On this episode of Work/Life, host Greg Nibler sits down with Ciara Pressler, founder of Pregame, to talk about how we can often be our own biggest barrier to success. Pressler provides tips, tricks, and strategies to help you overcome self-sabotage so that you and your team can be more successful.
“When you’re stuck in life or work, and can’t seem to move forward, sometimes it’s not everybody else’s fault – sometimes it’s your fault,” Pressler says. It’s easy to deflect and blame, but often we are our own impediments to success. While it’s difficult to be honest enough with yourself to know that it’s you that is holding you back, knowing how you can be your own barrier is an integral step for moving forward.
Pressler says there are a few ways to discover if you’re being your own worst enemy and sabotaging your own hard work. “The first step,” Pressler says, “is realizing your strength is often your greatest weakness.” For example, she points out, being a perfectionist could mean that you’re spending too much time on your projects and missing deadlines. You want the work to be perfect, but there is a point with a perfectionist that they have trouble letting their projects go, in fear that it isn’t 100% correct. “But … often being 90% correct is as good as most people’s 100%,” Pressler notes.
Being self-employed will also magnify your strengths and weaknesses. “Often, when we go to work for ourselves, we have an ideal about how things should be, or the types of clients you want to work with. But sometimes we’re so idealistic about our work and clients that we end up with no work and no clients,” Pressler said, with Nibler adding that it’s important not to put yourself in a box that limits your options.
To overcome these missteps, it’s important to have a plan and to be decisive and take action. “Sometimes I take so long trying to figure out the right decision that I don’t make the decision,” Pressler admits. She suggests an exercise to see how to figure out who is responsible for holding things up. “Write down why you’re upset with someone, and if you’re enabling that person,” she says. “Most things can be solved by clear communications, setting things up at the beginning, and being clear about what your part is. You’ll be more productive, and you’ll be happier at work.”
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For small businesses and home offices alike, the printer has become something more than a peripheral. Remote and hybrid work, side businesses, and small teams handling their own operations have all raised the bar on what a shared office printer needs to do. A machine that handles the occasional document is no longer enough when invoices, contracts, client paperwork, and employee forms are moving through it every day.
Most of us don't need AI to write sonnets, generate pirate jokes, or explain quantum mechanics for the fifth time. What we really need is much simpler and much harder: help getting through the day.
Email. Calendar. Tasks. Chat. Reminders. Follow-ups. Missed messages. Half-finished replies. The bill you meant to pay. The lunch you forgot to confirm. The document someone sent three weeks ago that you now need "right away."
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with QuickBooks.
Creating an invoice is rarely the hardest part of getting paid. For most small businesses, it takes only a few minutes to prepare an estimate, send an invoice, or request payment. The work that quietly consumes time comes afterward, when payments need to be tracked, deposits verified, invoices marked as paid, and accounting records updated. Simplifying invoicing isn't just about creating invoices faster. It's about reducing the manual work that happens between sending an invoice, collecting payment, and keeping financial records accurate. QuickBooks is designed around that idea, bringing invoicing, payments, and accounting together in one connected workflow instead of treating them as separate tasks.