A self-reflection guide for accountants and auditors who want to audit their happiness every season
Photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash
Before I started my journey of living and working abroad, I told myself, “This is it. I’m finally going to be happy.” I thought that happiness existed in every corner of the world except mine. I proved myself wrong, but that conclusion did not show until I did a happiness audit.
First, a little bit about myself. I’m a CPA from my home country and an international auditor. Happiness and audit are not classic pairs. In our circle and especially during certain times of the year, both the ones doing the audit (the auditors) and the ones being audited (the accountants) consider themselves unhappy people. Could there be exceptions?
An exception would be to find out whether you could be happy in your own right without basing that happiness on society’s standards. At first, I debated whether to share this. It’s because I’m still in my early career when most young professionals equate happiness with certifications, money, and ranks.
Cliché as it may be, the pandemic and my recent adventures in a new country changed my perspective. In a post-pandemic world where nobody wants to be called a bore, not even an accountant, I reflected on what happiness meant for me all these years. Is it my work or the things I do outside work? Will it be easier to make myself happy or to make other people happy?
Who will benefit from a happiness audit?
I wrote this for young professionals in early careers, whether you’re engaged in a high-skill profession or not. I wrote them especially for you because, in my journey, I have realized that people who already found their locus of happiness do not benefit from the rambling of a millennial like me. They’ve already identified and proven their source of happiness. I do not want to prove them wrong.
This post is for you who haven’t made up your mind yet. I hope you’ll learn a thing or two from my journey. If you can relate, that’s great. If not, that’s ok too. I was happy when I wrote this—that’s essential. Insights and knowledge sharing belong to those moments that bring me joy.
Why you need a happiness audit for every new season
I should have done a happiness audit earlier. Before, I focused too much on gaining traction, moving forward, and not looking back. I look back now to 2017-2018 when I began questioning the purpose behind my work. I first experienced working outside my home country during those years. It was also the period when I started writing again, though most of my writing happened privately. I reflected on my conflicting emotions while writing on office-issued notepads or notebooks bought from discount stores.
What I learned from auditing all these years is that every activity follows defined guidance. You can use a template for almost every kind of work. This happiness audit aims to structure your thinking so that when you review the things that bring you happiness, clarity settles.
I’ve been teaching audit concepts to younger colleagues. That’s another part of my work that brings me joy. Thus, I thought that when it comes to a happiness audit, why not apply the same concepts?
I do not want to complicate an audit for you by mentioning standards and too much technical jargon. In an audit, the client claims something in their books. We, auditors, try our best to prove the clients’ claims wrong or to validate them, depending on whether you view your glass as half-empty or half-full. To gain this proof, an auditor has to perform a set of activities from start to finish.
If you strip away all the technicalities, an audit boils down to two simple activities—asking questions and writing the answers. Thus, here is a self-reflection guide to bring you insights into things that lead to happiness.
Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash
An engagement with happiness: will you accept?
First, your happiness audit begins with pre-planning. In the pre-planning stage, we auditors assess whether to accept an engagement. We do background searches on our clients and the key people within that company.
In your happiness audit, the pre-planning stage should be simple. All you need to do is to know yourself and decide. Yes or no? Will you start the journey of making yourself happy this year?
Plan your journey to happiness
Second is the planning stage. The planning stage of an audit consists of mini-steps. Here are some important sections.
- Understand the entity and its environment. Auditors gather facts about the client they are auditing. They would then piece the facts together to get a big picture of what the business does.
- Set materiality. An auditor’s materiality denotes the amount it will take for that auditor to say that the error is acceptable.
- Identify the scope of work. Scoping reveals to auditors how much work they need to do.
- Perform risk assessment. Auditors identify where things can go wrong.
In your happiness audit, the planning stage can encompass these elements:
1. Understand yourself and your environment. Self-awareness helps you identify whether you’re in the right place. Here, you assess whether your current location contributes to your overall happiness and well-being. If it does not, then you have to at least think about removing yourself from that environment, when it’s easy to do so.
That’s what I did when I moved to a new country. One advantage of having a high-skill profession is that you can readily move your career to a place or company that weighs your skills and experience on a higher scale. I did not see the same value on my profession in my home country. That impacted my happiness. It was not the sole reason for my move, but that was the catalyst. Then, external factors also exist such as the economic and political conditions of your location that prevent you from living your best life.
2. Materiality: How big is your happiness? Define your materiality. In your happiness audit, your materiality can be the amount or value you get from things that make you happy.
