Clarity first.

First and foremost, when we embark on this journey, we have to get very clear on what you want. I discuss this topic at length in various other articles but the point is worth repeating here: make sure that you are not running away from a problem that is simply going to follow you wherever you take your career. To do this, we ask why you want to leave your practice and then consider:

• Is that reason strong enough to push you through the highs and lows that will inevitably come when you strike out on your own?

If you’re not clear on this point, one simple experiment can help elucidate this. Spend a month carefully analyzing your every day experiences. Commit to devoting one month of your life to thoughtfully examining every high and every low — at work and out of work. The goal is to figure out what types of activities, environments, tasks, people, spark joy for you and which ones rob you of energy and motivation. Consider the following prompts:

• Were there parts of your day that filled you up and excited you? Why?
• Were there things that you were doing that sparked joy or put you in a flow state? Why?
• What parts of your day drained your energy? Why?
• What parts of your day energized you? Why?
• What parts of your day made it difficult for you to engage with the activity at hand? Why?
• What activities made it difficult for you to stay engaged? Why?

Working through this kind of an examination will help you get clear on the parts of your life/career that are sapping your energy or are no longer engaging. This kind of an examination may provide a simple road map for adjustments that can be made to find more happiness and fulfillment in your existing state. You might be surprised at the parts of your day that got you into a flow state. You might even start to notice patterns that could help you re-design your practice to include more of those things, no exit required.

In contrast, this experiment may provide a wake up call. If you find that your work life rarely provides activities that energize you, excite you, or put you into a flow state, it’s likely that small adjustments will not resolve the issue and a pivot may be in order.

When I conducted this analysis myself what I realized was a bit startling. I no longer felt energized by the area of law or the challenges presented to me on a daily basis. I felt disconnected from their import and found it difficult to drum up the energy to be engaged with the work. I was bogged down in meetings and interactions that no longer felt meaningful for me and took more energy than they gave. I had limited opportunities to participate in the type of activities that brought me into a flow state and energized me. In short 99% of my days were filled with projects, topics, and interactions that not only failed to engage my mind but left me feeling drained. I felt like I wasn’t working very hard but I was EXHAUSTED every day because every task was draining me (because it was a bad fit).  A further examination of the things outside of work that did put me into a flow state and energized me helped me to set the stage for my pivot.

Money second.

Second, get clear on your finances. This is the most significant impediment you will run into that will keep you from taking the leap. Spending time here will help you be brave and know how much runway you have to make it happen. Consider primarily, how much does it cost you to live for one month right now?

If you don’t know the answer to that question, making any dramatic change to your life where your income may suddenly be uncertain should be out of the question. In order to give space to what we want to build and the life that we want to create we have to allow that endeavor the freedom to breathe and grow absent the pressure that it also support you and replace your income on Day One. While it may seem obvious, many of the women that I talk to don’t know where their money goes on a daily basis. They don’t have clarity around their miscellaneous expenses that could be easily cut and they are not clear on the amount of pretax money that would be needed to support their after tax lifestyle.

Without this information, it is difficult to imagine that a pivot is possible and we relinquish our power to those lovely golden handcuffs. Once we know our bare minimum expenses and our cushion expenses we can get a sense of how much money we need to save to protect this Great Baby Dream that we are growing.

For me, I knew that not only did I have fixed expenses that I needed to save for but I also had a lifestyle that I was not willing to let go of while I was making the pivot. This meant that my savings projection for the pivot needed to include ample amounts of cash for travel and fun money. I wasn’t willing to make the pivot and live like an aesthete – I knew that would kill my spirit and make it more difficult for me to enjoy this time and embrace the journey.

Time to Plan.

