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How to Avoid the Groundhog Day Syndrome in Chiropractic and Healthcare

Writer's picture: Ed PettyEd Petty

Updated: Feb 4

The real cause of burnout in chiropractic and healthcare practices.


(From the movie GROUNDHOG DAY)


Imagine you were graduating from high school and looking forward to college. It is spring and you are called into the principal’s office, who tells you that you must do your senior year over again.

 

Deflated and unhappy, you agree because the principal said it is for your family. And so, you do the 12th year again. When it is time to graduate again, a year later, the principal calls you into her office and says that, for your family, you must retake the 12th grade.

 

And so, over and over, year after year, you must do 12th grade again.

 

This is your life in practice. Same questions from patients, same issues with office management and marketing, same bills to be paid. Like digging a ditch that never ends.


GROUNDHOG DAY

You can’t do the same thing forever, like in the movie “Groundhog Day.” In it, the main character visits a town in Pennsylvania where everyone watches to see if a groundhog can see its shadow. This is traditionally on February 2.


The only problem is, for this character, the day keeps repeating and repeating, the same routines each day. It never ends! It drives the character to suicide, but even that doesn’t work.


CYCLES

Life works in cycles. Each year in Wisconsin, the leaves turn orange, and then the snow falls. But by June the strawberries are red and ready for the pickin’ again. Every month, we see the full moon. Each day, we see the sunrise—if it isn’t cloudy.


The sun sets on each day, and with it so should your workday end. Business has its own cycles—days, weeks, months, and years. Not all cycles are tied to the calendar. You hire a new provider, and a new era begins for your business. You accomplish certain goals and are ready to graduate from one stage to another.


GAMES

The natural cycle of events is an essential factor in what is called Gamification. Games have been part of human behavior since the beginning; the Olympics started in 776 BCE. With the advent of computer games, design elements are engineered to make the game fun and challenging and to offer rewards for levels completed. Each level is a new cycle.


In business, there are big cycles that last for a few years, and then there are truly short ones that last a day, a week, and a month. If you find yourself bored in your chiropractic or healthcare practice, or tired, or stressed, if your business is declining, it may be time to re-evaluate what you are doing – you may have ‘won” the game you were playing and have long since been ready to move up to another level.



SOMETHING BETTER AND SOMETHING NEW

I have seen two types of strategies to avoid what I call the Groundhog Day Syndrome and keep your business fresh, fun and new.


  1. Creating a fun theme for the New Year. With your team, come up with a theme, like a New Year’s resolution, that is in alignment with your mission and vision. For example:

a. “Stronger bodies, stronger lives.” Work on quarterly or monthly activities for patients and staff to exercise more. Support local run-walks, parades, and gyms.

b. “Give more, help more.” Work out quarterly activities for patients and staff to volunteer. Sponsor donation programs.


  1. Improvement. Constantly, obsessively work on improving services, outcomes, and overall performance. This is always a game, and it is your most important one. Each month… how we can improve what we do? Plan seminars and training programs in and out of the office to improve skills. Enroll in our Practice MBA training program!


Those of you who have my book, the Goal Driven Business, can find more about this on pages 213 and 264, Goal Driven Principle #17, Goals, Games, Groundhog Day.


The year is still new. Seize it and set new goals and play… for the first time.


Ed


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If your practice-building efforts aren’t taking you to your goals, there are reasons -- many of which are hidden from you.


Find out what they are and how to sail to your next level by getting and implementing my book, The Goal Driven Business.


goal driven business www.goaldriven.com

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