In this week's episode of Billable-Hour Burnout, we'll discuss practical advice to help you achieve your dream career without stress or overwhelm, and how to finally enjoy the life you've built. If you're ready for more balance, ease, and confidence without making drastic changes to your job, you're in the right place.
Why You’re Burning Out This Summer
These are the main reasons you're burning out this summer:
Negative thoughts you're having.
Negative feelings you're avoiding.
Intentional actions you're not taking.
Understanding the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and actions is essential to feeling better and living your life fully. Negative thoughts can spiral, leading to increased stress and anxiety. Avoiding negative feelings only postpones dealing with them, often making them worse. Finally, not taking intentional actions keeps you stuck in a cycle of burnout and inefficiency. Addressing these areas can significantly improve your overall well-being and productivity. So, how confident are you in tackling these issues?
Are You Confident in These Approaches? (Strategies to Accomplish More)
To help you break free from burnout and enjoy the rest of your summer, I have outlined three powerful strategies. These strategies are designed to help you focus on what truly matters and create a more balanced, fulfilling life. Here they are:
1. Prioritize Your Priorities
Having a clear plan and focusing on the most important tasks is crucial. Avoid letting distractions and non-essential tasks take over your time. How confident are you in your ability to self-prioritize effectively?
2. Get Comfortable Saying “No”
Learning to say no to non-essential tasks is vital for preventing burnout and making the most of your summer. Protect your time and energy by prioritizing what's truly important. If you struggle with the "yes dilemma," check out this episode on how to say no without feeling guilty for strategies to help you master this essential skill.
3. Be vs. Do
Shift your focus from what you accomplish to who you are. Your worth is not determined by your productivity. Embrace being over doing and recognize the value of simply existing and enjoying life.
Why Take Action Now?
Imagine reading a book poolside, going on vacation without checking email, leaving your work phone behind without guilt, enjoying al fresco dining with friends, spending time on your patio, enjoying longer evenings outside, and not letting stress get to you. These are just some of the rewards waiting for you when you prioritize your well-being and make intentional choices to enjoy the rest of your summer. How confident are you in making these changes now?
Taking action now not only enhances your summer but also combats mental exhaustion. Effective delegation is a key strategy to reduce your workload and mental strain. Check out my detailed article on combatting mental exhaustion with delegation strategies for practical tips to enhance your productivity and well-being.
For more insights on recovering from burnout and making the most of your summer vacation, read this Forbes article.
Professional Benefits of Taking Care of Yourself
Taking care of yourself has significant professional benefits:
It provides perspective and allows for creative thinking.
Helps you recalibrate, especially if you're ending a fiscal year.
Gives you a chance to evaluate and plan for the new year.
Disconnecting makes you more efficient when you are working.
Properly managing your summer can lead to more accomplishments with less effort.
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Making the Most of Your Summer
Thank you for reading today's episode. If you liked it, drop a comment and let me know what you think. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook. I can't wait to connect with you and help you make the most of your summer.
Ready to accomplish more without doing more? Kickstart your journey by subscribing to my newsletter, "Billable-Hour Burnout". It’s THE resource for women in accounting, law, and consulting. If you’re chasing less stress, more confidence, and the secrets to achieving more with less effort, hit the subscribe button by clicking HERE.
Main Takeaways for this Episode:
Understanding Summer Burnout
Strategies to Combat Burnout
Why Take Action Now?
Importance of Vacation Strategies
Watch the Full Episode:
Full Episode Transcript:
Hello, everybody. We are live. It's Friday, a summer Friday. Welcome to Billable Hour Burnout. It's a good day. It's 73 degrees outside in New York City, and I'm happy to be streaming with you today.
Did you know that summer is 100 days long? From Memorial Day to Labor Day, we have 100 days. The good news is we still have 94 days left. The bad news is that 6% of your summer is already gone. You don't want to waste another minute of your time.
I'm going to make sure you have the best summer ever. I'll show you exactly what you need to know and make sure this precious moment isn't wasted. But first, let me welcome you. This is Billable Hour Burnout.
If you need tactical advice to help you move forward in your career without stress or overwhelm, you're in the right place. If you want to enjoy the life you've spent decades building, you're in the right place. If you're here today, it means you're ready for more work-life balance, more ease, more confidence, and you're ready to make it happen without quitting your job or burning down your life.
I'm Lauren Baptiste, your Big 4 Auditor, Tax Regulatory Consultant turned Life Coach, and this is Billable Hour Burnout. On the weekly show, I share simple tactics, helpful tools, and mindset strategies for the modern accountant, consultant, or attorney. You ready? Let's do this.
