Chiropractic Practice: Overcoming Fear of Confrontation

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Thrive in Five. I’m Dr. Dennis Perman, and I’ll be your chiropractic coach for today. This edition is called Overcoming Fear of Confrontation. Most chiropractors feel that they know what to do in order to build their practices. Many even write goals and plans. But when it actually comes down to putting those plans into motion, something may hold them back and prevent them from taking action.

Often, the reason it’s so difficult for these doctors to pull the trigger is because of fear. A sometimes subtle, sometimes overbearing, but always significant fear that interferes with their ability to address the issues that need attention in their lives and practices. So, the purpose of this Thrive in 5 is to share some specific strategies for overcoming fear of confrontation.

How can you tell if you have any fear of confrontation? If there’s something that you know will be beneficial to you, yet you’ve been avoiding it, procrastinating, or even finding good reasons not to do it, then these behaviors may stem from a fear of confrontation. Are there phone calls you should make?

Office policies that should be better enforced? Staff members who need to be brought back into teamwork? Are there patients who need a stronger message, and potential patients who never quite make it into your office? Are there other professionals in your area who need a better understanding of chiropractic so you can work together to make your communities healthier?

Most of you can answer yes to at least one of these questions. And if so, not taking action on these common circumstances may reflect a fear of confrontation. So, if there are situations that are hard for you to confront, please What can you do? First, let’s look at what this fear really is. In his book Awaken the Giant Within, Anthony Robbins says that fear is simply the anticipation that something that’s going to happen soon needs to be prepared for.

So the best way to deal with fear of confrontation is to acknowledge that you need to prepare. That way, when the confrontation happens, or when you make it happen, you can get the best results possible. Let’s try this out and see if it’s really so. Imagine, for example, that a patient came late for his appointment twice last week and skipped one visit altogether.

Your staff has spoken with him, and he said he would comply, but he didn’t. And your CA suggests that you speak with him. Now, what’s going through your mind? Are you thinking, that’s not my job? Or how about Some people just don’t care about their health. Or perhaps, if he’s that resistant, maybe he’s just not a good patient, and nothing I say would make a bit of difference, so why try?

This is typical self talk for someone who has an underlying fear of confrontation. Sometimes, the self talk can be devious, cloaking the fear with the appearance of respecting the other person. Well, it’s not up to me to impose my will on him. When he’s ready, he’ll be a good patient. What a cop out!

Instead of letting the poor guy hang himself in the guise of granting him his individuality, recognize it for what it is, an unwillingness on your part to tell this person what he needs to know in order to get well. Good for him and also good for you. Win win. Do it elegantly, don’t smack anyone around, but be willing to say what needs to be said.

Notice what happens in the absence of this confrontation. His spotty compliance becomes a mediocre experience in your office with little incentive to follow through or refer anyone. Lose lose. Not the desired outcome. So, how do you go about dealing with the fear of confrontation? If Tony is right and fear is about feeling unprepared, we need to prepare either to cope with the situation or to do something to change it.

Don’t deny the fear or wallow in it, just respect the message fear is trying to deliver or it will continue to pursue you until it gets its message across. It’s better to review what you are feeling fearful about and evaluate what you must do to prepare yourself. mentally and emotionally. Then, figure out what actions you need to take to deal with the issue in the best way possible.

What preparation might be required to overcome fear of confrontation? Start with good physiology, a model of confidence and self assurance, with proper breathing, posture. facial expression, and so on. Now, what does someone who’s confident and self assured think? Say to yourself what you’d say if you were feeling that way right now.

Make whatever pictures you’d make in your mind if you were feeling confident and self assured right now. And as you feel your mind and body developing all the sensations that come along with being confident and self assured, make a signal to yourself that means confidence and self assurance. You know, it could be a word you say to yourself, or a phrase or a picture you flash in your mind, or a gesture, like a clenched fist, or some combination of these.

So, keep feeling confident and self assured, and make the signal over and over again until you feel the signal become clear. Linked to the sensations you call confidence. That’s right. Now turn up the confident feeling a notch. Turn it up and make the signal again. Allowing it to become indelibly linked to the sensations you call confidence.

As you feel this linkage occur, relax and breathe. Knowing that you can access these feelings of confidence anytime you want by making this signal. Go ahead. Try it. Make the signal and feel the sensations of confidence come flooding back. Now some of you might need to practice this a bit more. And if so, then no problem.

It’s worth the effort. This process, known as anchoring, is one of the basic tools of Neuro Linguistic Programming, or NLP. By understanding the neurophysiological basis of behavior, you can learn to choose behaviors that will work for you in any given context. So with access to confidence, you have the beginnings of the mental preparation you’ll need to deal with the fear of confrontation.

Now, consider the upcoming encounter. How can I be as mentally prepared as possible to deal with this? If you activate your confidence anchor and you instantly feel prepared, then maybe that’s all you need to do. Remember, Tony said that fear is about anticipation without preparation. Anticipation by definition is about something that hasn’t happened yet.

What you’re actually doing in this process is imagining that future confrontation right now, so you can prepare for it and deal with it. Now, imagine that the confrontation has already occurred. What happens to the fear? It’s gone! Because you can’t anticipate something that’s already happened. When you feel you’ve prepared properly, looking back over having already succeeded, there is no need for this fear.

This will help most of the time. But what about those rare situations that require more than just preparation? Tony tells us, Sometimes we’ve done all the preparation we could do for something, and there’s nothing else we could do, but we still sit around in fear. This is the point when you must use the antidote to fear.

You must make a decision to have faith, knowing that you have done all you can to prepare for whatever you’re fearing, and that most fears in life, you When you develop your confidence and other aspects of preparation, refine your mental rehearsal and expect the best, then fear of confrontation is replaced by a self assured willingness to create a win win situation for you and the other person.

This, after all, is what the confrontation was for. To help all involved parties to get the best mutual result possible, with as little discomfort as possible. With this in mind, confrontation is no longer to be feared, but rather to be welcomed. As a necessary and valuable part of our personal growth and development.

By the way, you can ease patients and prospective patients past their fear of confronting their health issues with the Functional Health Management Score. It’s a great tool for welcoming uncertain patients into your practice because it gives them clarity about what you are and are not focused on. Just scan this QR code to use it in your practice.

Thanks for watching. I’m Dr. Dennis Perman for The Masters Circle Global, where legends are made and legendary practices are built through chiropractic care.

Checkout our other Thrive In Fives

Don’t forget to learn about our Practice Growth Calculator