I am Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits.

When building a profitable practice, the first and most crucial step is to define what you believe to be as success. While this may seem like everyone is pursuing the same goal, this could not be farther from the truth. For this reason, you must define what success means to you before you start the journey towards it. Otherwise, you may end up lost along the way. I define success as the ability to dictate my terms, to have freedom of time, to have freedom to make choices that directly impact my life, and happiness. Success for me was having my own practice. You may ask yourself, why does success look different for everyone? Name one person on the earth that likes all the same things you do and does them in the exact same way you do. Can’t think of anyone? Exactly. This is because everyone on this earth is different. So, you can’t expect success to look the same for everyone either. I can’t expect everyone to have the same risk tolerance that I do. But I do expect everyone to be open to the idea that they can create success away from the beaten path.

Just because it’s safe doesn’t mean it is success.

You have different desires, beliefs, and abilities. Chances are, something that someone else may see as success may not even seem like fun to you. Therefore, you wouldn’t consider it a success based on how you see the world. Why is defining what success means to you important? If you are chasing someone else’s idea of success, the reality is, you probably won’t get there. Especially because we have already established that you are unique in your abilities and desires. Therefore, to achieve success, you must define what that means for you. In defining success, sometimes we need assistance in helping us focus on what truly matters and block out all the distracting noise. For example, someone like Elon Musk may qualify success as selling 120,000 of his electric vehicles. While that is great for Elon Musk, you, as just a dealer at a car lot may not feel the same. You’re just looking to make enough money to survive and go on that vacation you always wanted. Therefore, success for you, should be defined as selling five cars a month, or whatever amount to meet your monetary goal. If you don’t set an appropriate goal and instead define success only as selling 120,000 vehicles, you will likely never achieve it and end up disappointed and discouraged.

Defining success is critical to achieving it.

As you can see, you don’t have to make your own definition of success. But if you stick to the one the world provides you, you won’t be honoring your situation or desires. It’s time to throw away the world’s ideas of success and create your own. While it may look different and others may not understand, you’ll be able to achieve it. And that’s all that really matters.

Traditional medicine sets forth a path that leads to less time and less autonomy and overall dissatisfaction with our jobs and work. Residency programs typically follow this same pattern and limit us to a narrow number of choices, instead of encouraging us to innovate and develop and build new and expansive care delivery models. Overall success is only great if you achieve it. Therefore, it is critical that you define your own version of success. This is the only way it will be within reach to you.

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Defining your success has a lot to do with how you see yourself. Check out our blog post here for insight on how self-image determines your success.

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I’m Dr. Hassan, a Board-Certified Physiatrist and Independent Practice Owner. I help physiatrists start and grow their own profitable practices so they can achieve financial independence and live without limits. Please go to businessofrehab.com/contractnegotiations to pick up the free guide to help you negotiate the contract of your dreams.

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Attention, Physiatrists! Stop leaving money on the table. Sign up for the free video series: How To Build A Profitable Practice in 90 Days or Less: http://www.sixtytosuccess.com