Third, develop a detailed plan. This may seem obvious but it’s more subtle than you’d think. The most difficult part about leaving a formal job is that the options suddenly available to you are endless as well as the projects and tasks that you want to accomplish. Suddenly we are drowning in dreams, goals, to-dos, and possibilities. Develop a clear plan addressing the most important items first. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all of the things that you want to do in this new creative space where you now have an abundance of time. But suddenly those distractions and fleeting desires and experiments can overrun you and make it difficult to make any real progress on the goal. We have to exercise restraint and constrain our focus to ensure that we give the dream the most ample opportunity to succeed. This may mean deciding which areas of your dream to focus on in the short term and planning to attend to the others later on and sticking to it.

When I started my pivot, two of the things I knew I wanted to tackle right out of the gate were to get my podcast up and running and finalize my book draft for a final round of editing. For the first several months after leaving my formal legal practice, I focused exclusively on those items and let everything else go. That’s not to say the moment I quit the job I wasn’t excited to start preparing online courses, start doing mail marketing, hone my video editing skills, hosting webinars, and start pursuing speaking engagements at law firms…I wanted to do all of those things and I wanted to do all of them yesterday! But I had to carefully choose where I would be focusing my time each week and to lean HEAVILY my calendar and daily schedule that reflected my bigger plan. It’s painful to constrain portions of your dream when you finally have the flexibility and ability to bring it out into the light but you must do this or risk sabotaging your dream before you’ve even gotten two steps out the door.

A New Me!

Fourth, embrace a new identity. This is a big one and it’s a painful one. I hear this all the time: I’m not sure who I am if I’m not a lawyer…can I still call myself a lawyer…are people going to judge me?

Who are we if we’re not practicing lawyers? How would we describe ourselves to other people? Can we still call ourselves lawyers? All of these questions are important to tackle because they will impact your ability to promote your new endeavor, to speak confidently about it, and believe in its efficacy.

If we don’t have a clear sense of our new identity and who we are in this space we will always be looking backwards to the identity that we left behind and wondering if that version of ourselves is the truer one. Perhaps this should be our first step in making the pivot but wherever you tackle it make sure that you give it the time and attention it deserves. Part of our job in building a new business is getting out there and meeting people, telling them who you are, what you do, and what problem you can solve for them. If we’re having those conversations and still believing that we should be attorneys and that that identity is more important than the identity that we are building, we have failed before we’ve even begun. We must find a place for our new identity and our new path to merge and coexist with our identity as attorneys. And that might just mean no longer sharing with people, I’m an attorney, but letting that be something that potentially comes out later, if at all, and being OK with that.

Protect Your Identity

Last and this is one that I get a lot of challenge on but I maintain its importance: be thoughtful who you share your dream with. Not everyone in your orbit is responsible enough to be trusted with your dream in its infancy. It’s not about hiding your new identity and it’s not about being shameful for the path that you’ve chosen, it’s about putting yourself in the best position to believe that it’s possible. The people in your life that have known you all of this time will always think of you as that attorney. They have their preconceived notions about who you are and what you’re capable of based upon your prior path. It’s possible that this new identity and this new adventure will contradict everything they thought they knew about you and cause some dissonance for them that will ultimately come out of their mouth at you. That is not going to be helpful for you in this journey and embracing your new identity.

In time you can share this endeavor with everyone in your orbit but at its infancy, be thoughtful and careful who you let in on your dream in order to protect yourself and your dream as it grows. Once you have gotten comfortable with the new identity and it starts to feel like the real you, then you can wear in out into the public in front of everyone who might challenge it and it won’t matter as much because you will have fostered your own belief in its rightness. Their criticism will then only strengthen you instead of making you second guess yourself.

If you are looking to make a pivot in your career, I would love to meet you and hear about your plans. I know first hand how challenging and lonely it can be and I am so thankful for every opportunity that I have to lend support to other brave women making their own way!

I recently met with a client who wanted support to figure out her next move. When the session started, she asked me to help her understand whether she needed to “put in her time” at her big law job before moving on to something new. Specifically, was there some magic to sticking it out for 3 years before moving on to the next thing?

I actually get asked variations of this question all the time.

There is a common belief that we must always act with our resumes in mind.