We are on episode 15. This is a good milestone. We're making headway. I'm happy to have you here. Yesterday, I had a webinar on how to accomplish more without doing more. It was a success, with my largest registration numbers to date, which tells me you all are bought in.
We all want to learn how to accomplish more without doing more, and I walked through my strategies on how to do that. Now, I'm going to recap that, but first, a little personal anecdote.
Today is my pup's fourth birthday. It's my dog Mimi's birthday. We rehomed her about seven months ago from another family, and today we're taking her to a puppy store. We let her find a bone or a toy she's excited about and then we'll buy probably like five of them and bring them home.
I'm excited. There's a chance it might be a long birthday weekend, and we might go tomorrow, but I will post stories on my Instagram feed. If you're into French Bulldogs and cute little dog moments, you'll want to see that.
In other news, I am going on vacation in a week. I'm heading to Tuscany for a yoga retreat, and then to Barcelona. During this time, I am taking a few weeks off. That means no Billable Hour Burnout for a few episodes, but you will get one next week. Next week is our last episode before I go on break.
Next week, I'm going to be teaching you vacation strategies. I know we said a vacation is not the answer to burnout, but it is still valuable, so I'm going to show you some strategies on how to make it work. I love working with partners and helping them have amazing vacations, and I'm going to help you have one too. But that's not today's episode.
Let's go into today's client success story. This comes from my client, Angie, who's a manager and a part-time business owner. She says, "Having Lauren as a coach has been a life changer for me. I've invested in several coaches over the past few years, and Lauren has given the most value to me.
She met me where I was when I first came to her. She held space for me. She supported me. She allowed me to make positive shifts in my entire life. When I came to her, I was a procrastinator. I knew I wanted dreams. I wanted to build my own business. I wanted retirement. I just didn't know how to get there. Even though I knew the steps, I had other coaches telling me what I needed to do, but I wasn't doing it. I've gone from being in a rut to taking the steps since I've been with Lauren and her program."
This perfectly segues into today's topic. First of all, Angie, it was great working with you. She is a graduated client, successful. I love what she's up to, and I'm always in awe of all my clients. Just to see how she's grown and evolved is why I get out of bed every morning. But let's talk about how to accomplish more without doing more.
There are three reasons why you're burning out in the summer. And I'm sure you can think of a lot of reasons why you think you're burning out, but these are the only three reasons: negative thoughts you're having, negative feelings you're avoiding, and intentional actions you're not taking.
Negative thoughts about the summer, all the chauffeuring, all of the planning, all the logisticking, all the team who's out of office. There's the negative feelings you're avoiding, such as resentment, frustration, guilt when you actually are out of office. There's a lot of feelings that we're not feeling and by avoiding them, we are not making progress.
And there are intentional actions that we're not taking. There are ones that we're taking that aren't serving us and likely there's intentional ones that we're not taking. To feel better and have a great summer, you need to understand the connection of what you think, how you feel, and the actions you take.
It's not about the resource challenges you have. It's not about the summer statutory due date. It's not about the last-minute hiccup or tough client. It's about one of those three: thoughts, feelings, or actions that are getting in your way.
Now, I want to talk to you about the three specific strategies I taught yesterday. If you want all of the details, then you're going to want to watch the replay. I'll link the replay recording in the comments of wherever you're seeing this. If you don't see it, you can always message me.
These are the strategies, and I want to take you a step further today. I'll paint this picture for you of why these are so important.
Strategy one: prioritize your priorities.
Strategy two: get comfortable with saying no.
Strategy three: focus on being less on doing.
Now that we know the strategies, they're powerful. So maybe I'll even unpack them for just a minute. Prioritize your priorities. Do you have a plan? Are you prioritizing the most important things or are you letting the squeakiest wheel, the trivial many, take over?
We often focus on the notifications, the distractions, the things that come right into our line of sight, but they are not likely the most important things. Make sure you have a plan and prioritize the most important things.
Strategy two is getting comfortable with saying no. We say no to ourselves all the time. This is why we're feeling burnt out. This is why we're setting ourselves up for 94 more days of not the most fun summer.
Number three, being versus doing. How many times do you equate your worth to what you accomplish in a day, to how productive you were, to how many things you cross off your to-do list? That's part of the problem. When we don't feel like we're productive in a particular day, our confidence starts to dip. I'm flipping the script and I want you to focus more on who you are, human being versus human doing.
Knowing these three strategies is not enough. We can conceptually understand them, but can we embody them? Can we embrace them? Can we take it to the next level?
Now let's talk about why now is the most important time to take action. The one thing I know is that all year the cooler talk is about summer vacation. I can't wait till the weather gets nicer. And here we are, imagine another year going by, another summer where you're not getting what you want.
