Drop in reported anxiousness after one 20-minute, solution-focused goal-setting session (Archuleta et al., 2020). This worksheet walks you through the same exercise, on your own, for your practice.
You use structured, strengths-based conversations with clients every day. This exercise turns that same skill toward the part of your practice that keeps you up at night: the money.
Researchers led by Kristy Archuleta (now at the University of Georgia) ran 50 clients through a single financial goal-setting session built on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Sessions ran about 20 minutes. One change made the difference: instead of asking "What are your financial goals?", the facilitator asked "What are your best hopes for your financial future?" Clients pictured that future, named what was already working, and broke the gap into small steps.
Before and after, participants rated their anxiousness, irritability, worry, muscle tension, fatigue, and overall financial anxiety. Here is what moved.
Worry (9%) and fatigue (7%) also dropped, though those two changes did not reach statistical significance. Source cited on the last page.
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Right now, thinking about your practice's finances, how anxious do you feel? Pick one.
What are your best hopes for your practice's financial future?
Suppose it is one year from now and those hopes came true. Walk through a regular workday. What do you notice that is different?
On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the Tuesday you just described, where are you right now?
You are at that number and not a zero. What is already working? What have you already figured out, set up, or gotten through?
What would you notice if you were one point higher on that scale? Name the smallest thing that would tell you it happened.
The first step I will take this week, and the day I will do it:
Reread what you wrote in step 3. Which strength there will carry you through the step you chose in step 4?
Pick a check-in. Put it on your calendar now.
Same question as the start. Thinking about your practice's finances, how anxious do you feel right now?
If the number moved, that is the same effect the study measured. If it did not, that is information too. Some weeks the most useful outcome is a written first step.
Heard is the only financial management software built for therapists. Bookkeeping, quarterly tax estimates, S corp guidance, and tax filing, handled by people who work with private practices all day. Bring your step 4 to a free consult and we will tell you what it takes.
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Source: Archuleta, K. L., Mielitz, K. S., Jayne, D., & Le, V. (2020). Financial Goal Setting, Financial Anxiety, and Solution-Focused Financial Therapy (SFFT): A Quasi-experimental Outcome Study. Contemporary Family Therapy, 42(1), 68–76. doi.org/10.1007/s10591-019-09501-0. Percentages are pre- to post-session changes in self-reported measures among 50 participants; worry and fatigue changes were not statistically significant.
This worksheet is for informational purposes and is a self-guided exercise, not therapy or financial advice. © 2026 Heard Technologies, Inc.