EP151: "What Every Sports PT Should Be Doing At The Start Of 2024"

[00:00:00] Are you a motivated healthcare fitness professional? Are you looking to work with more athletes, become a sports specialist, or even get a job in a sports setting so you can finally enjoy the career that you've always dreamed of? If so, you're in the right place. My name

[00:00:17] is Chris Garcia, physical therapist, business owner, entrepreneur, and residency trained sports specialist. I've been fortunate to work in professional sports and travel around the world working with elite athletes throughout my career and I've learned

[00:00:29] a lot of lessons along the way. I created this podcast to share my experiences and give you everything you need to know to help you become a sports expert. Welcome to the Sports PT Academy. Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome all

[00:00:46] new listeners and welcome back to those who have heard my content in the past. If you want to know what every sports PT should be doing in the start of 2024, you need to tune into this episode before I go on to the podcast. What is

[00:01:00] new? What is better? For those who've been asking, my back is definitely feeling better. It's a little twingey. It's a little achy for those who were curious. I heard my back a few weeks ago and I posted online on Instagram Chris Garcia

[00:01:16] dpt if you guys don't follow but I posted online and I did probably what most people shouldn't be doing. I self-rehabbed and I got kind of back to 100% within five days and if people ask me what was the biggest

[00:01:32] difference was that I just went against a lot of the odds and I just pushed by continuing to go into the gym and really trying to get over that fear of audience of lifting or re-aggravating using the same movement. For me it

[00:01:46] was a weird catch on a clean, on a power clean. At 185 pounds I just caught it off and it just kind of set me off and took a couple days to feel better and I just cleaned again I think within 48 to 72 hours.

[00:02:00] Yeah, my back is doing better. It is the new year and I want to say happy new year to everyone that's listening and on my last episode I expressed that I was very grateful to be part of your journey into closing out 2023.

[00:02:18] It is now 2024 and it's a new year and I think that everyone gets really excited and passionate about these new years and I wanted to give you guys a podcast on what I'm doing in 2024 and what I think every sports PT should

[00:02:37] be doing in 2024. It's literally my step by step recipe on what I'm doing to be able to do that. So why did I do that episode? It's purely because you know as I map out and plan 2024 I am doing these same things and I want to

[00:02:55] be able to share with everybody what that looks like and if I was in your shoes right now and I wanted to get one step ahead of everyone else and not have to go through the same things and the same process all over and over

[00:03:08] again and be frustrated next year what would I do? It's everything inside this episode. So in this episode I'm going to share outlining what an annual plan should look like in terms of what you should be doing as a sports PT trying

[00:03:23] to grow yourself professionally and trying to create new opportunities for yourself and you know if I were you what would I do? That's what I'm going to outline here for you and I think four easy steps and if you're

[00:03:36] a new grad if you're an established condition this is going to be absolutely perfect for you. It doesn't matter who you are, you've been practicing for 50 years you're a student it really doesn't matter it'll outline and give you a

[00:03:46] fresh new outlook into things that you probably haven't been doing in the structure that I'm going to provide. So all right let's get into this episode. So all right if we look at what really stirred up this conversation

[00:04:05] was someone said hey you know Chris what are you doing for your vacation? What are you doing in 2024? Where are you going? And I said you know that's funny. I think that you know I've had 2024 mapped out I think I

[00:04:20] began in July or August of 2023 I mapped out kind of what I was going to be doing next year and the reason why I am so proactive in that is because I try and schedule all of my educational courses that I'm mapping out. I do my

[00:04:38] vacations first and then I do my educational planning around that. I have my team at sports performance physical therapy where we have annual planning and quarterly planning and annual reviews and all these other things so in

[00:04:51] all those things I have to really map out and make sure that there's not a lot of overlap and then I have to look at my kids school schedules I have to look at you know what is happening inside and so the more

[00:05:00] responsibilities and more things I have on my plate the more I have to forecast and plan and someone said you know are you mapping out your vacations in 2024? I said yeah actually those were set a while back and things always

[00:05:13] come up but the majority of it's there and I thought you know an interesting fact and our interesting concept is I truly believe that most sports physical therapists put more time and energy into mapping out a vacation than

[00:05:34] they do their professional career the majority of their life. Now here's what I mean by that if you're a sports PT and you're out there you know treating athletes or you work in a clinic whatever it is that you do imagine

