The 3 Mental States of CPAs

What’s top of mind for me today? The 3 Mental States of CPAs that I’ve seen over and over again. I want to make sure you’re choosing the right mental state. 

It’s February… tax time in North America. For Canadian CPAs and U.S. CPAs, it can be a pretty exhausting and stressful time of year. I was working with a number of accounting firms that are in the Accountant Success Formula program — they’ve shifted their business model over (so they are much less anxious) but there’s still this lingering stress that comes from being in the middle of the tax time.

One of the three lies that I talked about is that tax time just has to suck. It doesn’t have to suck! Having been in public practice for close to 30 years, I know exactly how stressful it can be.

I realized that there are three mental states that all people are in, not just accountants, but particularly accountants. To keep yourself sane, you need to check in with your mental state. What am I referring to specifically? Let me explain.

 

The Victim State

The first one is the Victim State which is an easy one to fall into, especially when it’s tax time. It’s busy, and you’re working crazy hours when you’re not seeing your family. You’re tired and not doing anything fun. You find yourself in the victim state.

 

The Anger State

The second stage is called the Anger State. Whenever someone stays in a victim state too long, they get angry and it just elevates their negative energy. With a little burst of energy, they get angry and then they fall back down to victim — most people stay in that little loop. They find themselves repeating to themselves…Tax returns are crap… I don’t want to do this. Then they get angry at clients for coming in and not bringing in their tax returns on time. They end up back in the victim state. 

 

The Empowered State

The third mental state, the one that I’m always constantly trying to keep myself in, is the Empowered State. If you’re in an empowered state of mind, you avoid this negative victim-anger loop that goes on over and over again.

It’s your choice how you feel. It’s all about choices.

The empowered state is when you realize that you actually don’t have to do all these tax returns. You don’t have to do all this work for these clients. You don’t have to work crazy hours. It’s actually your choice to do so. But the problem is that most accountants don’t realize that they have a choice and that there is a way out!

 

Get Out Of The Victim Mentality

That’s why I created the Accountant Success Formula — there is a way to get out of that victim mentality.

Think about your mental states. What state are you in? The Empowered state is the state you want to be in. You can make empowering choices and decide who you work with. You can decide how much money you make and how much free time you want to have.

Those are all available to you in the Accountant Success Formula. So think about it, three states: victim, anger, and empowered. Which one do you want to be in?

I’m Erik Solbakken, reminding you that when you take back control of your business model, you can take back control of your life. Stay tuned for more success tips.