Massage Therapy Career - Is it a Good Choice For You?

Are you looking for a career change and are considering massage therapy as a possible option? Massage therapy is a great career option for several reasons: It is a financially rewarding career, you have a flexible schedule, you meet interesting people, and you help people feel better.

This is only the bright side of Massage Therapy. Choosing Massage Therapy as a career is like deciding on any other career, you have to ask yourself why you want this career, and what type of skills/aptitudes you need.

Learning to massage is a unique experience and you could enroll immediately, even if you won't practice it as a career. Massage, as a hobby, can dramatically improve your lifestyle, however not everybody affords to spend that much time and money for a hobby.

Making the big money as a massage therapist is not easy. You will need, besides your massage technique, people skills, marketing understanding and a social network. Opening your massage place does not automatically bring you the clients. You need to know how to market your skills. In addition, if you consider working for someone else, this is a good start but it could not be as rewarding as expected.

Massaging people is not an easy job, sometimes, especially for a beginner, could be physically exhausting. Are you in good shape? Are you prepared to endure a few weeks of physical challenge until your body adjusts to the demanding physical work? Can you stand for long periods? Do you have any physical limitation that will restrict your massage ability? These are all issues you have to take in consideration.

A very important question you have to answer yourself is "How good am I with my hands?" More training than the average will sometimes solve the problem, but not always. Working as a massage therapist requires great people skills. You need to know how to approach your clients to make them comfortable. You will learn these at school but this is something that is difficult to learn if it is not a native ability.

Probably the most important question is "Do I really like to do this?" If you find yourself often massaging people around you, helping them get better, then Massage Therapy is a good career option for you. If you never touched people with the intent to nurture them, you need to find out how you feel doing it.

The minimum required training for a massage therapist is different in North America. Get the information for your area, as some states require quite a lot of training, while in other states Massage Therapy is unregulated. The minimum of training in US is around 500 hours and it could go up to 1000 hours for states like New York and Nebraska. Some provinces of Canada require as a minimum of training around 2000 hours. For more details, check A.M.T.A. (American Massage Therapy Association) for U.S., or the provincial regulatory Institution for Canada.