So, as I was going through the list of topics we’ve covered on this podcast, I was pretty surprised to realize we haven’t talked about burnout yet. It’s such a common issue these days, especially for us accountants, that I originally assumed I must have already discussed it.

With all the demands of our profession, it’s no wonder so many of us feel overwhelmed, stressed, and just plain exhausted. Whether it’s the chaos of tax season, the pressures of financial reporting, or managing client expectations, the intense workload can really take a toll on both our mental and physical well-being.

But burnout isn’t just about being tired after a long day at work. It’s a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion that can lead to all sorts of problems, like reduced productivity, more sick days, and a higher chance of making mistakes. And for those of us who pride ourselves on our attention to detail and accuracy, the effects of burnout can be especially tough.

One of the trickiest parts about burnout is that it sneaks up on you. It often starts with small signs like feeling low on energy, having trouble sleeping, or finding it hard to concentrate. 

You might get more irritable, or notice you’re catching colds more often. Over time, these symptoms can escalate into feelings of hopelessness, losing enjoyment in your work, and feeling detached from your colleagues and clients.

For many accountants, burnout isn’t just a work issue—it’s personal too. Balancing a busy accounting career with personal responsibilities, like taking care of kids or elderly parents, can feel impossible. The pressure to excel in both areas can leave you feeling like you’re running on empty with no time to recharge.

It’s really important to know that burnout isn’t a sign of weakness or failure, and there’s no shame in it. It’s a natural response to prolonged stress and overwork that needs to be addressed. In fact, chronic stress from burnout can increase your risk of serious health issues, like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

But here’s the good news: burnout isn’t inevitable, and it doesn’t have to be permanent. By recognizing the signs early on and taking proactive steps to manage stress, you can reduce your risk of burnout and improve your overall well-being.

This episode is all about helping you understand the root causes of burnout and giving you practical strategies to overcome it. I’ll explain where burnout comes from, why it hits accountants so hard, and what you can do to find balance in your life. 

Whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur, a seasoned pro or just starting out, the tips and insights shared here can help you handle the challenges of your profession with more ease and resilience.

Remember, you’re not alone in this. Burnout is common among accountants, but it can be managed and even prevented with the right approach. By taking the time to understand and address what’s stressing you out, you can reclaim your energy, enthusiasm, and passion for your work, or at least not dread it so much.

Understanding Burnout

In order to understand burnout better, let’s start with signs of burnout.  As I said before, the truth is that burnout can sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention.

Thankfully, there are clear signs that indicate if you’re heading towards or already experiencing it.  I’m going to share some of the common symptoms a little more in depth:

Lack of Energy: Feeling exhausted, even after a full night’s sleep, can be a sign of burnout. You might find it hard to have the energy to tackle your daily tasks.  You might notice you’re drinking more caffeine to counteract the lack of energy.

Sleep Disturbances: Trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up feeling unrefreshed can all be linked to burnout. Your mind might be racing with thoughts about work, making it hard to relax.  If you can’t remember the last time you had a good night’s sleep, that’s something to take a look at.

Lack of Focus or Forgetfulness: Finding it difficult to concentrate, remember things, or make decisions can be a sign that your brain is overwhelmed and needs a break.  Of course, as we get older our brains aren’t as sharp as they used to be, but burnout makes it even harder to focus.

Frequent Illnesses: When you’re constantly stressed, your immune system can weaken, making you more susceptible to colds, flu, and other illnesses.  With Covid-19 still affecting many of us globally, it’s even more important to support your immune system.

Feeling On Edge or Hopeless: Burnout can make you feel anxious, edgy, or even hopeless. You might feel like you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  If you feel a sense of dread on a regular basis, that’s something to pay attention to.

Increased Irritability: You might notice that you’re more irritable or quick to anger. Small annoyances that you could usually brush off might feel overwhelming.  It’s important to be willing to hear people who are close to you when they say you seem off or more irritable than usual.

Loss of Enjoyment: Activities you used to enjoy, whether at work or in your personal life, might no longer bring you pleasure. It can feel like the joy has been sucked out of your daily routine.  When each day blends into the next and you find yourself not looking forward to anything, it could be a sign of burnout.

Negative Self-Talk: Burnout often comes with a lot of negative self-talk. You might catch yourself thinking, “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do this.”  Although our brain is wired with a negativity bias, when we’re experiencing burnout, that negative voice is loud and heard often.

Isolation: Feeling detached from others or withdrawing from social interactions can be a sign of burnout. You might feel too tired or overwhelmed to engage with friends or family.  Even if you’re an introvert, isolating yourself from others is something to look at to see whether it’s extreme or not.

Reduced Productivity: Despite working long hours, you might find that you’re getting less done. Tasks that used to be easy now take much longer to complete.  This is a big one to pay attention to as an accountant because burnout makes it nearly impossible to get more done in less time.

