Historically, spas were established as places for healing. Although they have since evolved into more of a luxury industry, healing and wellness are still at the heart of their mission. Look at the menu offerings of destination spas, resort spas and day spas, and you’ll find treatments that go beyond facials and massage. Massage therapists strive to help clients address concerns on physical, mental and spiritual levels.

When providing a healing experience for your clients, however, the number and diversity of treatments on the menu are not nearly as important as working with intent. When performed with intent, your work can provide impactful therapy for your clients that extends far beyond your spa and service.

Promote intent among your team, your clients and yourself with these powerful practices:

1.           Start with Personal Growth

As with any business, one of the best ways to serve your clients is understanding their needs and offering the kind of experience that brings them back for more. But to be better in tune with your clients, you first need to be in tune with yourself.

Providing quality spa education to therapists has been a mission of mine for a long time. Nothing surpasses the significance of education when trying to impact customer satisfaction, and as a therapist, your personal focus and growth impact how well you serve your client.

Personal intention in the service you provide translates in your interaction to your client. Anyone who has had spa treatments from different therapists understands how intent and education plays a role in the delivery and level of quality. Intent is your concentrated focus on the client.

2.           Unpack your Purpose

Massage therapy is an interesting industry. The American Massage Therapy Association reports that 78 percent of therapists enter into massage therapy as a second career. If you are one of those who entered the profession as a second career, is massage therapy a calling for you? If so, now that you are here, do you feel a purpose for your next step?

By choosing a new career or any new path, you reinvent your life and search for fulfillment and happiness.

Richard Leider, a former member of the International Spa Association Foundation Board of Directors who has been ranked by Forbes as one of the top five most respected executive coaches in the world, refers to this as unpacking and repacking. When we unpack the various elements and stages in our lives, we’re looking for solutions that will fulfill us. It’s draining, but we’re looking for happiness. When we repack, we find relief, take charge and make decisions that will reinvent ourselves. It’s all about being aware of the factors and events that got you where you are and then focusing on solutions for finding happiness and fulfillment moving forward.

This self-awareness is important not only for your own well-being but also because it will help you better connect with clients. You have the opportunity to impact others through your work as a massage therapist. Isn’t that why you chose this career? Consider what you are carrying, what you are bringing into your practice and how it impacts or serves your clientele. When you are aware and mindfully present in your life situation, you are able to serve your clientele with more intent, focus and connection.

3.           Focus on More than the Treatment

One of the things I love about the spa/massage industry is watching clients come back who don’t even know why they are coming back. They came for a massage, but the therapy/therapist was more than they expected, and they discover the healing that is possible through reconnection with the body and the respite from day-to-day life that spa therapy can bring. When we are whole in our lives, professionally and personally, it resonates with our clients and keeps them coming back. You reach greater heights, and you help your clients on their own journeys to new plateaus.

Bring the healing spa therapy mindset to your practice. Focus on more than a sequence of strokes when you provide massage to a client. When you work with intent, you help both the client and yourself reach fulfillment.