Ask Irisel | Vol. 03: Why You Keep Avoiding the Executive Work in Your Business

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Can you believe we're already at the final week of Q2?

This month's Ask Irisel is a little different.

I'm focusing specifically on questions around: closing out your quarter properly and preparing for Q3.

If you're new here, here's how this works:

Throughout the month, you send me your questions about your brand, your content, and your business. On the last Monday of every month, I sit down and answer the ones that have been weaving together a common thread.

If you've got a question you've been sitting with, you're in the right place.

(p.s. If you have a question you want answered in a future issue, ask me here: Ask Irisel)

Something I've Been Noticing

When it comes to the end of the quarter or end of the year, I always hear the same type of things from my overachievers. They're stressed, they have a hell'uva lot on their plates, and they just want to know how they can create more time, get more done, and get more cash in the bank without blowing their brains out or selling out their soul.

So this week's Ask Irisel is going to focus on a few of the common questions I see when it comes to quarterly analysis and project management.

💬 Question 1. From L.

"Irisel. I know it's 'important' to do things like analytics, and quarterly reviews, and building systems etc. And yes, I love that it sounds 'business savvy,' and like I'm a real 'CEO' putting on my big business woman pants. But at the same time I have a hard time actually finding the time to follow through because it always seems to be less important than all my other projects. I have so many other things going on all the time, I can never make time (or get myself to make time) to do more of the executive work of my business. Doing business reviews and quarterly reviews etc just adds more time to my plate, so I have a hard time committing to it. Do you have any tips or insights on how I can get myself to make this a priority?"

Okay L, here we go.

I know when you're in your first few years of business (and honestly, throughout your first decade), it can feel like you're always running out of time. Everything's a priority. Everything's urgent. And the things that don't feel urgent (your reviews, your analytics, your systems) end up at the bottom of the list. Aka, they never get done.

I want to cover two things with you here, because there's a layer underneath this question that needs to be addressed if you're ready to operate like a CEO and master your executive leadership.

First, you're not running out of time. The feeling that you need to rush, that you have to keep going or else everything you've built will collapse, is a stream of shadow consciousness. And it's one of the biggest blocks I see in high-achieving women who want to make more money and create more influence within their niche.

Until you can fully connect the dots between that anxiety telling you to "do more" and the insecurity sitting underneath it (the feeling that you haven't made enough yet, that there's some special "I've made it" number that will finally make you feel worthy/relaxed), you won't be able to see the value of mastering your executive work.

Second, it's hard to get yourself to do something when you don't yet see the value of it. So I'm going to walk you through a few examples of how scheduling in your executive work actually helps you achieve more.

The shadow piece first.

When you say "I have so many other things going on," I'm willing to bet most of what's filling your plate falls under marketing and sales. More content, more offers, more launches, more visibility. Because at some level you've decided that making more money means doing more of the things that have historically made you money, and anything outside that bucket is optional.

That logic feels rational the first few years of business. It isn't, and the reason it isn't is structural: the way you make money in the first $10k of your business is not the way you make money once you're scaling.

The first version of your business gets built on hustle, the next version is built on leverage, and leverage cannot exist without the executive work you're avoiding. I'll dive into this in more detail when I get to point 2 below.

So the question I want you to sit with is this: what are you actually prioritizing over executive work, and why?

The answer is always one of two shadows.

One is money scarcity: If it doesn't directly bring in income today, your nervous system codes it as a luxury you can't afford. So tracking your analytics, sitting down to do quarterly reviews, building out a system that will compound for the next twelve months: all of it gets postponed until "after this launch" or "after this client wraps" or "after I hit this revenue goal." The goalpost continues to move forever so you never end up following through.

The other is the need to prove your worth: When you constantly feel like you need to prove yourself, you'll always find things to do, even when those things aren't directly relevant to the success you actually want. You end up doing for the sake of doing, because some part of you thinks you should be busy at all times. And the executive work (the work that would actually show you which of those doings are wasted) keeps getting pushed because it doesn't feel as productive in the moment.

Now to my second point, the value piece.

Most new habits don't stick until you can actually feel on a cellular level why they matter. You can know intellectually that you "should" do something, but until the value lands in your own life, your brain keeps deprioritizing it.

A few quick examples of how skipping executive leadership will destroy your brand:

• You've been posting 7 days a week, exhausted, and your engagement is minimal at best. If you'd been tracking your analytics, you'd see your engagement actually peaks on 3 days a week, in 1 specific format. Not only are you working harder than necessary, you're also pushing away engagement by doing things your audience doesn't respond well to.

