Will Social Workers and Counselors Invest in Themselves if no CEUs are Offered?

If you’re in the social work or mental health field, you likely didn’t have the goal of becoming rich. Let’s be frank, most in this field earn modest salaries. Therefore, when it comes to investing in continuing education, there typically is an expectation for CEUs to follow.

As you know, CEUs help is not only to serve our clients better but to also keep our practitioner licenses current. The truth is, much of the training needed for therapists in business aren’t provided in traditional CEU trainings. Some of the best training available for mental health and social work professionals in business aren’t recognized by our licensing boards.

To master success in business in this field, you can blindly learn from rebounding from mistakes and research for years or you can get training from experts who can walk you through the required steps and help you avoid unnecessary pitfalls.

Do you really want to endure avoidable frustration and anguish from being subjected to mistake after mistake and dead end after dead end as you troubleshoot building the business of your dreams?

As helping professionals, we must look deeper into the reasons for we do not invest in ourselves. Consider the cognitive loops we may be unknowingly harboring, such as:

1. The fear of being selfish: if you focus on your own career goals. That you’d be perceived as being pretentious.
2. The fear of facing failure if you try. The thought that everyone will know you didn’t have what it takes if it doesn’t work out.
3. The fear of spending money because of stress from worrying about the what ifs.
4. The fear of success and being expected to continue doing well in a newer business
5. The fear of no longer being relatable to social justice issues or your colleagues and/or clients who struggle financially

Here are a few things to remember as you discover the fears holding you back:

Be diligent in pursuing your career goals: you should strive to be your own biggest cheerleader in life. Remember that failures have purpose to teach us invaluable lessons. Multiple failures are a sign of a need for specialized guidance. Thinking about the what if’s gets us stuck into a horror that may not happen, instead get intentional about making amazing things happen. Define what success means to you so that you don’t grind your gears living your life based on others’ expectations. One of the best things you can do as you advocate for social justice is to build a successful business so that you aren’t quitting the field prematurely due to burnout caused by being overworked and underpaid.

To get what you’ve never had, you must be willing to do what you’ve never done. Sign up for the BASWC Academy today!