When is time to change course and abandon ship? How do you know if you should stay and work it out or just wipe the slate clean and start again?
Self Doubt
A common theme amongst we lady attorneys? The tendency to fail ahead of time. You know that feeling when everything seems to be going well on paper but you just. can’t. seem. to get excited and believe it’s going to work out? That feeling of constant dread and failure (before the ax has even dropped) is what we call failing ahead of time. Today we are going to explore this concept why it is critical to your success to stop this pattern.
When Your Boss is a . . .
As many of my clients and myself have concluded: just because we are attorneys does not mean that we are good bosses, leaders, managers, or mentors. So what do you do when you find yourself working with a boss (or any human for that matter) who is less of a leader and mostly just a jerk?
Quick Fixes
We all want to be able to “fix” the problems that we see in our lives. Once we understand what is causing chaos and suffering, of course we want to fix it. It’s only natural to want to resolve it as soon as possible. What we overlook in this worldview is that when it comes to ourselves there is no such thing as a quick fix. Not only does it take time and effort to transform your relationship with yourself and reconfigure your automatic thinking, the desire for a quick fix ignores the real work that must be done.
Taking the Leap with Your Career
Sometimes all we need to do is make space for ourselves and allow our real thoughts and desires the opportunity to show themselves to us. They might just be sitting there, waiting to be seen, if only we would stop moving and take the time to be present with ourselves. This was something that became so clear to me in a recent session.
Timelines
Practicing law, like all professions, will certainly come with its own unique decisions to be made: partnership, other opportunities, solo practice. How to know if you are running out of time to make important decisions.
Fear
When you make the decision to head to law school the long pursuit lays itself out before you. So many steps become very clear. You take the LSAT, research law schools, prepare applications, go through the motions of law school, apply to write for journals, do on campus interviewing, get a good summer associate position, and on and on it goes. Then you land the job and 2 years into it, you come up for air and wonder what you are supposed to do next.
Getting Clarity
In today’s hectic world and in our chaotic practices, it can be easy to get swept up in the action of it all. When we lose ourselves to the momentum of our lives, we often overlook the most important question we need to focus our energies: what do you want?
Regretting that Law Degree?
In my practice, I spent many a dark night wondering if I had made the right choice in going to law school. I cried in my office more times than I probably remember. I missed important events, skipped parties, and used work as an excuse more times than I care to admit.
Fancy degree, fancy office, fancy car, fat paycheck and miserable.
So, what do you do?
Firms: Finding the Right Fit
When I was teaching in a law school, the students often asked me how to know if a firm was a good fit.
How do you get
your interviewer to pull back the curtain and tell you how things really work
without all the sales-ey pitching?
Here are few suggestions from my own experience and from those candidates who successfully got me to “spill the beans”, so to speak.