That we must always ensure that our resumes demonstrate not only our competencies but our LOYALTY to prior employers.

But what about loyalty to ourselves? Loyalty to what we want? That was where this session quickly ran off to. I was prepared to empower my client to take ownership of her career and decide for herself what made the most sense regardless of some perceived righteous calendar but then the session took a surprising turn. After some pressing, my client quietly shared that knew exactly what she wanted to do with her career; she knew exactly what she wanted to do and she didn’t want to wait 3 years to do it.

(If this is ringing a bell, run don’t walk to signing up for a free session with me. Don’t shame your dreams. Don’t bury your light. Let that shit burn the night down!)

So why muddy with water with all these questions about how long to stay and when is it the “right” time to move on? Because that was the feedback she was getting from those around her. Well-intended, certainly, but that advice was in direct contrast to what she knew in her gut. She knew she wanted to leave and she knew exactly what she wanted to do next. She allowed her conviction and inner knowing to be clouded by the judgments and experiences of others.

How many times in our lives have we put off doing what we knew was right for ourselves because we allowed ourselves to be persuaded by those around us?

We seek input from those closest to us but then allow those inputs to sway us. To set us adrift, unmoored. When you know in your gut what you want, allowing the advice and counsel of those around you to change your course will set you adrift and the tides of others’ opinions will only carry you farther away from that true north.

Think about it….when you KNOW what you want to do next, why bother asking others what you should do? Because you want your decision to be blessed by those in your life. Because you don’t want your decisions to be criticized. Because you want to be talked out of your “crazy” dream. You want to be convinced that you should stay safe and not rock the boat. So instead, you gather the input and attempt to fit it into your plan. In doing so, you take a perfectly clear path and you obscure it. We turn away from our own knowing because we are driven by a desire to please those around us, avoid criticisms, and stay safe.

I know we all know it but let me say it again here: that is no way to live your life!

There are no inherently “right” or “wrong” answers — there is only OUR answer. When we look to others to steer our course, we imply that there is some inaccessible wisdom that others have and we don’t. That others know our dreams better than we do.

At the same time, we often look to others in hopes that they will talk us down from the ledge; that they will stop us from leaping into some uncertain dream. They will snuff out our crazy. That they will keep us from doing something ridiculous.

Be aware of who you are and what you want. Having that clarity is a gift that is not bestowed upon all of us.

Honor that gift and do not allow yourself to be swayed by the experiences of others. Following your own dream will be uncomfortable. It will expose you to criticism and judgment. But is that really worse than living a life to please someone else? Is that better than living INauthentically? Are you really committed to believing that pursuit of your dream was supposed to be some fantastical cake walk?

Our rational minds know that pursuit of our path is meant to challenge us and forge us anew but the part of us that fears what others might think sees those difficulties as a reason to stop the pursuit.

In doing so, we stifle our own evolution. Hard is part of the deal. Buckle up, baby cakes!

One of the greatest gifts I can offer my clients is to serve as a mirror for themselves; to help them see their own strengths, their own wants, and their own dreams. I believe that we all hold the keys or our own successes and happiness, but sometimes those keys are buried under years of negative programing and bad information. Once we clean up our own roadblocks, the truth is often waiting to be found. Then the only thing left to do is trust our own judgement and start taking action despite the fear. That my friend, is why we are here. To pursue the uncharted path and see just who we might become at the end of that journey.

Happy trails, my friends!

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels

Our career trajectory has its own timeline and our days are constantly at the mercy of the clock in 6 minute increments. With all this focus on time, we have to take *time* to pause and reflect on all this rigidity.

Are the timelines we adopt in our minds really timelines or are we sacrificing our peace to arbitrary metrics?

Many of my clients speak of a mystical timeline for attorney-success. There seems to be some notion of when we are *most* marketable and when we lose that marketability. This timeline puts pressure on the decision whether to get serious about partnership or begin examining other alternatives.

