COMPARATIVE DENTAL PRACTICE – Why you should stop judging your practice based on that of your peers!

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So you’ve finally done it! After 5 or 8 (in case of post graduation) years of training, a couple of years of locum and a few hands-on courses later, you finally own and run a clinic. A budding dentist with his/hers own dental practice...the journey finally begins! As the first month nears an end; you barely manage to recover the rent but its all good so far. At least you made some money! After all, everyone says the first couple of years are a slog before you really get going and start making decent profits. So, even though you are not meeting targets right away, your mind accepts the fact that it is going to take some time.

You go out with your dentist friends one weekend, catch up with your buddies, and discuss dentistry. As the conversation progresses, one of your friend casually mentions how a colleague who set up a clinic around the same time as you did is making outstanding profits from the first month itself! Even though you do dismiss it in the beginning as a stroke of luck, you start keeping a tab on his/hers performance in the following months only to find out that they are indeed doing very well. At the same time, social media exposes you to a few more of your peers who “launched” their practice around the same time as you did and are taking vacations abroad, buying cars, opening a second clinic etc. All this while you struggle to make ends meet even in your 6^th month of practice! End result...while you accepted the struggle and slog period as a default in the beginning, seeing others make progress in leaps while you can barely manage to sustain leads to self-doubt and negativity towards your profession.

“Should I enroll for a couple of more courses?”

“Should I buy xyz expensive equipment?”

“Am I not good enough?”

“Have I chosen the wrong career?”

Provided that you have taken care of the other factors that affect the financial success of a dental practice such as; the location of your clinic, your patient base, your ability to convince and convert patients without compromising on ethics and providing quality treatment that retains patients to name a few, the reason why you are not making enough money to match your peers is not because you have a “flawed” PRACTICE, it is because you have a “flawed” MINDSET!

There are two primary reasons why you CAN NOT and SHOULD NOT compare your practice with that of your peers especially when it comes to financial performance and why your SUCCESS will always be independent of that of your peers and vice versa;

#1 “THE RIGHT TIME” is unique, individual and independent

The thing about success is that it is not only a delicate combination of hard work, smart work and luck. Time, specifically, the right time plays an important role in success, be it financial, personal or professional. Even though we all live the same 24 hour day, “the right time” is something that will never be common to everyone at the same period in life. Not everyone goes through the same events at the same time in their lives. While your peers may be at the peak of their financial graphs now, it is very much possible that you are yet to reach the peak point of your timeline.

Mark Zuckerberg may have launched Facebook from a dorm room in his twenties and become one of the youngest billionaires, however; Col. Sanders, the founder of KFC didn’t see past 100 dollars for most of his life! Does it mean that all the other programmers never made it in life? Or that every entrepreneur looking to exploit the fried chicken business should wait till he/she is 63 years of age to get rich?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

That is the thing about the “right time”. It is unique, individual and independent. Looking at the success of your peers as a manifestation of their “right time” instead of letting it disturb you will help you keep away the self-doubt and negativity for good.

#2 IT’S YOUR PRESENT THAT DETERMINES YOUR FUTURE

More of a no-brainer but in reality, applied by very few! The analogy is quite simple, if you plant a mango seed will you get a mango tree or an apple tree? An apple tree right?

NO!

Similarly, if you focus all your energy today on comparing your success with others, getting affected by those who are doing better than you, focussing on the negativity and ultimately ending up in self-doubt, what do you think you will reap in the future?

More negativity, self-doubt and an envy of others success!

Not the career graph you want to plot I say!

Instead, what you should be focussing on in the present is to be better at what you do without regards for the outcome, compare the tricks of the trade that you apply to those that your peers apply, find out how and why they perform at the level that you desire too and LEARN from it instead of letting it affect you in a negative way.

Plant the seeds of a successful practice today and you shall reap the benefits in the future and at the “right time”.

To conclude, while comparisons that yield a productive result, make you learn something that helps your practice and bring about a positive mindset are always helpful, there is no way that comparing your practice to that of your peers just in terms of financial performance is going to be beneficial to your professional attitude.

So let go the comparisons and start learning from the practice of your peers instead!

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