• Or you've been writing long-form posts every day because that's what someone told you "works." But your data would tell you your static photos with one strong caption are converting way better than long-form.

• Or you've spent six months building out your website/funnel because you assumed you needed one to hit your next goal. But if you'd actually mapped what your goals were first, you'd have realized you didn't need a website/funnel at that stage of your business.

• Or you've been pushing your high-ticket offer because you believed high-ticket was driving your sales. But if you'd tracked the income source of every closed client, you'd see your low-ticket offer was the actual lead engine, the thing that warms people up and converts them into the high-ticket.

These are just 4 simple examples of how scheduling in your executive work sets up your business for actual success. Once you start seeing it as the lens that keeps you from working hard in the wrong direction, the decision to make space for it stops feeling like a discipline problem and starts feeling like the obvious move.

💬 Question 2. From S.

"What should I do if I find out that I am not on schedule? Like, I had all these things planned for Q2 (and honestly Q1) that I didn't get done, and then when I look at Q3, I have no idea what I should work on anymore because my list of 'to-do's' is just getting longer. It's honestly causing me so much stress to even think about all the things I told myself I would get done by now which makes me feel overstimulated and start procrastinating."

Okay S, let's tackle your fear of project management and get you some simple steps to move you forward.

Here's what I want you to do:

First, go ahead and make a list of aaaalll the things you "think you need to do." Every project, every task, every commitment you've been carrying in your head about Q1 and Q2 that didn't get done, plus everything new you've been telling yourself you need to start in Q3.

When you make this list, I'm telling you right now: you're going to feel more of that pressure, more of that anxiety. That's normal. Don't worry about the stress, write it all down anyways (without the expectation that you have to do any of it). Take your time with it, you don't have to write down the entire list in 1 sitting.

Now, before you start panicking or trying to mentally plan when you're going to do what, I want you to ask yourself this one question:

If there was 1 thing you got done in Q3, what would you want it to be?

That answer becomes your top-of-mind quarterly goal. The single thing that, if you accomplished it, would make Q3 feel like a win. Not five things, not three things; just the one that matters most.

Now look back at your list with that 1 thing in mind. Anything on that list that's not directly related to your quarterly goal? Cross it off. You don't need to think about it. It doesn't deserve any of your attention this quarter (which includes project planning time).

I know that's going to feel uncomfortable. The version of you that wrote that list felt like every item needed to be done. The version of you who's actually going to operate in Q3 needs to be honest about what isn't important.

When I do project mapping for myself and for my clients, the rule I hold is: no more than 4 things to do in a quarter. And honestly, the most important one is knowing the #1 thing.

Once you've got your 1 thing locked in (and the rest of your list pared down to what actually serves it), the next move is breaking those remaining tasks into phases that build toward the umbrella goal. I walk through that whole process in detail inside → How to Review Your Quarter and Plan the Next One Go read that one once you finish this article.

Before I Sign Off

I want to leave you with something I've been watching one of my clients integrate this quarter. She didn't get consistent with her project management because she finally found the right Notion template. She got consistent because she started treating it the way she treats the gym: a non-negotiable, with the understanding that you don't run a marathon in a day, and your systems don't build themselves in one sit-down either.

The more things you want in your life (a nice body, a happy loving family, healthy meals, lots of clients, more money, social accounts that actually grow) the more important it becomes to understand what your priorities actually are and make your decisions accordingly. The work always happens in phases.

If you're sitting with the same exhaustion she was, there are two ways I can help you with that right now.

If you're ready to actually sit down and audit Q2 before you plan Q3, the 30-Min CEO Reset is the free worksheet that walks you through the quarterly review prompts I use with my private clients. It's pre-decided so it doesn't add weight to your week. Download it, sit with it for half an hour, and you'll have the lens that tells you what to keep doing and what to let go of as you move into Q3.

And if you're ready to operate from architecture instead of effort, that's the work we do inside Aesteria Academia. Because at some point you stop needing to find the right tool. You start needing the architecture that makes the tools work.

Have Questions About Closing Q2 or Moving Into Q3?

Send them my way. The next Ask Irisel goes out at the end of July, and I'll be answering more of your questions.

Submit yours here: Ask Irisel →

The end of a quarter is one of the most powerful moments to slow down and look at what you've built, what's working, and what's ready to fall off so the next version of you has room to thrive.

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