The CPA Moms' Coach

How often over the course of your life have you asked yourself, “Am I good enough”? It often starts at a young age when you begin comparing yourself to others. You start creating beliefs about how the world works. You come up with an image in your head about what it means to be “good” and “enough” and continually measure yourself against that image. In this age of hyper-awareness of the rest of the world’s accomplishments via social media, you can begin to have an even greater feeling of not being good enough. You begin comparing yourself to the edited versions of other people’s lives and start feeling like you don’t measure up.

As a working mom with an accounting career you know a lot about hard work and trying to balance your career with your family. Sometimes it can seem like it’s just not possible to do it all and especially to do it successfully. There may come a point where you want to consider working a reduced schedule but aren’t sure how it will affect your career. You want to be successful in your career but you also want to be happy in other areas of your life. You begin to question whether working part time and being successful is possible.

Lyrics from the Frank Sinatra song “My Way” share the final thoughts of someone before they die. The song talks about living a life that’s full, traveling, doing what they had to do and sometimes biting off more than they could chew. That song is the battle cry for living, loving and laughing until one’s final breath. It’s about living a life that you won’t have to regret later on. In a study done by hospice care, the most common end-of-life regrets were:

I just finished the audiobook “Girl Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis and had some time to sit and think about what she shared. In the book, Rachel shares twenty lies and misconceptions that hold us back from living joyfully and productively. These lies have been taught to us from an early age and we perpetuate them by believing them so much, we don’t question their validity. In addition to Rachel’s, I had also read another book a while ago about what happy working mothers know and literally yelled out loud “NO!!” (I’ll explain why later). Unfortunately there are so many unintentional lies taught to young girls that get passed down and then passed on. It can be a shock to the system to really take a good hard look at what’s true and what’s false.

No matter what profession you are in, the concept of burnout is all too familiar to working women. As working moms we have an added layer of challenges, expectations, judgments and time constraints that can take the feeling of stress to the next level. Many women hit the proverbial wall and surrender by announcing that burnout has beaten them; they just can’t do it all.

As a working mom I’m sure you’ve said out loud (more than a few times) “There’s just not enough time in the day!” With everything we have going on in our lives, it seems like a reasonable thing to exclaim. But what if you could actually create more time?

In the past ten years, the awareness of Eastern philosophies and ways of healing our minds and bodies has become part of our normal conversation. What used to be considered “hippie-ish” is now more mainstream. People are looking for ways to be more “zen” and less stressed. It’s not unheard of for someone to learn yoga, practice meditation with the help of a phone app, burn candles or play spa-like music to help slow down their hurried lives.

Shonda Rhimes, the amazing creator of the shows Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal as well as executive producer of How to Get Away With Murder, is a super busy working mom. She balances her demanding job with being a single mother of 3 young girls but one Thanksgiving, everything changed. While describing all the things she was asked to do but chose not to, her sister muttered “You never say yes to anything”. This one exchange with her sister made her take a look at her life in a whole new way. She chose to spend the following year saying yes to everything she feared and chronicling that year into the book “A Year of Yes”. What she learned about herself during that challenging year made her book a New York Times Bestseller and a soul sister for many women.

In last week’s blog I discussed how to set a goal and provided steps to take along the journey of reaching that goal. What comes up for many people after setting a goal is the question “But how do I finish what I started?” If you are anything like me, you dive into the newness of a book, project or goal and then lose that “loving feeling” and fizzle out half way through. It’s the main reason why there are so many empty gyms on February 1st.

January is just around the corner and you know what that means – New Year’s resolutions! A commonly cited statistic is that only 8% of people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions. Isn’t that amazing! We typically see the following twelve months of a new year as a clean slate of possibility. We look back at all the things we didn’t accomplish the previous year and exclaim “This is my year!” Setting goals has even become an entire industry in and of itself with competitions like “The Biggest Loser” and the proliferation of yearly goal setting planners determined to keep you motivated and on track.

Of all the things clients want to be coached on, fear is the most common. They’ve taken fear to an extreme that doesn’t serve them. It makes them play small. Things like the fear of imperfection, of judgment, of success or failure, not being good enough, losing control or fear of what might happen in the future are just some of the fears that we carry around like a super heavy backpack.

The holiday season is upon us which means the giving and getting of gifts. As children we can’t wait to get that special toy we’ve been waiting all year for. We feel the thrill of anticipation. We may feel excited, happy and loved believing that getting that desired present is the cause of our happiness. No matter what holiday we celebrate or what age we are, we often wish those great feelings could last throughout the year. Most of us are taught at a very early age to want

The first time I understood the deeper meaning of the difference between an introvert and an extrovert, I got emotional because I wasn’t aware that there were other people just like me. I was reading a book on behavior management and thought it would be fun to take a quiz on whether I was an introvert or an extrovert, never knowing how those results would change my life. I have since learned to own my introvert nature and to even be grateful for how I handle the world in my own unique way.

It can strike at any time no matter what we do for a living, how many children we have, what their ages are or how much help we have balancing our career with our family. When we are at work, we can feel guilty because we wish we were with our kids. When we are with the kids, we can feel guilty because we wish we were at work. We have a tug of war going on in our hearts and minds and it’s a war that’s has been creating stress for working moms for decades. I have been a CPA for over 30 years and a mom for 26 years. My children have only ever known having a mom that works and for most of my early career, mom guilt reared its ugly head on a regular basis.

It’s almost that time of year when families gather for the holidays and work parties require everyone to try to get along. It’s when we dread having to see that uncle who always finds something to complain about or we try to avoid that coworker who only wants to brag about her kids and never asks us how ours are doing. Whether it’s at work, in our family or in our daily interactions, difficult people seem to be everywhere.

You may be familiar with the term “buffering” In the world of computers. You are probably used to seeing the little swirling circle when you are trying to watch a video. In the dictionary, buffering also means to lessen or moderate the impact of something as in “She tried to buffer her children from the effects of the divorce”. It’s synonymous with protecting, defending or guarding. When we use buffering in our lives to “lessen or moderate the impact of something”, it’s to lessen the impact of our negative emotions.

It’s that time of year when we bring out next seasons clothes and become re-familiar with what’s been stored away. It’s when the old can become “new” again. When we can make decisions about things we want to keep, discard or give away. If you got swept up in the decluttering craze of Marie Kondo’s book “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” like I did, you know all about only keeping items that you love and how to properly fold and store

A few weeks ago my husband had chosen to not speak to me for a day. I was mistaken about the time we were supposed to leave for something and I wasn’t ready when it was time to go so he went without me. Before I learned how to manage my mind, this type of scenario would have played out with thoughts like these:

When was the last time you were happy at your job? When was the last time you came home and felt a sense of accomplishment? This week I’m going to explore why people believe they aren’t happy at their jobs, why I disagree with the reasons and what you can do to feel better about your job.

Envision this – resentment free relationships, no longer engaging in gossip, clear and honest communication with others and with yourself, managing your relationship with technology, feeling peaceful and in control. Sounds great right? It’s possible when you learn how to set proper boundaries in your life. This week I’m going to share the secrets to setting boundaries (hint: just saying “no” is not setting a boundary), what a boundary is and is not and share an example from my life.

The further back you look, more articles were written about the rise of female accountants.  Female accountants have been making their presence more noticeable since the 90’s when the demand for accountants was on the rise. This week I’m going to explore my beginning as a female accountant, why statistics don’t paint a true picture, the female business owner trend, the new generation of “conscious creators” that female accountants are poised to support and how I can support you by showing you how to manage your mind.