
My process for getting back on track.
05
Build Beyond the Practice
What your business is for, beyond the practice itself.
The Butterfly Feeling
The chest-tightening moment before you've even started work
Working for someone else
Known hours, known KPIs, predictable structure, no self-doubt on the way to the desk.
Working for yourself
The computer boots up and the butterflies arrive before the first task even starts.
- I describe it as tingling in the chest or butterflies in the stomach the second the computer boots up, sometimes needing the toilet for the twenty-seventh time.
- You don't need to be neurodivergent to feel this. I don't think it's a hallmark of neurodivergence, I think a lot of business owners can experience it.
- When I was employed and delivering contracts for other people, this feeling never showed up, I knew exactly what was expected of me and when.
- Working for myself, in the phases where I don't have the direction, the guardrails, or the plan, the butterflies come straight back.
- I noticed it again the very morning I recorded this episode, sitting in a brand new study surrounded by everything I love, and the feeling still turned up.
Takeaway
Anxiety before work isn't proof something is wrong with you, it usually means the direction is missing, not the discipline.
It's the Story, Not the Skill
What's really behind "I don't know how"
- I don't and won't accept overwhelmed, stuck, or I can't do this as accurate answers, because in my experience they are almost never true.
- I compare it to a client hearing your fee and saying "I have to think about it," when they don't have to think about it at all, they already wanted to work with you.
- Saying "I don't know how" often comes out so fast it doesn't even take a second, which tells me it's a way to calm the nervous system rather than a genuine information gap.
- The excuses stack up in clusters: the sister saying you don't know the tech, the brother saying you don't know how to connect the payment system, the cousin bringing up surcharges, all the way to the aunties and uncles asking who's going to buy from someone in her fifties who's only been doing this twenty-seven years.
- My advice is to get curious instead of accepting the story: ask why you're telling yourself this, what the payoff is, and how it's keeping you safe, and how it isn't.
Takeaway
The excuse that comes out fastest is rarely the truest one, it's usually your nervous system talking.
The Yes/No Check-In
One question that cuts through the busywork
- My framework: if you say yes to this, what are you then saying no to, or flip it and ask what you're saying yes to if you say no.
- My own example: saying yes to making free resources for the community on Skool might mean saying yes to fun and dopamine, but no to the clients, the visibility, and the income I want most.
- Flip it the other way and saying yes to two-minute noodles instead of a proper dinner is really saying yes to more anxiety and things taking longer to get moving.
- This works as a quick gut check I run on myself whenever I notice I'm drifting toward the easy, safe, or fun task instead of the one that's uncomfortable but important.
Takeaway
Every yes to the easy task is a no to something else, ask yourself which one you want more.
The Five-Step Reset
My process for getting back on track
- Step one is notice: catch the butterfly feeling and ask yourself what you're anxious about right now.
- Step two is check in, using the yes/no framework from the last section to see what the anxiety is protecting you from doing.
- Step three is identify the obstacle, which is almost always a story or belief sitting underneath the excuse, not a genuine skills gap.
- Step four is do the work to clear it, in whatever way processes things for you, I talk it out on walks and podcasts, or write it down, and the method has to fit how your own brain works.
- Step five is get back on track, and the feeling might come back for a different reason, so the same five steps can simply run again.
- Stories rarely show up alone, so clearing one obstacle doesn't mean the anxiety is gone for good, it just means it's time to run the process again on whatever's underneath.
Takeaway
Notice it, check in, find the story, clear it, then get back to work, and repeat the moment it shows up again.
Build Beyond the Practice
What your business is for, beyond the practice itself
- The answer can't just be "to help people," since that is the socially acceptable line everyone has been taught to give rather than the true reason underneath.
- My own example: this year my business has been in service of spaciousness in my new home, and lately, self-control.
- My question for you: what's on the other side of a thriving private practice, does it mean you never have to take a job at Bunnings again, or that you can finally take everyone on a holiday to Greece.
- The money and the business both need a home, a reason they exist, so you can reverse engineer what the business needs to do to get you there.
- With just a handful of days left in the quarter when I recorded this, I frame it as a clear choice point: decide how you want to feel by the end of the year, then work backwards from there.
Takeaway
The practice is a vehicle, decide what you want on the other side of it, then build backwards from there.