Practicing law, like all professions, will certainly come with its own unique decisions to be made. Unless utilizing the ostrich approach to your career, you are undoubtedly going to have to decide whether partnership is something you want. You will be exposed to other opportunities. You will likely be courted by headhunters as your skillset is sharpened. You will have choices to make.

But these choices are yours to make. In your own time. As you see fit. PERIOD.

When we acknowledge that we have choices but then pile on arbitrary deadlines, the decision-making process becomes compressed and our emotions become heightened. Your legal career is not borne within some hourglass that tracks your marketability and viability. We are not counting embryos here. You get to decide when it’s time for a change. You get to decide what your path looks like.

There is nothing wrong with never making partner. There is nothing wrong with working at a firm for 9 years and then moving on. There is no expiration on your value and the contributions that you can make. When we buy into the notion that our marketability has an expiration date, we are selling ourselves short. We ignore all that we have learned thus far and make ourselves the victim to some arbitrary standard.

When we buy into beliefs that our choices (our FREE WILL) have an expiration date, we compound the difficulties that are inherent in life. It is hard enough to decide what we want to do with our lives, why add an arbitrary deadline to it?

What I often see are young attorneys who have concluded, after 3-5 years of practice, that they MUST make a decision about what they want long term. They visit with me in hopes that I can provide them with some clarity about the right path for them.

While there are a variety of factors that will play into the decision to leave a firm, expiration of your value should not be one of them.

I have seen senior attorneys, without any book of business, get hired to build their own practice group. I have seen tenured in-house attorneys, practicing 20+ years, return to big law practice. I have seen associates start their own firms after practicing for 1 year. There is no limit on your value and there is no deadline for determining your next step.

If you could believe that you were under no deadline make a decision, what would you do? That is the only relevant inquiry.

If you are investing in some sort of timeline–for your career, your relationship, marriage, procreation–I invite you to explore how that timeline came to be? Is it founded in “good law”? Is it serving you? Don’t let dramatics cloud your judgment and your decisions. This is your life. You get to make the timeline, no one else.

The majority of my clients are driven to find a coach because they are looking to make a change in their career–they are either seeking to show up differently in their current environment or they are looking for  a dramatic overhaul. If you are looking to make some changes, schedule a free consult and let me support you in gaining clarity.

Our mind will analyze the data before us, we must decide what facts are unimportant and focus on the primary issues to maximize our efficiency. At the same time we must manage our emotional impulses associated with stress.

Practicing law is grueling. It challenges our self-worth, our values, and our ability to honor commitments both to ourselves and our clients but also to everyone around us. It is an emotional and mental boot camp of careers of sorts–it even comes with those fun “drill sergeant” type characters who seem to relish in screaming at you letting you know how pathetic you are.

Surviving these challenges not only requires a good amount of grit but a simple understanding of our basic impulses and how those impulses interact with our brains can be a complete game changer.

We are all familiar with “fight or flight” concepts but many of us are not attuned to our basic, biological instincts: the motivational triad. According to the motivational triad, we are wired to prioritize the following:

Seek pleasure.

Avoid pain.

Maintain efficiency.

Within the realm of a law firm environment, the triad can be found in the following tendencies:

Try every way imaginable to squeeze a compliment out of the difficult partner (seek pleasure) even if it means being on call at all hours of every day…

Do not stand up for myself when I am being thrown under the bus to the client by a partner that dropped the ball (avoid pain) because I don’t want to get his wrath…

Stay at the firm that I hate because this is what I know and I don’t want to rock the boat (maintain efficiency)…

Understanding our basic instincts will help you sift through the BS your brain offers you at times. When you desperately want to leave your job and your brain offers you 1,000,000 reasons why that’s a terrible idea, we can recognize that your brain is responding as it was designed. It is trying to keep you safe. It is trying to keep you in the cave, lest you be eaten by cannibal litigators.

When you want to engage leadership in discussions about your work environment but you decide that it won’t be worth it and won’t make a difference. Those. Thoughts. Are. NOT. True. Those are biologically driven responses. Fear-driven, flight responses. Your brain is trying to keep you safe. On the hamster wheel.