So I want you to focus. What is it that you want? What would make now feel so good? I came up with a short list that I thought sounded lovely and I want to share it with you. Imagine the idea of reading a book poolside. That sounds nice.
Why take action now? Because you can go on vacation and not check your email. You can leave your work phone behind without guilt. Go for a walk and leave your work phone behind. Amazing.
Al fresco dining with your girlfriends and watching the sunset instead of being in your cube. Sitting on your patio, the patio that you waited all year to use. I was talking to one of my clients the other day and she was feeling not so good. I asked if she had been on her patio and she said no. I told her to go right now. That's exactly what I'm talking about.
We're going to focus on the things that make us feel good. Let's enjoy the longer evenings outside, going for a bike ride, spending time with loved ones, playing in the yard with your kids or your nieces or your family. And most of all, not having the stress get to you. This can be 365 days a year.
This is why we're doing this work right now. We're not waiting anymore. We're deciding that we want this now. We deserve this now. We've worked hard enough. We've built ourselves up far enough in our careers. We're at or near the top. And we want to enjoy the summer. I want you to as well.
Having a great summer isn't just a personal benefit. There is a professional benefit as well. Before you think that poolside reading isn't supporting your career, hold on. Serving yourself by sitting poolside, for example, supports career development.
It gives you a moment to zoom out, to build perspective, be more creative, and allow yourself to recalibrate. Some of you are coming towards the end of a fiscal year, and it gives you a moment to evaluate, tweak, and repeat. We can bulldoze through the end of the fiscal year and start the new one strong. But are you starting it that strong when you don't give yourself a moment to catch your breath? I don't think so.
Studies show that when we work without a break, we are less effective. That's where we start to see the smoke before the fire of burnout. Disconnecting makes you more efficient when you're actually working. A lot of your work is actually the recharging that you do off hours.
If you're working till midnight every night, sleeping five hours, and repeating, there's not a lot of time to recharge. You're making more mistakes, feeling more drained, and it doesn't feel good. You're working more, accomplishing less. This is how we accomplish more without doing more: by taking care of ourselves.
We disconnect. We learn how to vacation better, so we're not just sprinting to get on the plane and then working twice as much the week we're back. That's not how it needs to go. If we properly manage this summer, we can have more without doing more. We can have summer memories and still hit our billable hour requirements.
We can enjoy a book beachside or a magazine beachside, and still make headway in our career. It's not one or the other. We can have it both ways. This is a situation where you get to have your cake and eat it too, and that's what I'm teaching you.
So okay, we're all bought in. Personally, this sounds pretty good. Professionally, I could be bought in on that too. Now that we're bought in on why it's a good time to implement, to learn, and embody these strategies, it's time to take advantage of this moment.
I'm making an irresistible offer for you. I'm opening my calendar for one solid week. Book your consultation to get this party started, to make sure that you have the best summer ever. Every day that goes by is a day that you can be creating more memories, having more time for yourself, enjoying the warmth. Every day that we don't set ourselves up for success is another day that goes by that we're bringing our work phone in our beach bag. Another day that we take a long weekend and feel guilty about it or jump on meetings while we're out of office.
Now is the time for you to live it up, and I am making it so good for you. I'm inviting you to join me for a consultation. I've opened my calendar for priority booking. Anyone that wants a consult gets on my calendar nights, weekends, it's available. It's on my calendar until it's not. There are already clients who have taken advantage of this one, cut the line before the webinar, and she's like, actually, I want to join. So I have a new client who will be starting our full program soon. She's not wasting her time, and I recommend you don't either.
If you've never done a consultation before, maybe you've done a health consultation, maybe you've done a coaching consultation, maybe you have not, but what it is is a luxurious hour with me where we talk about where you're at, what you want, and create a plan for how to make it happen. That's what we do in this one-hour consultation, which is free. You are getting exactly what you need to set yourself up for the greatest success for this summer.
I love spending time on consultations because no matter what happens on the call, the client who joins is getting clarity. I love seeing that light bulb moment. Like, oh, this is what's possible for me. Let's do this, right? That is so fun. I really love that experience where you get to see the fog lift. When we're in this burnout haze, we literally can't see the forest through the trees, but when the fog lifts, clarity happens, transformation happens, excitement happens, hope happens. When we feel like all hope is gone, hope happens. And that's why I do these consultations.
I want you to have this intimate private experience with me where you can get a taste of what it's like to work together. I get to see if you're a fit. I get to know if I can help you. This is why it's a no-brainer. It's a powerful opportunity to audit your current situation and see where you're at, and give you a framework, a pathway, a playbook to getting out of the not-so-great feelings that you're having to create a summer that actually feels good for yourself. That is what I'm doing.