If you can relate to any of these, just know that you’re not alone, but you’ll want to not sweep these issues under the rug, or worse, normalize them.  I think that’s why burnout is such a common issue in the accounting profession – because we’re surrounded by other burned out accountants so we just assume that’s the way things are.

While burnout can hit anyone, in any profession, as accountants we face some unique challenges that can make us especially susceptible due to the nature of the work we do and the deadlines we deal with.

A Tragic Story Of The Effects Of Burnout

If you haven’t read my book, “The Smarter Accountant”, or listened to previous episodes of this podcast, I shared the story of Jim.  Jim was a partner in an accounting firm and a father to 5 young children – 2 boys and 3 girls.  He worked hard to support his wife and children, doing what he could to afford a home in a good school district.

As a partner in a firm at only 38 years old, with a stay-at-home wife, 5 children, and a new home, he was very stressed and on the verge of burnout.  He tried not to bring that stress and overwhelm home, but it wasn’t easy.  

His wife was concerned for his health, especially with him having had a heart attack the prior year.  

One day Jim and his family went to the beach with some friends, and he had the opportunity to go water skiing on one of his friend’s boats.  It seemed like something fun to try and a nice way to relax and detach from the pressures of work.

Unfortunately, that day Jim had a heart attack on the beach, in front of his wife and young children, and didn’t survive.  He left a young wife with 5 young children, trying to make sense of what happened.

As more studies have shown the effects of stress on the body, it’s safe to assume stress most likely contributed to his heart attacks at such a young age.  Stress was poisoning his body and had unfortunately become a silent killer.

The truth is that Jim’s story is personal to me because he was my husband’s father.  I never got to meet him, but I have been married to the 8-year-old boy who watched his father die on the beach that day.

When my husband told me the story of his dad’s death, I couldn’t help but wonder how many accountants have no idea how much stress is detrimentally affecting them.  How many accountants need to be burned out, or worse, before something changes?

Whether you have children or not, please do not let Jim’s story become your story.  Consider becoming a Smarter Accountant not just for your sake, but for everyone’s sake. 

Understanding the signs I’ve shared and the impact of burnout is the first step toward addressing it. By recognizing the symptoms early, you can take proactive steps to manage stress and prevent burnout from taking over your life. Remember, it’s about finding balance and taking care of yourself, both professionally and personally.

Your Brain’s Role In Burnout

Burnout isn’t just about external pressures and responsibilities; it’s also deeply connected to how your brain processes and responds to stress. Understanding this can help you take control and reduce its impact on your life.

When you’re stressed, your brain triggers a “fight-or-flight” response, a primitive reaction designed to help you survive immediate dangers by flooding your body with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. While this response is helpful in short bursts, constant stress keeps your brain and body in a heightened state of alert, leading to exhaustion and burnout.

Our brains are wired to notice and react to potential threats. In the modern world of accounting, these threats often come in the form of deadlines, workloads, and other stressors. 

This can lead to negative thought patterns, where your brain focuses on what’s wrong rather than what’s right. For accountants, this might mean fixating on mistakes, looming deadlines, or high expectations, which can amplify feelings of stress and burnout.

Your beliefs about work and stress play a significant role in how your brain responds to burnout. If you believe that being busy and stressed is just part of being an accountant, your brain will continue to reinforce that belief, making it harder to break the cycle of burnout. This is often seen in the narrative of the “busy accountant,” where long hours and high stress are viewed as badges of honor.

It’s also important to understand that how you perceive your work and responsibilities can influence your level of burnout. If you see your workload as overwhelming and never-ending, your brain will react accordingly, keeping you in a state of stress. 

However, if you can shift your perception to view challenges as manageable and opportunities for growth, you can reduce the stress response.

The key is understanding that your brain and body are in constant communication. When you’re stressed, your brain sends signals to your body, which can lead to physical symptoms like fatigue, headaches, and muscle tension. 

Thankfully, when you learn how to manage your brain, you also learn how to reduce stress and prevent burnout.  The good news is that you can rewire your brain to respond to stress more positively. 

This involves changing your thought patterns and beliefs about work and stress. As I tell my coaching clients all the time, when you learn how to manage your brain, you can manage everything else. Until you learn that skill, burnout will always be an option.

The bottom line is that by understanding your brain’s role in burnout, you can take proactive steps to manage stress and protect your mental health. It’s about recognizing that while you can’t always control external pressures, you can control how you respond to them. 

This shift in perspective can make a significant difference in reducing burnout and improving your overall well-being. Remember, taking care of your brain is just as important as taking care of your workload.

Practical Strategies to Reduce Burnout

Now I want to talk about steps you can take to reduce burnout.  One of the most powerful ways to beat burnout is by shifting your mindset. 

