444: Maintain Self-Leadership Even If You Always Feel Behind A Podcast For Accountants And High-Stress Professionals
444: Maintain Self-Leadership Even If You Always Feel Behind A Podcast For Accountants And High-Stress Professionals
Many high-performing professionals experience feeling behind. You may be behind on your work, behind on your emails, behind on your projects, your goals, things at home, or even behind on taking care of yourself. Sometimes, you can even feel behind before the day has really started. You wake up thinking about everything you didn’t finish yesterday. You check your email and there are twelve new messages. You look at your calendar and it’s already full. Then you look at your to-do list and you think, “I’m already behind.” If you’ve ever had that thought and you’re an accountant, CPA, bookkeeper, tax preparer, business owner, or other high-stress professional I want to offer you a different way to think about it. Let’s dive in…
Whether you’re an accountant, CPA, bookkeeper, tax preparer, business owner, or other high-stress professional, this episode will give you practical ideas you can use to think more clearly, respond more intentionally, and get more out of life.
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Many high-performing professionals experience feeling behind. You may be behind on your work, behind on your emails, behind on your projects, your goals, things at home, or even behind on taking care of yourself. Sometimes, you can even feel behind before the day has really started. You wake up thinking about everything you didn’t finish yesterday. You check your email and there are twelve new messages. You look at your calendar and it’s already full. Then you look at your to-do list and you think, “I’m already behind.” If you’ve ever had that thought and you’re an accountant, CPA, bookkeeper, tax preparer, business owner, or other high-stress professional I want to offer you a different way to think about it. Let’s dive in…
Welcome Back…Today I want to talk about a feeling that I think a lot of high-stress professionals just like you have experienced a little too often. It’s that feeling that you’re behind. What if feeling behind isn’t always a time problem? What if sometimes it’s a thinking problem? And what if constantly trying to catch up is actually creating more pressure and making it harder for you to do your best work?
Let’s start with something that I think is important. You may actually have a lot to do. I’m not going to tell you that your workload isn’t real. If you’re an accountant during a busy season, you may genuinely have more work than you can comfortably complete in a day. You may have deadlines that aren’t going to move. You may have clients waiting. You may have employees who need you. You may have responsibilities at home. There are real demands on your time. So this isn’t about pretending that everything is fine. It’s not about saying, “Just think positive and you’ll magically have enough time.” That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what happens on top of the workload. Because there is the work itself. And then there’s the story we tell ourselves about the work. And that story can either help us lead ourselves through pressure, or make the pressure much heavier.
Think about what happens when you tell yourself, “I’m so behind.” What do you feel? Maybe it’s anxiety, frustration, guilt, panic or even shame. And when you feel that way, what do you do? You likely rush, jump from task to task, check your email while you’re working on something else. Maybe you start five things without finishing the first one. You might be working through lunch or staying at work later. You could be bringing work home with you or telling yourself you don’t have time to stop. And then, because you’re moving so quickly, you make mistakes. You may forget something. You may have to redo something. You may become short with someone. And now you have even more work to do. Do you see the cycle? The thoughts you have lead to how you’re feeling which creates the actions you take and ultimately leads to your result. The thought, “I’m behind.” Creates the feeling of being under pressure. Which can lead to you hurrying and the result could be more mistakes, more stress, more unfinished work and an even stronger belief that you are behind.
Now let’s consider another possibility. Instead of thinking you’re behind, what if you thought something like, “I have a lot to do, and I’m going to decide what matters most.” That’s a very different thought. Notice that it doesn’t deny your reality. You still have a lot to do. There are still deadlines. There are still responsibilities. But you’re no longer telling yourself that you’re somehow failing because you haven’t finished everything. You’re simply acknowledging, “This is what I’m working with.” And now you can lead yourself. You can prioritize, you can make decisions, you can focus, and you can take the next step. That’s a much different experience.
One of the biggest things I see with the high-stress professionals I work with is that they believe they will finally feel caught up with everything is done. But I want to ask you, when is everything done? Have you ever been in a situation when everything was done? When is your inbox empty forever? When are there no more client requests? When is there nothing else on your to-do list? When are there no more problems? When are there no more deadlines? Probably never. There will always be something else. And if you make “being caught up” the condition for allowing yourself to relax, enjoy your life, or feel good about yourself, you’re putting your life on hold indefinitely. Think about that for a minute. You could have a very successful career. You could accomplish incredible things. You could build a thriving business, and still spend most of your life thinking, “I just need to catch up.” Then one day, you look back and realize you were always waiting for the next thing to be finished before you allowed yourself to enjoy where you were. That’s not what I want for you.
