The Keys to Goal Achievement in Chiropractic and Healthcare Business

No One Said it Creating a Successful Business Would Be Easy!

The keys to achieving goals in your chiropractic practice are simple.

Not easy — but simple.

Even when you use the right keys — the fundamental elements required to achieve your goals — there is no guarantee the process will be fast or painless.

But if you don’t use these keys, I can guarantee something else:

Your road to business will be harder, more frustrating, and your chances of achieving your goals will lessen.

I cover this in my book, the Goal Driven Business. I call it the Goals Achievement Process – or GAP, as it closes the gap between you and your goals.

This is true whether your goal is:

• Improving your patients’ outcomes

• Filling your appointment schedule

• Generating more new patients

• Building a stronger chiropractic practice team

• Or simply having more fun in practice

So, what are these keys?

We can break it down to 6 core elements. See if these make sense to you:

1. A Clear Goal. You must define what success looks like in specific, measurable terms. Vague goals produce vague results. I recommend 3-month goals as 3 months gives you time to make adjustments.

2. A Compelling Purpose (Your WHY). A meaningful reason that makes the goal worth the effort, especially when it gets uncomfortable.

3. A Plan of Action. A practical strategy broken into steps that can realistically be executed in the real world of a busy practice. This is how (not why) you are going to achieve your goals.

4. Accountability & Feedback. Regular measurement and review that forces honesty about what’s working — and what isn’t.

5. Consistency Over Time. Repeated execution, even when motivation dips or distractions increase.

6. Course Correction. The ability to adjust the plan without abandoning the goal.

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT?

Now, which of these are most important?

In my experience, two rise above the rest.

The WHY

Your WHY is what keeps you in the game, pulls you through, and pushes you along on those long days. Without a strong WHY, your goals move into the distance as you deal with daily urgencies.

When you are strong with your why, you find a way.

But purpose alone isn’t enough.

Like driving in the fog, the urgencies take you down different roads and back alleys. Months later, you find you are where you started.

That brings us to the second — and often missing — key:

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability is the brutally honest accounting of where you are on the path to your goals.

It is a mirror.

It’s a dashboard.

It’s the game film of your performance — reviewed calmly after the game, with a coach, not in the heat of emotion.

Accountability removes guessing and replaces it with reality.

It shows you what is actually happening, not what you hope is happening or intend to fix later. Numbers don’t argue. Trends don’t negotiate. They simply report.

Accountability says: This is yours -- for better or worse.

It confers ownership.

No excuses. No blaming circumstances. No waiting for motivation.

And this is what creates freedom.

When accountability is clear and consistent, you don’t need someone else to be your boss. You become your own. You gain self-determination — the ability to make decisions, adjust course, and stay in control of outcomes rather than reacting to them.

Next week, I’ll share practical, simple, and pretty cool tools that have worked in all types of chiropractic offices – large, small, straight, and the “we’ve got a therapy for that” team! (lol)

And however you roll, Thank You for all the great work you do.

Let’s help more people and stay…Goal Driven.

Ed Petty