How do you do that?  By recognizing that unaddressed stress and overwhelm create burnout.  

When an average week looks like a roller coaster ride of stress, overwhelm, and frustration, it’s no wonder you’re on the verge of burnout.  But thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.

My first tip is to understand that feelings of stress and overwhelm are only ever created by your thoughts.  In other words, no person, place, or thing is ever causing you to burnout.

In fact, it’s the constant feelings of stress and overwhelm which lead to ineffective action that lead to burnout.  If you constantly tell yourself that your workload is overwhelming and unmanageable, your brain will respond accordingly, keeping you in a state of stress. 

Instead of thinking, “I’ll never get through all this work,” try reframing it to, “I’ll tackle one task at a time.” By changing your self-talk, you can reduce feelings of stress and overwhelm and increase your sense of control.

Another culprit of burnout is issues with decision-making.  The truth is that indecision can be a major source of mental fatigue and stress, contributing to burnout. 

So my second suggestion is to focus on improving your decision-making skills by using the “Do it, dump it, delegate it” method. For example, if you have an email that requires a quick response, do it immediately. 

If there’s a task that’s not essential, dump it. If there’s something that someone else can handle, delegate it. This method helps clear your to-do list efficiently and reduce chances of burnout.

It’s also important to avoid perfectionism, which can paralyze decision-making and increase stress. I’m going to do an upcoming episode on perfectionism, but if you’re noticing signs of burnout, perfectionism might be the culprit.

That’s why my third suggestion is to become aware of perfectionist tendencies and to remember that making timely decisions, even if they aren’t perfect, is better than procrastinating and letting tasks pile up.

Another issue that can quickly lead to burnout is overworking without productive results.  I’ve said this before on the podcast, but trying to get accounting work done when you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed is like putting the parking brake on and trying to drive 100 mph.

It doesn’t work and it leads to the engine of the car seizing or things burning out.  The same goes for you.

My fourth tip is to learn to identify and eliminate distractions that waste your time. One of the keys to better time management that no one else teaches is to plan your time based on the results you want to achieve, not just the actions you need to take. 

For example, set a goal to complete a specific task within a set time frame, such as reviewing a tax return in one hour, if that’s reasonable. This approach forces your brain to focus and reduces the likelihood of getting sidetracked by less important activities. 

Personally I believe that effective time management is one of the keys to beating burnout for accountants.  That’s why I created The Smarter Accountant Time Management Program.

The truth is that when you can effectively manage your brain and your time, you’ll feel much more focused and less stressed and overwhelmed.  In other words, when feelings like focused and confident are fueling your day, you’re less likely to succumb to burnout.

Another issue I see all the time with my coaching clients is not being able to set and stick to boundaries.  Setting clear boundaries is crucial for protecting your well-being and reducing burnout. 

That’s why my sixth tip is to start by scheduling your free time first, before work and family commitments. This ensures you have dedicated time to relax and recharge. 

It’s important to have a long-term vision for your career and life, and establish boundaries that support this vision. For example, set specific work hours and stick to them, even if it means saying no to additional tasks or requests. 

For me, I have non-negotiable boundaries throughout the week but especially on Wednesdays – my husband and I have had a date night every Wednesday for 16 years and I will not schedule anything that will conflict with that, whether someone else likes it or not.

The truth is that boundaries not only protect your mental health but also help you maintain a healthier work-life balance.

Another thing that often gets overlooked when trying to beat burnout is self-care.  It’s important to understand that incorporating self-care into your routine is essential for combating burnout. 

For this, my seventh tip is to create healthier habits like going for a 30-minute walk every morning to start your day with exercise and fresh air. Prepare healthy meals in advance to ensure you’re eating well-balanced food instead of reaching for the sugary snack or the 4th cup of coffee to get through the day.

Spend an hour each weekend on a hobby you love to help you relax and recharge.  Or limit the amount of time you check email on the weekends in order to leave work at work.

Remember, taking care of yourself is not a luxury but a necessity for maintaining your productivity and mental health.

And don’t be ashamed to seek professional support if you’re dealing with burnout.  Reach out to colleagues, mentors, or professional organizations for guidance and support. 

For this, my tip is to share your experiences and challenges with others because it can provide valuable insights and help you feel less isolated. Consider speaking with a therapist or a coach who can offer strategies for managing stress and preventing burnout. 

The truth is that burnout is more common than you think, but professional support can provide a fresh perspective and practical advice tailored to your specific situation.  Just know that sweeping signs of burnout under the rug only puts you in more danger than necessary.

And lastly, you need to be willing to advocate for reasonable workloads and realistic deadlines. Be willing to say something.

I’m going to bet you’re surrounded by others who are struggling with burnout which means that open and honest discussions about burnout and mental health can help create a supportive work environment. 

