Doulas’ Success Inspirations for 2023
Every January, I experience a dramatic increase in aspiring doulas’ inquiries, requesting a 20-minute discovery session with me, and …registrations. As a result, every January, I feel called to inspire doulas to fulfill not only their passion but their professional success by claiming their thriving practice. As a doula trainer and coach, I’m committed to helping doulas elevate their status as a professional community and their individual financial and professional success.
These are my three points of inspiration for doulas as we welcome 2023:
- Lead your clients to achieve the results they hired you for
- Use strategies that empower both you and your clients
- Establish a viable and successful practice by focusing primarily on verbal coaching prenatally and in the postpartum period.
Lead your clients to achieve the results they hired you for
In our post-pandemic world, people seek leaders that deliver results. Everyone in the coaching world is talking about “the results revolution.” When we think of doulas as labor coaches and leaders, delivering results is tricky since childbirth and postpartum are fuzzy, unpredictable, and messy experiences. However, it doesn’t mean doulas can’t deliver results. It takes a mind shift from focusing on couples’ birth plans or itemized preferences to concentrating on their desired experience and how they want to feel.
When doulas’ prenatal conversations with clients focus on itemized choices and plans, it is difficult for them to deliver results. It also encourages clients’ rigidity and attachments to their wants. However, if you focus on the highest purpose, motivations, and how these choices make them feel, you’ll discover the road map to a result-oriented doula practice.
Use strategies that empower both you and your clients
Focus on the highest purpose, motivations, and how their choices make them feel, and you’ll discover the road map to a result-oriented doula practice.
One of the most persistent aspects of the doula practice since its emergence is the hardship of doulas’ lives. To begin with, we became doulas following a burning passion for serving and advocating for women’s healthy and positive childbearing processes. Unfortunately, we were not as mindful of our needs as working women. Nowadays, most doulas hold an additional day job to generate a stable income. By being on-call for clients and committing to providing continuous hands-on physical support, we restricted ourselves to serving just a few clients per month and yearly. This situation doesn’t empower us, and anyone wanting to make a difference in people’s lives and be impactful knows they first need to feel empowered. We must feel empowered by what we do so we empower our clients.
By learning new strategies and restructuring their practice, doulas can make an income, elevate their professional and financial status and claim their power. The strategies I refer to are verbal coaching strategies that, when practiced, empower both the doula and her clients.
Establish a viable and successful practice by focusing primarily on verbal coaching prenatally and in the postpartum period
We must feel empowered by what we do to so we empower our clients
Most doula training programs emphasize continuous hands-on support, making it difficult for doulas to take on many clients and have a viable practice. As a result, we’re not fulfilled or successful. We’re not impactful as well because we serve a small number of clients. Being mostly hands-on and providing moment-to-moment support can be spiritually disempowering for our clients since it doesn’t project trust.
I suggest that you restructure your service by transitioning into providing prenatal and postpartum coaching conversations. That’s how I reduced my clients’ need for many hours of physical support and found myself serving more clients with much more ease. As a result, my clients experience a higher level of confidence and are mentally, physically, and emotionally much more prepared to navigate their birth and postpartum experiences. In addition, they feel that with my coaching, they have achieved their desired experiences.
Are you interested in learning more about doula service and the result revolution? Read more here.
Photo by Cindy Liu on Unsplash
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doula profession, postpartum coaching, prenatal coach, training
