Conferences are a great place for therapists to network, show case their skills and stay up to date with research. They are also a prime time to have your schema patterns fire up.
Being surrounded by other therapists at various stages of development can activate feelings of inadequacy and failure.
In this post, I’m sharing tips to reframe your conference anxiety and how branding and marketing can help.
Mixing with many people you don’t know can be challenging, especially if you have social anxiety or memories of not fitting in. As someone who works solo, I find it a lot of people and the noise levels take some getting used to.
If you’re presenting at a conference you might find yourself comparing other session’s attendance numbers to your session, especially these days as you can see how many delegates are attending sessions in the app. This can feel a bit like a popularity contest and activate schemas around worth and value.
It’s also uncomfortable when other people aren’t that interested in your topic as you are and you’ve put a lot of work into your presentation.
This is where branding and marketing can help you understand what is going on and introduce some helpful information to soothe your schemas.
Just like marketing for your private practice or online offer, the words you use in your conference titles and descriptions. Titles and descriptions will determine whether a delegate thinks “this is for me” or “this is not for me”. If getting many people to your presentation is important, this needs to be right for the conference audience.
Branding also comes into it. If your session competes with someone who has been building their brand for 10-30 years and you are new to the conference scene, your session will have less attendees because your brand is still growing.
It’s important to coach yourself through these moments. When you put yourself out there, it’s brave.
My final tip, focus on the people who did want to attend your session. So far my session has 180 attendees, far less than the keynote speaker. I think it’s fantastic that 180 people want to watch my presentation, especially as it is about therapist development not “how to treat x”. 180 people is a still a lot of people.
Learning how to support yourself when you are being brave, is the key to professional growth as a therapist.
If you’d love to feel more confident as a therapist and so you can reach the professional success you desire, my coaching program Thriving Therapist Formula is now self-study. It takes graduates from feeling uncertain while working for someone else to developing confidence in the therapy room and beyond as they build their own businesses. You can grab it here.
Yours in thriving
Nadene