When you are contemplating doing something uncomfortable, your brain will flood itself with all sorts of reasons not to act. They will seem reasonable. They will seem perfectly logical. But we mustn’t be persuaded by these biological responses. In those moments we foreclose our own innate knowing. We put blinders on to the other possibilities. Our brains get to work compiling evidence to support those biological responses and will ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Knowing this will allow you to recognize those thoughts just as they are: thoughts. They are not facts. They are not truths. They are not more important than any other thought. They alone are not reasons to act or not act.

In a world where our brains are going to fight us to keep us safe and cozy in the cave, we must become practiced at asking the right questions and evaluating all the options. We cannot allow our motivational triad to push us to act from fear. To seek safety and avoid challenges.

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some of the work I do with my clients supports them to examine their beliefs and the source of those beliefs. We analyze beliefs and thoughts to ensure that in anything that we do, or don’t do, we aren’t acting from a place of fear and safety-seeking unless that is our CONSCIOUS decision. I love helping my clients observe the motivational triad at work in their lives, then dismantle it! Sign up today, to start your own journey and see where you biological brain is holding you back.

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash

When evaluating whether to make a career change, the most important question you can ask yourself is: why not?

I’m a firm believer that is something is nagging at your consciousness – like the question of a career change – there is something going on that is worth paying attention to. Most people disregard those nagging feelings because when they are asked “why not make the change?” their justifications are based on fear. It’s easier to stay put than it is to take the risk and try something new. Just because something is “easy” or “comfortable” doesn’t mean it is the right decision for you.

When you are 80 years old looking back on your life and your career, are you going to be happy you choose to remain put because it was easy? Are you going to regret not shaking things up?

When you ask yourself “why not do the damn thing?” and you don’t have good reasons, you need to take a hard look at your life. If your reasons are fear-based or comfort-focused, you are selling yourself short.

Stay because you WANT to stay. Stay because you like your reasons for staying.

If you are questioning your current path, that feeling rarely goes away. If anything it will only amplify. If you accepted that as true, what would you do with your life? If you knew that every job, every position, was simply a different and evolving season of your life, what would you do next?

I like to think about my life and my choices like the evolution of fashion or tastes. What I once thought was my most promising fashion choice in the 80s does not hold up well today. We change. We want new things. We become different people. It’s perfectly natural to want to be challenged in a new way or to experience new things professionally.

When you find yourself asking whether it is time for a new career choice, honor yourself by giving space to that question. Why do you find yourself asking that question? What is lacking in your current experience that you are wanting. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and explore what is going on with you that is arousing that question.

We must learn to honor ourselves and respect the questions we present to ourselves. Ask the questions. You are the only one who can ever determine if it is time for a change but if you keep ignoring those nagging questions, you will never get to the right answer for yourself.

Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

—M. Scott Peck

Of course, prior to making any type of  a significant change, I believe that we must act from a place of peace and happiness. Big decisions should not be made when we are feeling emotional or when we are worn out. Part of what I do as a coach is help my clients clean up all the mental garbage they have bogging them down so that they can make decisions from a place of clarity: decisions based upon sound reasoning and intention. If you aren’t in a good mental headspace, you must first work on your relationship with yourself. Good decisions will then flow from that place. Need support? Grab a free session while they are still available!

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

“Doing great work is a struggle. It’s draining, it’s demoralizing, it’s frightening – not always, but it can feel that way when we’re deep in the middle of it.”

― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

When you are working toward a new goal, there will be days when the goal seems unimportant. When the path you chose to the goal seems like a mistake. You can start to doubt your prior decisions and it seems logical to take a break and reassess. It is in those moments that having a good coach can make all the difference because your task must then become separating your fears from your good logic. It is those moments of breaking through the morass that will set you apart from all others who gave up and went home.

We set goals and we make plans. That is the easy part.

