Just because you are a certified practitioner, master practitioner or trainer of NLP doesn’t mean you are immune to the power plays, games or “tests” that clients will attempt to play with us. It’s a case of establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries. If you have decided to take Mondays off (for example) you don’t need to tell a prospective client who claims they can only come in and see you on Mondays, that it’s your day off. You can tell them, “I’m booked solid on Mondays…”
It is really a test. You know that if that client had to make an appointment with, say, a cardiologist, that they would have to take time off of work and go in when the cardiologist has office hours. And if the cardiologist gets called in to an emergency surgery or whatever, then the patient will have to re schedule at a time that is convenient for the Doctor.
Why should your services be any different? Why should your client’s time be more valuable than yours? Do you understand the paradox here? If their time is more valuable than your time, why should they come to you and pay you for your help?
If you are as good as you say you are in your marketing materials, then you are busy. If you have only just started your practice, you STILL have more expertise and experience than your client.
It is none of the clients business why you will not see them on a certain day. “it’s booked.” or “That doesn’t work for me, what other day could you come in?”
So create and maintain healthy boundaries. That doesn’t mean you become an arrogant asshole. It just means that the key to your valuable time, energy, expertise and resourcefulness shouldn’t be cheap or easy. It should be precious and scarce. In other words valuable.
Here’s a real life “practitioner disaster story” (where for the umpteenth time I had to learn this lesson the hard way) that might be helpful for you…
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