[00:05:48] you know planning out a vacation right it's you and your spouse significant other partner friends whatever it is right think about it like everyone gets excited then someone says hey you know what and let's in August let's go

[00:05:59] to wherever wherever you want to go North Carolina South Carolina Florida California come out to San Diego come party with me wherever it is you're gonna go what's the next step you start looking at flights you start mapping out

[00:06:13] like where the destination is what's a hotel once you lock in the dates you're gonna get your airplane tickets perfect great we got that what are we gonna stay an Airbnb a hotel whatever VRBO whatever is they're gonna

[00:06:23] do and then the next stage is okay great what are we gonna do inside these four to seven ten fourteen days whatever is it you're planning and that's where it gets fun because you're like oh man I'm this year I'm going to Europe I'm

[00:06:34] gonna I'm going to go to Paris I'm gonna do a train to I don't know London and I don't know whatever is that you're gonna do and you start mapping it out and then you go by hour by hour and you're like oh my gosh this

[00:06:46] is we're gonna do we're gonna go here or we'll go there you you start mapping this out and man this can take you weeks to months like of just general planning because it's like a vacation right maybe it's a vacation of

[00:06:55] a lifetime whatever it is so you probably put countless hours inside your vacation you're like oh my gosh and you can look forward to that because it has an end date right you're 8 10 12 months away and you plan this out

[00:07:09] and you're like so enthusiastic in the hype is real and you get to you go through the whole process and you're done and then here's the best part and this happens to me and my wife as well on the way back on the

[00:07:19] flight back you're like let's do it again you're like all right what are we gonna do now you just kind of you enjoy that ride right you like enjoy the energy and everything else that you're doing and on the plane ride home you're

[00:07:29] like I want that energy again and those and when you do this this vacation planning think about this right all that hype and then now let's compare it to your professional path and professional career when have you ever sat down and

[00:07:44] said I'm gonna map out the next destination in 12 months this is where I'd be doing and then you you pick out flights you pick out your c.u. courses you think about where you're gonna go where's your lodging like none of you

[00:07:56] think of like that right it's not something like you actively do and so my point to this is that you put more time and energy into planning out your personal vacations than you do your entire career path and the only time

[00:08:13] that you really think about your professional career path is when Instagram or Facebook ads hit you and it's like oh CEUs you know close to you San Diego or Chicago or wherever you are or you get something in the mail it's

[00:08:28] like hey your CEUs are coming up or you're gonna expire and that's when you start looking and so that's a very reactive approach to professional development think about that right so when you go on vacation it's very

[00:08:37] proactive you know hour by hour minute by minute mile by mile we're gonna be staying what you're gonna be doing what ride you're gonna get on what hotel you're gonna go on what excursion you're gonna be on

[00:08:45] you know minute by minute what that thing looks like when you look at professional path you don't do that right there's nothing proactive about it it's like oh yeah I forgot about my CEUs I need to do those right so then you go

[00:08:58] to like Medbridge or something that's like super like superficial and it's not really going to help you just doing it to like do the units and I get it I've been there I've seen people do it and so you know when you're very

[00:09:11] reactive the only way that you actually are making progress is your deadline is approaching for your CEUs you get something in the mail you get ads online and so it's very reactive and you're like oh I forgot about that so you're actually never really growing

[00:09:26] it's just a topic that so happened to interest you based on the timeline that you needed it so it wasn't like you were looking forward to it it's not like minute by minute you knew exactly what's going to be and you were super excited about it

[00:09:37] so vacations is very proactive, rational growth is very reactive so now I'm gonna set the stage and give you a little context and and really have you spin your wheels in your head just a little bit and it'll help you understand what it is that you can

[00:09:59] be doing what you're limited currently by and what you need to be doing in 2024 to offset this all right so let me post something I have some notes here all right so what about in 2024 right 2023 was amazing was awesome there's a lot of stuff that that happened in 2023

[00:10:20] that you really didn't know was going to happen right so if you're into finance and stocks and housing markets you definitely got hit in the face by inflation and mortgage rates and all these other things right now that affects so much people's

[00:10:37] travel plans that they're expendable income there's so many different things that have changed in 2023 and if you really thought about that you're like I didn't know it was gonna happen but there was suggestions of that in 2022 so let me let me flip this and say all right in 2024

[00:10:54] this this year right now we're in right now what if you knew what was going to happen ready for this all right let me give you some ideas in 2024 what if you knew there was going to be a looming recession what if you knew

