Are you addicted to struggle?

One of my clients, let's call her Sandra although that's not her real name, was completely overwhelmed when she started working with me, with a growing bookkeeping business fuelled predominantly by word-of-mouth referrals. 

On the one hand, it's fantastic to have a problem like that when so many bookkeepers list finding clients as their #1 challenge.

But it's a double-edged sword that can hurt deeply if you don't get boundaries, balance and delegation right.

Sandra brought on a contract bookkeeper and gradually handed over about 15-20 hours of weekly work.

This freed Sandra up to work more on her business - on things like branding and marketing, internal systems and processes, planning and strategy.

She was feeling less stressed and more motivated and her business was transforming. 

Why then did it take just a short month for her to be back to being stressed and overwhelmed with too much client work to do? 

I've seen this happen multiple times and I believe it boils down to being addicted to struggle.

When stress becomes normal we will often find ourselves inadvertently saying yes to things that take us back to, or keep us at, that place of "normalcy."

💡 We need to allow time for our bodies to adjust to a new normal where our days and weeks look and feel much less frenetic.

💡 We need to know and be able to envisage what else we would do if we weren't working late nights and weekends. Are you working because you think you have nothing else to do?  

💡 We need to schedule buffer time into our calendars each week (#bufferfriday) so that when unexpected urgent requests happen, or illness, or when work takes longer than we thought, we have some space to buffer the impact.

💡 We need to be able to say no, or yes but not this week. New, unscheduled work is an opportunity, not an obligation.

💡 We need to think like a business owner and make decisions from that headspace.

What I point out to my clients is that we wouldn't accept this type of situation for our team members, where they are under such ongoing stress, overwhelm and overwork. We would be concerned for their wellbeing, and we would adjust the workload accordingly.  

So why do we accept it for ourselves?

It's unsustainable and, as I point out in The Science of Taking Breaks - one of the modules in The Business of Bookkeeping - it makes us less productive rather than more productive.

In Sandra's case, the cause was a mixture of one-off project work and illness, and also because she said yes to new work that she felt obligated to take on even though she didn't have the extra capacity within her existing team.  

It was about the fact that she took off her "business owner" hat for a moment.

Instead of asking "who" can I delegate this unexpected work to, she asked "how" can I get this unexpected work done.

When you are already stretched, the only answer to that question is to work more hours.

Sandra is back on track now. She put her business owner hat back on and started making different decisions from that headspace.

This business thing is a journey, not a destination.

When we level up there are always going to be new things that we haven't seen before to challenge us. 

One of the best things about working with me in From Bookkeeper to Business Owner is that we have weekly coaching calls so that if you ever feel like you're getting off track you can come back into the fold, back into the group, to find support and get yourself refocused towards your next best course of action.

I never want my clients to feel like they're unsupported and so I am also available as needed for sounding board calls. 

It's a level of support from an industry leader (me) and from industry peers (the group) and that I wish I would have had when I started my bookkeeping business many years ago. It would have been invaluable to me.

Are you at this point of overwhelm? Close to it? Feeling stretched too thin?

Do you want to grow your bookkeeping business but you're not sure what to do next?  

Stephanie 

PS: Interested in working with me as your bookkeeping business coach? Send me an email  or Message me to start the conversation.