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8 | Identifying your Core Values
When you're in practice, identifying your core values helps you stay aligned with your highest intention.
One of the things I do regularly - at least every year or two - is revisit my statements about what I do and who I serve/my "ideal clients."
I find that this is a helpful practice, but it's not quite enough.
It's also important to think about the WAY you do what you do. I find that this stems from your core values: the things that are most important to you as a person and a practitioner.
It can be tricky to identify these, but once you do it is extremely helpful in writing and speaking about what you do.
When you're clear about this, you can more easily help your clients identify whether you'd be a good fit for them.
In this episode, I share a reflection question that helped me identify my core values.
I hope it helps you as well.
Learn more about the Roots course if you're just getting started. It will help you get your ducks in a row before opening your doors (website, insurance, business banking, etc). Start anytime 💚
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Transcript
(00:03)
Hi, everyone. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share reflections on being in clinical practice, including things about growing and building your practice. Right now, I am hard at work on my Roots course, which is a course all about the foundations of practice, setting up all your forms, your insurance, your website, your mailing list, all of that.
(00:33)
And one of the first things that we're doing and of course, this is one of the first things that we should all do any time we start a business of any kind, including a clinical practice, is to think about what we do, to get really clear on what exactly we do. And who our ideal clients are. Who are we aiming to support or serve? And this is a great exercise. There's a number of different free worksheets and resources on how to do these things.
(01:03)
But I think it's also important when you are in practice or when you're thinking about your practice, to also go through how you do what you do, what is different about the way that you do this thing compared to other people? So a lot of this draws on our core values, so what is most important to you. And this bleeds over into your general approach to life, to being alive. What are the most important things to you as they show up in your practice?
(01:39)
So there can be dozens or even hundreds of people who all, for example, serve perimenopausal clients who are having a difficult transition and need some relief with herbs and nutrition, let's just say. That is a great start at summarizing what you do and identifying a target population and so forth. But it's also important to think about, well, how do you do it? What's different about the way that you do this and where are you coming from when you do it?
(02:08)
So, for example, somebody who does the same thing and they're like my key core value is environmental sustainability, that when we use herbal approaches we can lighten our burden on the earth. And everything that I do is centered around how you can be more tuned in to the Earth and more sustainable in your practices. And another person might have a spiritual approach, they might be looking at some of the spiritual transitions that people go through, rethinking your, you know, big picture in life and so forth.
(02:42)
So there's all kinds of different angles that people can take. And one of the hardest things when you are a new practitioner or when you're re-evaluating the work that you do, as I find that I do at least every year or two, if not more often, sometimes one of the hardest things to do is to really hone in on what is really important to me.
(03:01)
What are the key things that are my core values. And I recently heard just a sentence that someone said, and I really wish I could remember who, this opened this up for me. It really made something shift in my mind.
(03:19)
So I thought I would share it here. For those of you who may be undergoing the same type of process. And the question that was posed was in order to identify your core values or the things that are most important to you in practice or in life, think about the things that irritate you the most that are most likely to get you upset or to have you feeling like, no, I would never work with that person or that's absolutely not a good fit.
(03:46)
And that emotion, that sensation is going to point you right toward something that's really, really important to you. And I'll give you an example. A few years ago, maybe five years ago, now that I think about it, I was doing some work on my practice and I signed up for one of these free webinars that people offer. And this one, I forget exactly what it was on. It may have been even on finding your ideal client and getting to know your ideal client and some worksheets on that, that kind of thing.
(04:17)
That was interesting that I was in that phase of the cycle of running a practice and I signed up for this webinar and it happened to be, I don't know, 7:00 p.m. on Friday night when I signed up for it, because I am a mother of small children and I don't do exciting things on Friday night.
(04:35)
Instead, I take webinars about building your practice.
(04:38)
So anyway, I signed up for this webinar and it came up with a thing like, would you like to start at seven fifteen, seven thirty or forty five? And I was like, well seven forty five. I clicked it. I go to this webinar Friday night at seven forty five pm and I get on there and there are like forty five participants on the list and it becomes very clear to me that this is a prerecorded webinar and all of these forty five names other than mine are fake.
(05:06)
They are just there to make it seem like this webinar is really well attended, and I'm almost certain that I was the only person there actually going through in real time watching the webinar, and I don't mind watching a recorded webinar. I'm fine with a recorder webinar. I understand. I offer recorded webinars myself on my website.
(05:26)
But the idea that someone would pretend that it wasn't prerecorded and add fake audience members in order to manipulate my emotions and make me feel like this is a really popular thing was extremely repulsive to me. And in fact, I would never purchase something from this particular individual, even though a lot of the things that they do resonate with me. And I kind of think that I might buy if I hadn't had this experience. And that really helped me hone in on a core value of mine, which is authenticity and honesty.
(06:03)
I don't want to feel like I'm manipulating people and I don't want to intentionally mislead people in order to get them to sign up to work with me at some level. And that was really clarifying. It helps me refine what I was doing when I was crafting my own philosophy. And when I think about how I want to promote the work that I'm doing. So I invite you to think about some of the things that really irritate you when you come across them -
(06:36)
It probably isn't the same things that irritate me - and to reflect on those as a way to identify your core beliefs or values that are things you really want to highlight in your promotional materials, you want to look through that lens and make sure that what you're doing feels really good and in line with the things that are most important. So I hope that was helpful to you as well. I actually really love to know if you have an example of something like this where something really bothers you in your own work with someone else.
