Measuring the Success and Satisfaction of a Massage Therapy Career

by Sandy Fritz

There are many ways to measure success and Massage Therapy as a career offers many many ways to create success from employment to self-employed, from a home office or mobile to working in a hospital. Satisfaction is a measure of success. Only you can determine what being satisfied means to you.

Massage Therapy is a one-on-one people career about one hour at a time and most stable with a retention client base serving the same group of people over and over. There certainly are other practice options such as a hospital based practice where clients pass through your hands after one or two sessions or in the resort practice with clients on vacation. The massage practice can be presented as a short term intervention targeting a specific issue. Even in these short term interactions connection and compassion are the foundation.

However, in my experience, the long term retention client practice is the most stable . Any one person can only sustain a relationship-personal or therapeutic (like with massage therapy clients) with a limited number of people. Many experts put the limits on group experiences at 12 people.

I limit my classes to 12 participates. Over my many years of practice my client base has hovered between 20-40 clients seen on a regular basis (weekly, every two weeks or monthly). There have been times when 10 -12 clients have filled my schedule.

Clients also have to be satisfied for a massage therapist to have a successful practice. A huge part of client satisfaction is connection. So, a successful massage career often involves a small circle of people. Keep this in mind as you develop and or redevelop your career vision. Some feel isolated or stagnant in this type of practice. Having a part time massage practice and another part time career focus is an option.

Some may find that it is time to move on into a different career path. There is some career pressure right now that is pushing massage therapists to question if the small massage practice is viable and the pandemic has created a time of reflection on your career satisfaction. Certainly it is fine to pivot and or expand or change career focus entirely.

It is also fine to realize that you are satisfied in your massage therapy career. The current circumstances will pass and we as a society will learn to adapt.

Massage Therapy creates connection - communicating through touch. We are valuable.