Why the Best CPAs Chase Discomfort at Work (And How You Can Too)

You Are Already Braver Than You Think

My hands were trembling as I clutched the notes for my first Toastmasters speech. For weeks, I had practiced the same words again and again, obsessing over every gesture, every pause, every inflection. I wanted it to be perfect. I needed it to be perfect. The irony was not lost on me. I was preparing to talk about becoming a powerful and inspiring public speaker while feeling like I might throw up from sheer terror.

Standing at the back of that auditorium, waiting for my turn, my heart hammered against my ribs. My mouth went dry. That familiar voice in my head whispered all the ways I could embarrass myself. I would forget my words, stumble over my thoughts, and confirm everyone’s suspicions that I did not belong on that stage.

Something remarkable happened after I delivered that speech. Despite the shakiness, despite forgetting a line, despite everything feeling imperfect, I felt incredible. Not just relieved, but genuinely high. Someone approached me afterward and said I had inspired her to be more authentic in her own speaking. In that moment, shaking her hand and seeing the genuine emotion in her eyes, I understood something important. That terrifying feeling before the speech was not a warning, it was an invitation.

Your Brain Is Wired to Reward Challenges

What I experienced that night was not only emotional relief. It was a neurochemical celebration. When we push through discomfort and achieve something meaningful, our brains release dopamine and endorphins. These are more than feel-good chemicals. They are the internal reward system that recognizes growth and encourages us to seek out similar challenges.

If perfectionism makes that challenge feel impossible, this playbook will help: 7 Ways CPAs Can Beat Perfectionism Without Lowering Standards.

Think about it. Every time you felt that post-accomplishment high, after a difficult presentation, a challenging conversation, or learning a new skill, your brain was essentially throwing a party. It was saying, yes, this is what growth feels like. Let us do more of this.

The stress hormones you felt beforehand were not trying to sabotage you. Cortisol and adrenaline were preparing your system for performance. Your racing heart was pumping more oxygen to your brain. Your heightened awareness was sharpening your focus. What felt like panic was often your body preparing you to rise to the moment.

This is why masters in every field, including seasoned CPAs and finance leaders, do not try to eliminate pre-performance nerves. They reinterpret that flutter as useful energy. Butterflies signal that you are about to attempt something worthwhile.

The Mastery Shift: Make Friends With Uncertainty

Here is what nobody tells you about expertise. Masters are not people who never feel uncertain. They are people who have made friends with uncertainty. Feeling awkward and out of your depth is not evidence that you do not belong. It is proof you are in exactly the right place.

I see this in our profession all the time. The junior associates who advance to senior manager are not always the fastest through the code on day one. They are the ones who volunteer for the complex international restructuring they have never handled, who raise a hand to present the tax strategy to the CFO, who ask to lead the client call even if their voice might shake.

Meanwhile, brilliant CPAs stay in familiar practice areas for years, waiting until they feel ready for advisory work or a partnership path. They confuse technical competence with career readiness, not realizing that the sensation of being slightly overwhelmed by a new challenge is often the feeling of rapid professional growth.

Your comfort zone is not a cozy refuge. It can become a subtle prison. The longer you stay there, the more your capacity for growth atrophies and your tolerance for uncertainty shrinks.

Why Playing It Safe Is the Riskiest Move

In accounting, we are trained to minimize risk. Triple-check calculations. Follow procedures. Document everything. Do not become the person whose mistake turns into a client issue. The paradox is that in avoiding the risk of failure, we can guarantee the risk of stagnation.

Consider two tax managers with similar credentials. One takes repeatable compliance work, the kind that runs smoothly. The other regularly volunteers for challenging advisory projects. That manager stumbles at first, asks for help, then builds expertise that sets them apart. Five years later, who is being courted by other firms. Who has clients calling directly. Who has the confidence to launch a new service line.

The manager who played it safe avoided discomfort, but at the cost of discovering what they could become. They traded temporary comfort for long-term limitation. They chose the certainty of staying in compliance over the possibility of becoming a trusted advisor.

Your potential does not stay on the shelf forever. Each challenging engagement you decline, each leadership opportunity you pass on, each time you choose familiarity over growth, you defer capability you could have built. The biggest risk is not struggling through a complex issue or fumbling a first business development meeting. The biggest risk is succeeding at staying exactly where you are while the profession evolves around you.

Your Next Brave Moment Is Waiting

Right now, something slightly scary is calling your name. Maybe it is volunteering to lead the client’s year-end tax planning presentation. Perhaps it is proposing a new service line you have been thinking about. It could be as simple as speaking up in a partners’ meeting when you usually take notes, or finally having a direct conversation with the demanding client who has been treating your staff poorly.

Your body’s response to thinking about it, the quickened pulse and the flutter in your stomach, is not a red light. It is a green light disguised as fear.

Start small, and start this week. Choose one action that makes you a little uncomfortable, not reckless or dangerous, just enough that you would feel proud afterward. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is recognizing that some things matter more than your comfort. Growth lives in the space between what you can do and what you think you can do.

Two years after that first Toastmasters speech, I found myself confidently leading an audience through interactive exercises, watching participants have their own breakthrough moments. The transformation did not happen because I became fearless. It happened because I learned to interpret fear differently.

The butterflies still come before I speak. Now I know they are not warning me away from the stage. They are telling me I am exactly where I belong, on the edge of becoming someone greater than I was yesterday.

Your stage is waiting. Those butterflies are not a warning. They are an invitation to discover who you are capable of becoming.

If you want support turning discomfort into a repeatable growth system inside your role or team, let’s talk. Schedule a discovery call.