So let’s go back to The RE*INVENTION™ Process. The first step is THINK. Let’s apply this to you. What are you thinking about your workload? Are you thinking something like, I’m behind, I should have gotten more done, I don’t have enough time, I’m never going to catch up, everyone else is ahead of me, or I should be able to handle all of this? Or are you thinking, I have a lot to do, I can decide what matters most, I don’t have to finish everything today, I can take this one step at a time, or I can handle what is in front of me? Those thoughts may sound simple, but they create very different experiences. And I want you to remember, this isn’t about finding a fake, positive thought that you don’t believe. If you’re looking at a mountain of work and saying, everything is amazing, I have plenty of time, your brain probably isn’t going to believe it. Instead, I want you to look for a thought that is true and useful for your situation. For example, if you think you have a lot to do and you can decide what comes next, that’s believable. And it gives you an option and direction to go next.
Then comes RESPOND. Once you’ve slowed down your thinking, ask yourself, what’s the next best thing for me to do? Not, “How am I going to finish everything?” That’s a much bigger question. When you’re overwhelmed, trying to solve your entire workload at once can make you feel even more overwhelmed. Instead, just ask yourself what is the next best step? Maybe it’s finishing the client return you’re already working on. Maybe it’s making one important phone call. Maybe it’s answering the email that is actually holding up someone else. Maybe it’s taking ten minutes to organize your priorities, or asking someone for help, or deciding that something can wait. The goal isn’t to figure out your entire life in one moment. It’s to make the next intentional decision, then the next one, then the next one. That’s how you move forward.
And then we have LIVE. This is where I want you to think beyond today’s workload because the way you handle today’s pressure is helping create the life you’re living. If every day is about rushing, reacting, and trying to catch up, what does that create for you? If you’re constantly telling yourself that you can’t enjoy your life until the work is done, what happens to your life? If you’re always postponing your health, your relationships, you hobbies, your family time, and the things that matter to you because you’re “behind,” when do you actually get to live? This is why LIVE matters so much. It’s not just asking yourself how do I get more done. It’s, “What kind of life am I creating while I’m getting things done?” That’s a much bigger question. And I think it’s one that high-stress professionals don’t ask themselves often enough.
Here’s a simple exercise I want you to try the next time you find yourself thinking you’re behind. Stop, take a breath, and ask yourself these three questions. Number one, What am I thinking? Write down the exact thought. Not the polished version, the real thought. It might be something like, I’m behind, I’m failing, or I’ll never get this done. Whatever it is, just notice it. Second ask yourself what is actually true? I just want the facts here. You may have a lot of work. You may have deadlines, You may have responsibilities, but are you actually behind or are you simply in the middle of a demanding season? Those are not necessarily the same thing. And finally, ask yourself what is your next best step? Not everything, not your entire to-do list, just the next best step. Then I want you to take that step.
And actually, I want to add one more question. This one is especially important. I want you to ask yourself, “What would I do differently if I didn’t believe I was behind?” Would you slow down? Would you focus on one thing instead of five? Would you stop checking your email every three minutes? Would you take a lunch break? Would you ask someone for help? Would you leave work at a reasonable time? Would you be more present with your family? Would you stop beating yourself up for not getting everything done? Sometimes the biggest change doesn’t come from getting more done. It comes from stopping the thoughts that are causing the pressure.
So, if you’re an accountant or high-stress professional and you’re listening to this and thinking, Chris, that’s great, but during certain times of the year, I really am behind, I want you to know that I understand that. I really do. I’ve been in the accounting world for more than 20 years. I know what deadlines feel like. I know what it feels like when the work keeps coming and the list doesn’t seem to get shorter. But even when you genuinely have more work than time, you still have choices. You can choose how you think about it. You can choose what gets your attention first. You can choose what can wait. You can choose whether to ask for help. You can choose how you speak to yourself. You can choose whether you’re going to spend the entire day in reaction mode, and you can choose whether your life outside of work gets to have any of your time. You may not control the workload, but you can still lead yourself through it, and that makes all the difference.
I want you to remember that you are not a machine designed to check everything off of your to-do list. You are a person. You have relationships. You have interests. You have dreams. You have a body that needs rest. You have a mind that needs space. You have people in your life who want more than just whatever energy you have left over after work. Your career matters. Your business matters. Your clients matter. Your responsibilities matter. But you matter too, and you don’t have to wait until everything is finished to remember that. So here’s your challenge for this week. The next time you catch yourself saying I’m behind, I want you to pause, take a breath, and replace that thought with, “I have a lot to do, and I can decide what comes next.” Then ask yourself what matters most right now. And lastly, what is my next best step? That’s it. You don’t need to solve everything. You don’t need to catch up with your entire life. You just need to lead yourself through what’s in front of you. One decision. One response. One step at a time. That’s how you THINK, RESPOND, and LIVE. Think clearly about what’s happening. Respond differently. Be intentional, and live in a way that reflects what matters most to you so that you can live a life you truly enjoy.
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