Quiet Your Feed, Find Your Pace: A Comparison Detox for PMHNPs
If you have ever scrolled past a “six-figure in six months” post and felt your stomach drop, you are not alone. Private practice can make you feel like you are always late to your own life. You see someone else on chapter 10 and start judging your chapter 2. You forget that you do not know their support system, savings, collaborations, or how many years of quiet groundwork came before the highlight.
Comparison is a noisy advisor. It hijacks your focus and convinces you that speed equals success. It pushes you to copy tactics that do not fit your model or your values. The cost is real. Confused marketing. Overbooked weeks. A practice that looks good on paper and feels wrong in your body.
So let’s set a healthy boundary with your inputs and bring your attention back to what you can control…
First step. Do a 10-minute audit of your feeds. Notice which accounts leave you feeling anxious, ashamed, or frantic. Not challenged in a good way. Spun out. Those are red flags. You do not owe any profile your attention. Mute one account that spikes anxiety for 30 days. You can always unmute later. Your focus is an asset. Protect it.
Second step. Replace the comparison with data from your own practice. Instead of measuring yourself against someone else’s numbers, track one or two signals that matter this month. Examples:
Inquiry to consult rate
Consult to eval rate
Notes closed before the next visit
Average revenue per clinical hour
Intake completion rate
Pick one. Put it on a sticky note near your desk. Review it every Friday. When the number improves, even a little, mark it. That is progress you can trust.
Third step. Curate inputs that match the season you are in. If you are still building a foundation, you do not need content about group practice leadership. You need simple systems. A one-page website. A clean consult script. Clear policies. Follow people who teach the level right above yours. Unfollow what pulls you into urgency you cannot sustain.
Fourth step. Name your lane out loud. Write one sentence and keep it visible. For example, “I help adult women in Los Angeles stabilize mood and sleep with evidence-based medication and brief therapy.” When you know your lane, you stop swerving into strategies that belong to someone else’s practice. You also make it easier for the right referrals to find you.
Fifth step. Schedule a weekly “proof review.” Ten minutes. No judgment. What moved forward this week? A clean boundary held. A consult that felt aligned. A patient who slept through the night for the first time in months. Confidence grows when you see proof, not when you chase a feeling.
If you need a starting template, try this:
This week I kept this promise to myself:
This number moved in the right direction:
One thing I will repeat next week:
Your chapter 2 is not supposed to look like someone else’s chapter 10. It is supposed to look like steady steps that fit your life. It is supposed to look like a clean note, a clear policy, a consultation that ends with ease. That is how sustainable practices are built.
If you want help setting simple metrics, cleaning up your inputs, and choosing a focused plan for the next 30 days, this is the kind of work we do inside Strong Roots. You do not need more noise. You need a path that is yours.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck or unsure where to start, come join us inside Strong Roots Mentorship. We take you step by step from ground zero to seeing patients and beyond, without the overwhelm.