[00:11:12] economy was going to be tough that you knew for this entire year that maybe your spending or other people's spending is going to change what would that do to you what would you change about your current spending

[00:11:24] habits what would you change are you going more vacations less what would you do adjust your spending habits what if you knew there was going to be some major political change in 2024 right somebody does something they got caught

[00:11:40] in a loophole somewhere whatever it was what if it was in December what if it was in July what if somebody in your local environment senator governor there was something corrupt that happened what if you knew that was going to happen

[00:11:52] but would that change for you what if there was going to be some major crime in your area somebody stalled and and created riots and crime in your local area what if you knew that was going to happen

[00:12:06] what if you knew the stock markets and all these things were going to be crazy and maybe you're looking to buy a home and if you knew there were to continue to be crazy what would that change for you you know like Chris what does this

[00:12:16] have to do with my professional development 2024 here's my point the only reason why you can't make progress is because you take a reactive approach to development right meaning you're waiting for things to come to you now the reason why people can't make

[00:12:33] decisions is because of all the chaos that comes at you in life that stops you from doing it so let me give you an example people are like oh i'm gonna i'm gonna buy my first condo

[00:12:46] townhome house whatever it is right and then the economy hits and they're like uh i can't do that i gotta save money now now i can't do that ceo that i wanted to and what happens to the trickle down

[00:12:58] effect and if you take a reactive approach things are always going to hit you life is going to hit you in 24 2024 it's going to hit you meaning if you knew it was going to hit you what would you do differently that's the difference that people don't

[00:13:10] consider what if you knew all these things were going to be a problem what if you knew somebody in your family was going to get sick what if you knew all these things were going to happen

[00:13:20] what if you just set targets and you knew those things might hit you but you still have personal targets to achieve most people can't achieve targets because they don't set them and if they do they like they let life get in the way and create obstacles against them

[00:13:37] so can you take a reactive approach to your professional path so at the beginning of 2024 what if you set targets knowing all the chaos was going to hit now we're talking and the reason i'm doing this is because i'd literally do it

[00:13:54] with my team i do it myself i do it my staff i do it with my wife i do it my kids it's what do we want to do this year let me break this up into four categories and how i do this

[00:14:07] um there's four categories i want you to consider and they all revolve around each other it's very critical that you do all four but most pts uh don't put this into play you ready for this i want you to write four categories down

[00:14:24] if you're at the gym you're driving uh re-listen to this write these four categories down professional development number one number two is fitness number three is travel slash fun and number four is family slash relationships now usually people work on two of those four categories they work on

[00:14:57] travel slash fun because that's always something to look forward to fitness because they're like well i need to stay fit feel good about myself give myself confidence family relationships would probably be third and then professional development is four

[00:15:14] all right so i told you the reason why this is so important you have to have a plan and you know life's going to hit you if you knew life was going to hit you let's make plans according to assuming that's all that

[00:15:25] gonna happen so what don't you do is you're going to take a paper calendar or piece of paper right now right and you're going to just list it genuine furniture all the way through december and i want you to do is i

[00:15:36] want you to plan out you're gonna at the top uh on the top of the paper you're going to go january through december on the left hand side columns you're going to write all four of those categories professional fitness travel and fun relationship family relationships

[00:15:50] and then now you have this empty blank calendar right and like shoot i've never done this before what do i what are writing here i've never thought about planning my vacations and everything else i just kind of went

[00:16:00] with it when people ask me stuff well this is why people don't go on vacations this is the right reason why people don't um you know do fitness uh goals this is why they gain weight and become unhappy is because they

[00:16:11] let life hit them and they make excuses right you're gonna get sick things are going to happen to you um you you only plan out travel and fun based on when people ask you for them or some some type of deal comes online again

[00:16:22] you're reactive and then family relationships what if you could develop those those relationships with your your significant your spouse what would you do what would you do differently would you go on date nights monthly would you schedule them now oh my goodness

[00:16:36] would you schedule them now isn't that crazy just put in the calendar so all of this goes into professional development the reason why people struggle professionally is because they're not happy personally and the way they go they go hand in hand your professional happiness is

[00:16:54] your professional happiness is directly linked to your personal happiness and vice versa the only reason is because professionally you spend more time developing you you have you spend more time in your professional career than you do with a lot of your friends and family

[00:17:08] so if you're not happy at work you better believe you're not going to be happy in life so my my my thought process here is fitness is something you do