#162 November 14th, 2024
Blake Carroll, CPA
PwC People Team - Manager | Helping Aspiring CPAs Navigate the CPA Exam with Confidence
It can be difficult to know how to respond to negative emotions. We should not ignore them and we do not want to engage in toxic positivity, but we should not brood and wallow in them either. Our day-to-day emotions determine so much of the quality of our life, so we should want good and pleasant emotions. But if we just try to stuff down our negative feelings, and ignore them, they will pop back up. I love the analogy of trying to hold a beach ball underwater.
So you have to let yourself really feel and experience all emotions, even unpleasant ones. You have to take the time to pause and figure out where the emotion is manifesting itself physically in your body. You have to label the emotion as specifically as possible, because that creates a space between you and the emotion which makes it easier to move on from it. Don’t judge or beat yourself up for having a negative emotion; we all do at times! If you are judging yourself it will be much harder to let go of the feeling that you are trying to release.
Once you have done all these actions, it is so much easier to let the feeling go and move on from it. This isn’t always easy to do, but it’s a skill that can get better with practice and repetition.
We are all carrying beliefs and stories about money with us that we picked up when we were younger, even if we do not realize it. Those beliefs shape how we interact with and how we view money, and often they come from our parents.
A big determinant is whether money was a source of conflict and argument in our childhood, or if there was more of an abundance mindset. This article talks about some of the different common sets of money beliefs. A lot of people are very afraid and anxious about money and so they hardly ever talk about it. They associate wealth with greed, and overall they think money is a bad and undesirable thing. But then, ironically, they may still want more money themselves to improve their life. Money worshipers think all they need to be truly happy is more money, but then no matter how much they get they always still want more. Money worship is strongly linked to a scarcity mindset. It prioritizes money over relationships, often to people’s detriment.
People with a “money status” mindset define their self-worth by their net worth and care a lot about having nice material possessions to impress others. It’s a very fake mindset. The last, and perhaps best mindset is money vigilance. This is associated with mindful spending, saving, and hard work to earn money. Often these people are private when discussing money. The one downside is, they may not get as much enjoyment spending money because they focus too much on saving.
The bright side with all of these mindsets is that you can start to work toward changing how are you view money at any time. They are not permanent, but it can take time.
In this article, a successful chief marketing officer in a large company shares the career principles that have made the biggest impact for her.
Her most important one is recognizing how finite your time is, and how much you must protect it, especially given all of the external demands on your time. Don’t sacrifice your priorities for low value distractions. Focus on all of the possibilities available to you, not on limitations. No matter where you are going, significant success is going to take a high amount of hard work over a long period of time.
As you work hard, you are inevitably going to make mistakes, but you must lean into them to learn from them rather than running from them. If you are not making mistakes that means you are not trying. No one is perfect at their jobs, no matter their position. You must have a learning student mindset no matter where you are in your career. It’s more important to be headed in the right direction than never making mistakes. The discomfort and fear from making mistakes and trying new things is something that will become smaller as you continually step out of your comfort zone.
You also need some type of internal motivation driving you. You need to have an awareness of how the work you do serves others and gives back to them, whether that is your customers or your coworkers. Lastly, appreciate that the investments you make into your work team will pay off the most, since we can do so much more together, and then on our own.
CPA tip of the week: When preparing for the CPA exam, remember that success is not achieved in one day or one study session. Consistent and repeated study sessions over time are key. Don't put pressure on yourself for perfection today or any day. It’s the long-term perspective that leads to achieving your goal.