We have something we want to attain so we identify it and we get to executing. We make choices about how to best achieve that goal and we take action on those choices. But then, days/weeks/months later as we continue holding steady with those prior decisions, we start to second guess. We start to doubt and question whether we made the right decision. That questioning might be founded in good deductive reasoning but most often that questioning if fear-based.

We agonize over whether we made the right decision.

Whether we chose the right approach. Whether we should be spending our time elsewhere. NONE of those thoughts are founded upon the results of your current experiment. None of those questions are based upon your current course. They are all rooted in fear and self-doubt. Fear about making the wrong choice, fear about squandering your time, fear that it should be EASIER THAN IT IS. None of those fears are rationale but when they bounce around your head all day long, they are damn persuasive.

So how do you know when you are letting fear drive the boat or whether it really is time to make a change?

You have to ask yourself why you want to make a change midrace. Are you frustrated that it’s not going well or that it’s not as easy as you hoped? Are you feeling unmotivated and uninspired? Those are NOT REASONS TO CHANGE YOUR COURSE! That is part of the bargain. It is supposed to be hard!

When we believe that our path to a goal should be inspired and we should be filled with passion and motivated every step of the way, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are denying the reality of yin and yang! From that space the only option is to abandon ship every time it gets hard. We spend our lives chasing happiness and running away from challenges. That course will never bring your dreams to fruition.

The take away here is this: if you want to change your course, do you like your reasoning for doing so?

Would your future self agree with your rationale?

What would it be like to stick it out a little longer–what will that gain you?

What will it cost you to change course?

Whenever we set goals, I encourage my clients to make them very measurable and clear. If you are going to start a website and a blog, identify the steps and tell yourself how long you are willing to commit to a particular course of action. Maybe you will commit to trying to make it all on your own for 3 weeks. After that point, you can decide whether it might be best to hire a web designer. The point is to trust yourself enough to commit to a course of action that makes sense to you.

Give yourself the opportunity to either fail or succeed in taking action toward your goals. Don’t leave room for half/a attempts. Don’t give space to commit for a few days and give up when it gets hard. Expect that it will be hard. The grind will come and commit to riding that path through it. Don’t allow yourself to quit during the grind! Decide how long you are willing to commit to your selected path and just. do. it.

Make a decision and have your own back.

After you have pushed through the grind and honored your prior decision-making enough to power through, THEN you can re-evaluate how to best proceed. At that time, not only will you have identified one approach that does not (or does) work but you will have also fostered trust in yourself. You will have developed confidence in yourself that you can make commitments to yourself and execute, even when it gets hard. You honor yourself and your decision-making when you stick to the plan. After all, there was a reason you decided to take that approach–give yourself the benefit of the doubt and stick with it even when it gets hard.

Unsure about whether it is time to change course? Get some free coaching today. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh perspective to see things differently.

Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash

How do you know….

When it’s time to quit your job

When it’s time to find a new firm

When it’s time to ask for a divorce

When it’s time to change professions

When faced with these questions from clients, we work through a three step process:

myths, justifications, and so whats

The myth: there is no predestined “right time” that must be known before we can make big decisions.

What is the benefit of that line of thinking?

It’s like handing your life over to some unknown scheduler, hoping that they will let you know when you can move on. It assumes that there will be a time when the change you are questioning will be easy. It also assumes there will be a time when you can act without any fear or reservation.

Instead, this wait and see approach simply keeps you stuck. It keeps you in the safe familiar. It justifies your unwillingness to do the scary thing and gives you an excuse for not taking control over your life: “It just doesn’t feel like the right time.”

In my experience, those of us that wait to find some certainty that the time is finally “right” to make that big decision only end up getting beat over the head with their own truth.

The truth that they have known all along but that they kept ignoring, waiting for a “sign” that it was the perfect time to act. When we ignore those inklings that we need to make a change and we tell ourselves that we need to wait for the “right time,” life typically just turns up the volume and makes that truth harder to ignore.