(07:08)
Maybe it's not feeling listened to, or maybe it's feeling rushed, or maybe it's feeling like somebody is trying to be, you know, more smart or intelligent than they are, or anything like that. I would really love to know. Feel free to leave a comment, camillefreeman.com. You can just go to the In the Clinic website and leave your comment there, or you could just email me. I would love to hear from you, and if you'd like to join the Roots class, if you happen to be in the beginning part of setting up your clinical practice, please come join us.
(07:43)
Just camillefreeman.com/roots. You can find more about it. We are in Early Bird registration right now, and I'd love to have you join us. All right. Take care.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman. I'm a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share reflections on being in clinical practice, including things about growing and building your practice. Right now, I am hard at work on my Roots course, which is a course all about the foundations of practice, setting up all your forms, your insurance, your website, your mailing list, all of that.
(00:33)
And one of the first things that we're doing and of course, this is one of the first things that we should all do any time we start a business of any kind, including a clinical practice, is to think about what we do, to get really clear on what exactly we do. And who our ideal clients are. Who are we aiming to support or serve? And this is a great exercise. There's a number of different free worksheets and resources on how to do these things.
(01:03)
But I think it's also important when you are in practice or when you're thinking about your practice, to also go through how you do what you do, what is different about the way that you do this thing compared to other people? So a lot of this draws on our core values, so what is most important to you. And this bleeds over into your general approach to life, to being alive. What are the most important things to you as they show up in your practice?
(01:39)
So there can be dozens or even hundreds of people who all, for example, serve perimenopausal clients who are having a difficult transition and need some relief with herbs and nutrition, let's just say. That is a great start at summarizing what you do and identifying a target population and so forth. But it's also important to think about, well, how do you do it? What's different about the way that you do this and where are you coming from when you do it?
(02:08)
So, for example, somebody who does the same thing and they're like my key core value is environmental sustainability, that when we use herbal approaches we can lighten our burden on the earth. And everything that I do is centered around how you can be more tuned in to the Earth and more sustainable in your practices. And another person might have a spiritual approach, they might be looking at some of the spiritual transitions that people go through, rethinking your, you know, big picture in life and so forth.
(02:42)
So there's all kinds of different angles that people can take. And one of the hardest things when you are a new practitioner or when you're re-evaluating the work that you do, as I find that I do at least every year or two, if not more often, sometimes one of the hardest things to do is to really hone in on what is really important to me.
(03:01)
What are the key things that are my core values. And I recently heard just a sentence that someone said, and I really wish I could remember who, this opened this up for me. It really made something shift in my mind.
(03:19)
So I thought I would share it here. For those of you who may be undergoing the same type of process. And the question that was posed was in order to identify your core values or the things that are most important to you in practice or in life, think about the things that irritate you the most that are most likely to get you upset or to have you feeling like, no, I would never work with that person or that's absolutely not a good fit.
(03:46)
And that emotion, that sensation is going to point you right toward something that's really, really important to you. And I'll give you an example. A few years ago, maybe five years ago, now that I think about it, I was doing some work on my practice and I signed up for one of these free webinars that people offer. And this one, I forget exactly what it was on. It may have been even on finding your ideal client and getting to know your ideal client and some worksheets on that, that kind of thing.
(04:17)
That was interesting that I was in that phase of the cycle of running a practice and I signed up for this webinar and it happened to be, I don't know, 7:00 p.m. on Friday night when I signed up for it, because I am a mother of small children and I don't do exciting things on Friday night.
(04:35)
Instead, I take webinars about building your practice.
(04:38)
So anyway, I signed up for this webinar and it came up with a thing like, would you like to start at seven fifteen, seven thirty or forty five? And I was like, well seven forty five. I clicked it. I go to this webinar Friday night at seven forty five pm and I get on there and there are like forty five participants on the list and it becomes very clear to me that this is a prerecorded webinar and all of these forty five names other than mine are fake.
(05:06)
They are just there to make it seem like this webinar is really well attended, and I'm almost certain that I was the only person there actually going through in real time watching the webinar, and I don't mind watching a recorded webinar. I'm fine with a recorder webinar. I understand. I offer recorded webinars myself on my website.
(05:26)
But the idea that someone would pretend that it wasn't prerecorded and add fake audience members in order to manipulate my emotions and make me feel like this is a really popular thing was extremely repulsive to me. And in fact, I would never purchase something from this particular individual, even though a lot of the things that they do resonate with me. And I kind of think that I might buy if I hadn't had this experience. And that really helped me hone in on a core value of mine, which is authenticity and honesty.
(06:03)
I don't want to feel like I'm manipulating people and I don't want to intentionally mislead people in order to get them to sign up to work with me at some level. And that was really clarifying. It helps me refine what I was doing when I was crafting my own philosophy. And when I think about how I want to promote the work that I'm doing. So I invite you to think about some of the things that really irritate you when you come across them -
(06:36)
It probably isn't the same things that irritate me - and to reflect on those as a way to identify your core beliefs or values that are things you really want to highlight in your promotional materials, you want to look through that lens and make sure that what you're doing feels really good and in line with the things that are most important. So I hope that was helpful to you as well. I actually really love to know if you have an example of something like this where something really bothers you in your own work with someone else.
(07:08)
Maybe it's not feeling listened to, or maybe it's feeling rushed, or maybe it's feeling like somebody is trying to be, you know, more smart or intelligent than they are, or anything like that. I would really love to know. Feel free to leave a comment, camillefreeman.com. You can just go to the In the Clinic website and leave your comment there, or you could just email me. I would love to hear from you, and if you'd like to join the Roots class, if you happen to be in the beginning part of setting up your clinical practice, please come join us.
(07:43)
Just camillefreeman.com/roots. You can find more about it. We are in Early Bird registration right now, and I'd love to have you join us. All right. Take care.
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