Does sipping a $3 tea or coffee and the ability to curl up with a good book make you happier than a $1000 worth of vacation on a Greek island?
Does having work that pays you little but gives you plenty of flexibility make you happier than a job that pays you a lot but gives you little flexibility?
Happiness is relative. What is significant for you might not matter to someone else. What might appear too small for you might be too large for someone else.
3. Scoping: Identify which parts of your life currently make you happy. Is it your career, family, health, relationships, social impact, etc.? After identifying the large areas, you can further break them into small elements:
- Which parts of your family life bring you joy? Is it being able to celebrate a major occasion with them? Is it being able to speak with them without boundaries and ill feelings?
- Which part of your career makes you happy? Is it the actual work or the people you work with?
- Which relationships contribute to your happiness? Do you thrive being alone or living with a partner? Do you want a wider circle of friends, or smaller, more meaningful ones?
- Which part of your health keeps you happy and engaged? Is it being able to go to the gym regularly? Is it sports? Is it a healthy and well-balanced diet?
- Which part of social impact supplements your happiness? Is it the mere act of sharing? Is it the non-expectation of any reward from every kind of deed?
Your goal is to keep these areas alive and well so that they will continue to bring you happiness. But also note that alongside these areas, risks exist.
4. Risk assessment: At any time, any part of your life can go wrong. There is the risk that you might lose your aging parents soon, and you’ll not be around to take care of them. You face a risk that your health might fail you at any time. A risk exists that you will lose your job during uncertain times.
Happiness stoppers do not follow a predictable timeline. You can see the problems as they appear, or you can prevent these problems from causing too much negative impact on your happiness. This is when you will benefit from setting up controls and testing their effectiveness.
Happiness stoppers and what you can do to stop them
An auditor understands a client’s control environment. Each company, big or small, has controls in place to address its business-related risks. But do these controls work? Part of an auditor’s goal is to evaluate those controls that are relevant to its audit. Auditors look at whether controls prevent or detect the identified risks.
In your happiness audit, think about the things that will help you avoid the personal risks you identified above. If you risk losing your job, be aware of conditions that will lead to that outcome. Does your company show stability? Are you working with good people? As far as controls go, this is a detective control where you try to see what problems are visible.
If your risks have something to do with health, an obvious control is to avoid stuff that can harm your health, such as smoking, drinking, and poor diets. Preventive control aims to stop future problems.
Photo by Shaurya Sagar on Unsplash
Test yourself: are you happy now?
Next, perform substantive testing. During audits, we perform substantive tests to dig deeper into each account and discover whether errors might have occurred.
In your happiness audit, use both your heart and mind. Reflect and note your reflections. Are you happy with your choices?
- Were you happy when you quit smoking or when you quit alcohol?
- Were you happy when you took care of your family more often?
- Were you happy when you spent less overtime on work and more overtime pursuing your lifelong interests?
You define those moments that bring you joy. In my journey, I realized that happiness lies in things that show substance like experiences, more than material possessions. Relish more of these moments if you can. Create those moments if there are none.
The final opinion on your happiness becomes due when you’re on your deathbed.
Lastly, we have evaluation, concluding and reporting. It is the point when the auditors say, “Ok we’re done with our audit. Let’s sign off on that report.” The report: clean opinion, clean with exceptions, unclean opinion, refusal to issue an opinion.
In your happiness audit, you might say, “Ok, I’m done with this part of my life. I’m happy here. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
In reality, we are complicated creatures. We can’t contain our happiness in one piece of paper that mentions “This is an offer to work with us”. Your happiness does not count the multiple zeroes in your bank balance. It is not that passport stamp indicating that you’re eligible to live and work in this country.
No, your happiness is more than that. Your joy ebbs and flows until the finale. When you’re on your deathbed, you’ll ask yourself,
Did I live a happy life with fewer regrets and more substance?
After two years of living as a stranger in a new country and after years of working in what others consider a dry profession, I’ve come to realize that happiness is not a one-time commitment, nor is it an annual or seasonal process. I refuse to issue an opinion on my happiness every year. The final opinion on my happiness becomes due only when I’m on my deathbed.
One thing is clear. I aim to have a clean one.
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Which part resonated to you the most?
Drop a comment or ask something else. Here’s a question for you too.
Do you have the time for this kind of reflection? When you are in the middle of an audit busy season or tax season, finding that time can be tricky. In Busy Season Journals, we share some mindset changes to break the pattern of a toxic busy season. We want you to find more time for doing the things that bring you happiness. Subscribe to this free newsletter and share with your colleagues in the accounting or audit profession. Thanks for your support!
