Is the UK a hot country? What refusal to accept climate change and failing in business have in common
Is the UK a hot country now? Surely not, we are, after all, living in the land of Dickens, the bleak mid winter and rained off sports?
We emphatically don’t know how to behave in the sun, as soon as it arrives we instantly replace water with lager and allow all our skin to peel from our bodies. This is OK because it only lasts for four days per year.
And yet… my trainers did melt onto my feet on the school run in 2022 and I have been literally unable to work in my office for two afternoons this week because the internal temperature went over 40 degrees and I thought I was going to collapse on my keyboard.
This piece in the Economist makes a compelling point. Our climate has already changed and we need to accept it. Reading it however I realised there is something deeply held that prevents the government, business and individuals making sensible decisions to adapt to the heat. Our national story simply doesn’t allow for air conditioning.
The self-image we have as a nation and much of our cultural reference, comes from Victorian Britain. The land of our great, great, great (sometimes additionally great) grandparents was unusually cold due to a mini freeze that dominated our green and pleasant land from around 1550 to 1880. For some reason, possibly the growth in literacy and our access to fabulous literature, this period of empire, puritanism and class inequality has become the national template for nostalgia. It is the world that Reform would like to reform us back into and for the transformation to be complete, we would require roaring hearths, earth as hard as iron and water like a stone. Oliver Twist just doesn’t work quite so well in a setting of sun loungers, month-long national holidays and eco-air conditioning as default in new builds.
In this case the dissonance between the way we see ourselves and the data in front of us results in paralysis. We take no action to adapt because we simply can’t compute the difference between expectation and reality.
This aversion to analysing and acting on good data makes me think of how many of us behave when we first step into the business arena, especially if our personal identity was forged in the hearth of public service. For example, there are several things I see psychologists and therapists doing that simply don’t make rational sense:
Posting on social media endlessly even though they clearly don’t love it. I can literally see the weariness in their eyes after 7 vacuous hours spent on a reel they know is boring.
Paying someone else to do their marketing with no way of knowing whether that person is achieving anything for them (they usually aren’t).
Blaming themselves and feeling incompetent when they don’t magic up a barrage of referrals from either of these activities.
In both these cases there is an unconscious aversion to following the data, much like we see with Brits and climate adaptation. When we follow the data, we can clearly see whether posting on social media actually brings us clients or not. For most people, it doesn’t because if you don’t have a love for it and a message that is BURSTING out of your seems then frankly your content will be bland and unable to stop the scroll. On top of that most client groups don’t shop for therapy on social media. So you really are rolling a boulder up a hill if that is your client acquisition strategy. Any business owner that believes they deserve success would give this strategy a try, measure the outcome and only invest further in it (emotionally or financially) if it is proven by data (not gut feeling) to bring benefit to the business.
But that is not how we operate. I include myself firmly in this as I have made this mistake myself many times. We continue to invest in things we know don’t work, often chucking money at someone we deep down know won’t do a good job, because on some level we don’t want to change our personal story.
We don’t make time to do the things that really make a difference, like analysing financials, following the basic principles of business like building relationships and crucially tracking our metrics because if we did those things we would be forced to challenge our view of ourselves as “useless at marketing” or "unmotivated by money” or “bad at business” “INSERT YOUR OWN LIMITING BELIEF HERE.”
For a long time I held onto a belief that I was unlucky. That I was someone who “did all the right things” but never got “what I deserved.” It was only when I recognised that story for the epic BS that it was that I was able to start making good decisions for myself and my practice.
I hope this might help you to recognise if there are any stories that might be holding you back? Any beliefs that gum up your creativity or force you to see your life and career through a reductive prism? Personally, I think we all have them so while we enjoy a temporary break from the mind-crushing heat I encourage you to reflect on yours.
Free gifts if you are starting up a private practice as a psychologist or therapist
If you are setting up right now there WILL be mindset drama. The least i can do for you is try to ease the burden.
First up listen to this podcast I recorded with the lovely Natalie Stott for Mastering Therapy podcast. We tackle the mindset and the practical aspects of starting out and there are plenty of gems to get you moving past those limiting beliefs.
My Free Checklist: This covers all that essential stuff you need for a solid foundation – GDPR, the legal bits, the ethical bits, the admin bits. Get it all covered so you can see your first clients with confidence.
The Ultimate Toolkit: I talk you through everything that's out there on the market at the moment to make your life in private practice easier and more profitable.
Podcast on Fee Setting: Listen to my chat with pricing expert Sally Farrant on how to price yourself for financial stability and sustainability.
Podcast on Legal Essentials: Join commercial lawyer Clare Veal and me as we discuss the key legal issues you need to consider.