New Year's Nostalgia

What were you doing this time last year?

I know what we were doing...

Freaking out.

This time last year, Erin and I were on a fast and thrilling ride. Like that of zooming down a steep, snowy embankment in a makeshift sled. We had just sold our house in South Carolina and moved everything we owned to a new city where we knew no one, and we were about to take on the biggest risk of our adult lives - opening our first practice from scratch.

There were feelings of excitement while everything moved swiftly around us like a blur. There were feelings of uncertainty with not quite knowing how things would turn out when it was all over. 

Looking back.

Looking back at everything, we really didn't "have" to move. We had a house that we owned. We had support from the chiropractic college. I could have had a job in town as a chiropractor under my mentor. We had friends, we had community. 

It's easy to think we should have just stayed. We shouldn't try to risk so much. We could have said, "We will be better prepared later, after more time, to take this risk. We can create Novel Chiropractic later."

Fast forward to now.

In a year, we have done quite a lot, and we didn't die. The sled didn't crash into the bottom in disarray. 

Not only that, but we are doing exactly what we always dreamed we'd be doing. We are helping our community, building our community, gaining value from, and giving value back to our community. However you look at it, we've got a lot to be thankful for.

What's next?

What lies ahead for 2018? Well, we feel more empowered than ever to continue our growth and continue to help our community grow into an even more lovely and gratifying place to live! 

At Novel, we have a lot of new and exciting things planned for 2018. We can always improve, and we can always find new and creative ways to be bring greater value to others. We want to see growth in ourselves personally, in our practice, in our clients, and in Chattanooga.

I hope that you see growth in yourself. I hope you see that the steps that you have taken to get where you are at are all part of the equation. I challenge you to take steps, big and small, toward being yourself, and maybe an even greater version of yourself, and at the end of the day, make time for the stuff you love and the people you love.

Good luck out there!

* photo credit: Sven Scheuermeier