In December each year, historically, my children and I plan some time off during the summer school holidays during which we reconnect. For me, as someone who is (mostly) super organised, it is an annual tradition to plan my upcoming goals and aims for the year ahead in 4 domains: - personal - familial- professional - business Personal is obviously a huge category, emcompassing my personal and spiritual goals; health and fitness goals; skin and aesthetic goals, relational goals and more. So while I am behind on this goal setting for 2023, I find it soothing to have a plan, and a way to track my progress and to keep me accountable. With this in mind, I thought I'd share my top tips for helping you with your skin and aesthetic goals if you're not usually a planner and what I've seen work, time and time again, for my most successful patients over the years.  After all, as a Specialist GP with niche training and interests across several areas, including mental health, I find great joy and satisfaction in helping people who want to do better, simplify so they can see the results they say they want to see while holding them accountable; after all, as the saying goes, what is not measured, cannot be improved.  One of my longstanding patients said to me today, when times have been lean for her, she's prioritised the things that have given her the biggest bang for her limited buck so she could save for the more expensive things when things weren't as lean. 1. That is why at Skin Essentials, we focus so much on the initial consultation to understand your goals and aims, but also to give you a realistic picture of what we need from you to help you attain those goals, and over what timeframe. 2. It is why we hold you accountable to booked appointments, and will ask you if you are truly in the right frame of mind to invest in yourself if you regularly reschedule or cancel. In our experience we know this will not yield best results and the token late fee really does not pay our overheads.  3. Without trust there can be nothing - so the initial and subsequent consultations are designed to help determine fit - it has to be a two-way street, without which we cannot proceed. My patients I know, can see that I would never suggest anything that is not in their best interest, no matter how much money they have to spend on it. Equally, I don't work to your budget. I tell you what you need to budget, and you decide if you will find the money and how.  4. Lastly, realistic expectations are everything. So what are some realistic expectations I discuss with you and which we must align on if we are to work together?  I cannot help with significant lift - that is the job of a plastic surgeon. I can help with everything else - tone, texture, volume loss, even some tightening, but not lifting.  I cannot be oncall for you between appointments. This does not apply to emergencies obviously, in the first 24-48 hours when we touch base with you regularly if a treatment is new to you or you are new to us. Thereafter we do expect that if you have pressing concerns you will make an appointment online via video call or face to face to have your concerns addressed or make a note of it to discuss it at your next appointment - this especially applies to concerns to do with skin, skincare and changes which take months, not weeks to begin to show.  there is a mandatory wait period post injectables such as anti wrinkle and fillers, before which we will reassess you to address unevenness, lumps and bumps and more. There is a sound reason for this, and as I always say, medical aesthetics is for the patient patient.  Most medical aesthetics is entirely discretionary spending so it is important to me that you understand what your initial upfront cost will be, and also that you are prepared to budget and to commit so as not to waste your money and our time together. Equally, while we all have things come up occasionally, we also know that frequent cancellations and rescheduling of appointments will mean that you will end up with subpar results. As someone who prides herself on ethical care based in accountability, this is frustrating for me especially when significant sums of money and time are involved.  So as we round out 2022, the patients who've made the most progress and had the most gains have managed to:  stay on track communicate their changed goals if this applies, especially in view of current inflation and rising costs  remain compliant with at-home care, no matter how simple it is remain on schedule with all booked appointments remained patient with outcomes, understanding and accepting that it will take a minimum of 3 months, and often as long as 6 to 9 months to really begin to see progress communicated disappointment if I've said something to upset them, and likewise taken feedback on board when they've likewise because we have understood that boundaries help us stay in the therapeutic relationship.  So my advice with respect to goals, for my patients in 2023, if we are to continue working together to improve your skin, are:  Simplify your skincare, with expert help if needed and then stick to it. you don't need much, but the basics will make a massive difference OVER TIME and with diligence. once you know what that looks like for you, stick to it especially if you have sensitive or problem skin.       2. Less is more the media is constantly trying to sell you lots of STUFF everyone has an opinion on what will make your skin woes go away, yesterday. stop, ignore and press pause. if you have skin problems, you need