This is why I'm making it a no-brainer. So yes, you're invited to book a consultation with me. You can do that anytime. Here's what's different. I will be offering for any consultation booked soon. You've got a little over a week to get on my calendar.
When you do that, you are going to get access to my number one training in 2023, winning and learning. It's a full course. It's a masterclass and accompanying workbook walking you through. If you're feeling like you're in a place of failure, I don't call it failure. I call it learning. We take you from learning and we have you winning. That is what we're doing.
You're going to get this masterclass, which is a step-by-step process to get out of any slump, a pathway forward to make sure you're enjoying more wins. It is a surefire way to make sure that you make this moment count. That is what I'm doing here. That's just a taste, but that's coming to you. You'll get that automatically just when you book a consultation with me. That's exciting just by booking.
Now here's, what's really fun. If you enroll and start working with me and say, hell yeah, to summer 2024, what you're also going to get is this bonus gift that I'm giving to all of my clients. This is a beautiful journal. It is 160 pages. It is vegan linen in the softest periwinkle color. Look at this beautiful gold embossed moon on it. This is from Olive and Sunco. Such beautiful products. This is like what I've dreamed of giving my clients for as long as I've been in my business. I saw this and I jumped on it.
You're going to get this beautiful journal. It has even the Acolilla branding colors and the moon, and it has all these beautiful pages to do the coaching work together. I know sometimes we like to have something to hold and that's why I want to give you this gift. When you work with me, when you decide to move forward, all you have to do is book your consultation and we will work together in my coaching program freedom for six months, two sessions a month. Also, you get access to me via signal. It's called ask my coach. You ask me questions. I'm available for you whenever you need.
I'm all about creating this moment of your life and taking you from a place that feels stuck, overwhelming, and unfulfilling and shifting you to a place of peace, ease, fun, joy, and clarity. It's possible for you. And this is why I'm so amped about it.
So as we come to the end of today's beautiful session of how to accomplish more without doing more, our little webinar recap, here's what I'm going to tell you. Book the consult, get it on the calendar because I only have so much time on my calendar and they are already disappearing. So you may see, oh my gosh, there are not as many days as I thought. Well, it's because others are scooping them up. So first book your consult, then watch the webinar recording. If you didn't get a chance to join me live yesterday and you didn't get access to the webinar, then just book the consult first, then watch the webinar.
That is how you accomplish more without doing more. You can watch the webinar when you have time between now and the consult, and then you are going to be set up for complete success. You're going to know the strategies. Then when you jump on the call, we're like, how do we do this? How do we get me going? And I'm going to tell you exactly how to do that.
All right. This is the end of today. So in summary, the three strategies coming to you so that you can make the most of the 94% of summer that you have left. Every day that goes by is 1% gone, 1% gone, 1% gone. While that doesn't feel like a lot in a minute, all of a sudden a week goes by 7% gone, 10% gone. The end of July is the next consult after next week. And that's going to mean you're about 33% or more gone. So you want to get on my book by Friday, June 7th.
You're going to get the winning and learning masterclass and workbook automatically no matter what, and then you'll get this beauty if you decide to enroll with me. I'm just obsessed with these. I did a little surprise. If you were one of my clients who recently renewed, you're also getting one of these. So if you're watching this here and you missed it yesterday, the goodies coming in the mail for you at some point before I leave for vacation. So get excited.
All right, everybody, this is what we're doing. I am so ready for you to take your life to the next level. I'm here to make it easy. I'm here to make it fun. I'm here to make it really simple because my guess is that you've been trying to figure this out on your own for a while, and it doesn't feel good. You feel like, well, this is just what it is. It's not. This is what it is until you bring someone in to end that. We're here to end the overwhelm and the overworking and the burnout. And I'm here. I'm your girl to help you do it.
All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked it, drop a comment and let me know what you think. If you watched on the replay, give me a little hashtag replay in the comments, find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, or wherever you hang. I am here for you. I'm going to make this week really fun. Find me on Instagram, the Lauren Baptiste, find me on LinkedIn, Lauren Baptiste, and on Facebook, Lauren Baptiste coaching. I can't wait to hang with you. I can't wait to make this work for you. I can't wait to give all these away. I have a lot and I can't wait. Actually, I don't have a lot. I have 20. So let that be said, there's a cap happening here.
Thank you so much for listening today. If you want to learn more about me, Lauren Baptiste, my company, Acheloa Wellness, or my one-on-one program, Freedom, visit www.acheloawellness.com. I'll see you next week for our vacation season one podcast finale. I don't know, season finale, not series. All right, everybody have the best weekend. Make every 1% of the summer count. Talk soon.