Three and half years ago I started a free facebook group called Schema Therapy Made Simple.
I originally began the group as a safe space to create schema therapy resources and share schema therapy ideas with other therapists during my ISST accreditation.
The group (that I had imagined would have 250 Australian members who liked my approach) quickly became a group with thousands of therapists from all over the world as members. At the time of closing the group had over 5000 members.
It was an exciting time and I made a lot of rewarding professional connections as a result.
Amazing opportunities came such as being asked to train therapists in Turkey and Romania and interviewing international schema therapy experts.
Many therapists found the group an invaluable resource and a source of information and connection they found hard to access in their location.
But over time, I found myself no longer wanting to be on facebook so much. Administrating the group made it difficult to have breaks from social media that I desired.
Sharing of content from members reduced as the group grew larger and also became less novel. I felt pressured to make content for the group.
I started to resent the amount of time it was taking up to keep an eye on the group but also create the content to keep the group alive.
Members were starting to show up just to promote which, if you’re running a facebook group, is a sign that the group needs a lot more active moderation. And I was not willing to put in that level of effort.
The group’s strong therapy skills focus wasn’t in alignment with my coaching and training brand.
I wanted to start a podcast “Thriving Therapist Talk” but for the first time in my business felt blocked on an energy level. I knew that something in my business had to go.
Ultimately, I was no longer enjoying creating the content, I wanted to spend as little time on facebook as possible and the group wasn’t contributing to where my business is headed.
I hesitated to make this decision for months because I knew that closing the group would be a disappointment and be experienced as a loss of community for some members.
Although closing the group may have felt like it came out of the blue for the group members, it was something I had been considering for 12 months, for all the reasons I mentioned above.
Some people would think it’s a bad decision to let go of a group with this many members who want to hear from me.
But I know it is ok and the right decision. It helps that I’d previously walked away from a large and active private practice focused free facebook group I’d created for similar reasons and saw my business (and my health) thrive as a result.
Sometimes you need to be a leader in your business and make hard decisions.
Sometimes you need to allow yourself to evolve and leave behind the things that used to light you up that now just feel like a burden.
If you’re a therapist weighing up whether to close a facebook group, these kinds of decisions, especially if they form part of a marketing funnel into your business, need to be weighed up over time. You need to think about how you will make contact with people interested in working with you once the group is closed.
If you’re still reading, I hope that this post helps you know that it’s ok to move forward, to let go of the past and make the decisions you need to in your business.
warmly,
Nadene
PS You can listen to Thriving Therapist Talk, the podcast, here.