For this, I would suggest you encourage your employer to implement policies that promote work-life balance, such as flexible working hours or remote work options. By creating a culture of openness and support, you can help reduce burnout not only for yourself but also for your colleagues.

To be honest, I think the accounting profession has turned a blind eye to burnout for way too long, creating some very unhealthy beliefs about what it takes to be a good accountant.  If we aren’t willing to do something about it now, we’re just going to keep creating burned out accountants.

Just know this – reducing burnout is not about making drastic changes overnight but about making small, consistent adjustments that lead to a healthier, more balanced life. Prioritize your mental health, seek support when needed, and set boundaries to protect your well-being. 

The accounting profession needs you, so do what you can to address burnout before it’s too late.  

Becoming a Smarter Accountant: Transforming Burnout To Balance

I’ve dealt with burnout myself and coached many accountants on this topic, but let me just share the story of one particular coaching client.

When she first came to me for coaching, she was at her wit’s end. She had always been a high achiever, known for her work ethic and her ability to handle a heavy workload. 

However, over the past few years, the demands of her job had steadily increased, and she found herself working longer hours, often late into the night.  Her personal life was equally demanding. 

As a mother of two young children, she was juggling school runs, homework help, and family activities alongside her professional responsibilities. Her husband also had a demanding job, which meant that much of the household management fell on her shoulders. 

She felt like she was constantly racing against the clock, with no time left for herself.  The signs of burnout were clear. 

She felt exhausted all the time, struggled with insomnia, and found it hard to concentrate at work. She became increasingly irritable with her colleagues and family, and tasks that she once enjoyed now felt like burdens. 

Despite her efforts, her productivity at work was declining, and she began to fear that she was failing both professionally and personally.

When we first met she told me that she believed that her burnout was an inevitable consequence of her responsibilities and that there was no way out. But together, we started by identifying the key areas contributing to her burnout and discussed strategies to address them.

First, we worked on changing her internal dialogue. Instead of seeing her workload as “insurmountable”, we reframed it into manageable tasks. For example, she began to tell herself, “I can tackle one thing at a time and make progress,” rather than, “I’ll never get this done.”

Second, she adopted the “Do it, dump it, delegate it” method by handling small tasks immediately, discarding non-essential activities, and delegating where possible. This streamlined her workload and reduced her mental fatigue.

Third, we focused on effective time management. She began setting specific goals for her work sessions, such as completing a tax return review in one hour, and used timers to maintain focus. This helped her to avoid distractions and complete tasks more efficiently.

Fourth, she learned to set clear boundaries between her work and personal life by scheduling personal activities, like her morning jog and family dinners, before filling in her work commitments. She also started saying no to additional tasks that fell outside her work hours.

After becoming a Smarter Accountant, she no longer felt like she was constantly running on empty. Her energy levels improved, and she began to sleep better at night.  She also found herself more productive at work, completing tasks with greater efficiency and less stress.

Her relationships at home improved as well. Her newfound ability to set boundaries meant she could spend quality time with her family without the constant worry of unfinished work hanging over her head. She felt more present and engaged with her children and husband.

Bottom line: No matter what is contributing to your burnout, just know that you no longer have to accept that it’s normal.  You can do something about it.

Key Takeaway and Action Item

While burnout is a common issue among accountants, it doesn’t have to be a permanent state. By shifting your mindset, improving decision-making, managing your time effectively, setting clear boundaries, and prioritizing self-care, you can significantly reduce burnout and enhance your overall well-being. 

Remember, burnout isn’t because of your workload, but how you perceive and respond to it. Taking proactive steps to manage stress and seeking professional support when needed can help you reclaim your energy, productivity, and happiness in both your professional and personal life.

For this week, ask yourself, “What one change can I make today to start shifting my mindset or routine to reduce stress and prevent burnout in my accounting career?

You’d be surprised at how powerful just one small change can be.

Well, that’s what I have for you.  Thank you for joining me as I discussed beating burnout.  I hope you’ve gained valuable insights and practical tools.

As I share all the time, you worked hard to become an accountant; it’s time to make it easier to be one.

If you are struggling with any aspect of being an accountant, you can simply go to www.thesmarteraccountant.com/calendar and book a free session with me.

And make sure you check back each week as I help you go from being a stressed accountant to a Smarter Accountant.

Make sure you go to www.thesmarteraccountant.com and take The Smarter Accountant Quiz. You’re going to want to know if you’ve been underutilizing your accountant brain so that you have a starting point for becoming a Smarter Accountant..

Also, I would appreciate it if you could get the word out to other accountants about this podcast.  The more accountants find out about it, the more we can begin to change the narrative in the accounting profession.

The truth is that you’re already smart, but this podcast will show you how to be smarter.