9 Lessons From Six Years of Running My Own Reiki Business

I’m doing a postmortem on my in-person Reiki business, which I ran in Wichita for six years from the White Dove metaphysical bookstore and yoga studio.

Here’s what I learned from working on my side-hustle part-time for years!

I closed up shop due to the pandemic and have been working to get found for Distance Reiki sessions online since 2020. Ultimately, I rolled “You Deserve Reiki” into being a part of my online offering at Destiny Architecture, my coaching business.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re doomed to repeat them.

So I’m writing this to help you learn from my mistakes (or what I perceive them to be).

I started a small, local business called “You Deserve Reiki” in 2014 in Wichita, Kansas. I named it this because all my early test clients were women who confided in me that they felt like they didn’t “deserve” time for themselves. This was before #SelfCare became a thing on Instagram.

I rented a space at White Dove and created a relaxing Reiki therapy room. The following is a postmortem on that Reiki business, but I think anyone can take some of these lessons away to use them for any kind of business.

So, please read on and learn from these mistakes.

If you’re starting a side hustle or even if you’re already making progress with one, I’ve got some ideas for you!

I’m pretty hard on myself, so I managed to include a few kudos for what I did well at the end of this article.

Onto the 9 Lessons I Learned from My Side Hustle

1. Start spreadsheets from day zero to track data and changes.

Guess when I finally went through six years’ worth of Reiki files? Last weekend. I found some data I could use going forward, but all of this was on paper and a total mess. I had to go through it manually on a Saturday.

I had no idea how many clients I’d worked with or how many hours I’d logged until I manually went through a giant…