You knew the right decision already but you allowed fear to convince yourself that you needed to wait for the right time.

There is no “right time.” If you feel driven or called to do something or make a change, pay attention to those urges. They will not go away. They will just get louder and the messaging typically becomes more painful (so that you cannot ignore it).

The one person that we should innately trust, who always has our back, is ourselves. Why do we ignore her so often and listen to others whose intentions are not always so benevolent? In order to build the life of your dreams, you have to start trusting yourself.

The only person who will join you for every step of the journey is yourself.

So, you might as well start giving her a seat at the table.

The justifications. When we are trying to weigh important decisions, the most important question to ask yourself is “why” do I want to do this. Next, we ask ourselves if we like our reasoning.

It’s that simple.

If your reason for wanting to leave your job is because “It’s too hard…I don’t think I’m cut out for it…I’m not happy here” you have to as yourself if you like that reasoning. Do you feel good about that explanation?

For many of us, these types of justifications are at the root of a lot of decisions. Things get hard. Life will challenge you to grow. These justifications are all based in some sort of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that you made a mistake.

Furthermore, these types of justifications give away all your power–you imply that your job should give you some sort of happiness. (In case you missed it, happiness is no one’s job but yours.)

You are free to allow yourself to make decisions based upon these justifications, that is wholly your right. But my question is: Do you like your reasons? Do you feel good about your justification?

Be honest with yourself about why you are wanting to do (or not do) something and carefully examine your justification.

So long as you like your reason, you have everything you need to act. From there you simply make a decision and execute. No drama. Just action from a place of authenticity. Simple.

The so whats.

This is the part of the process where we tackle the fear that is keeping us stuck. When we eliminate the drama and get clear about our justifications for acting, the only thing that will keep us from executing is fear. In order to act, we have to take a look at that fear.

If you act and you make the “wrong” decision, so what?

Answering that question will ultimately bring you face to face with your worst case scenario. When we ask “so what?” over and over and over again, we eventually get to the root of the fear:

I don’t want people to think I’m a failure…because then I will believe I have failed.

I don’t want to be embarrassed…because it will mean I have messed up.

I don’t want to admit I was wrong…because it will mean I’m less than.

Facing our worst case scenarios and developing a strategy where we not only survive but THRIVE through those events will dispel the fear that is keeping us from acting.

If we know that we can make a decision, fail, and handle the consequences, there is no longer anything to be  afraid of. There is no longer any reason NOT to act.

Don’t let your brain tell you that you can’t handle your worst case scenario. Believing that will keep you stuck indefinitely.

Don’t make your life a merry-go-round of boring and fear-driven decisions. What would your future self tell you to do?

Interested in some free support in making your next big decision? I got you. Sign up today before this week’s spots are gone.

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Then it’s Sunday morning and the dread sets in. It’s like Monday is a looming gauntlet, like a watery grave for a stubborn cat–don’t you dare make me get in there, GDI!

Many of my clients lose the majority of their Sundays to that Monday morning dread. “Sunday mourning.”

They spin in negative thoughts and mental sparring matches with their co-workers and clients. They imagine the worst case scenarios–

I swear to god if Associate Suck-Up stops into my office to brag about how he billed 20 hours this weekend, I am going to explode.

When Monday does come around, they are mentally exhausted and wound tightly, just waiting for an opportunity to prove their fears true and blow up on some unassuming victim.

Practicing law is no walk in the park, admittedly, but this Sunday torture is not helping the situation.

Is it useful to imagine the worst case scenario?

Is it helpful to anticipate a dumpster fire?

How is that benefiting you?

What impact is that having on your happiness, never mind your weekend?

What it’s like to sacrifice half of every weekend to your own mental torture?

It is nearly impossible to rationally examine any situation when you are overcome with negative emotions. Instead of thoughtfully examining our choices, we act with knee-jerk reactions from fear, overwhelm, or anger.

Our Sunday mourning feels so justified. We have all sorts of reasons why we feel anxious and depressed. The problem is that we can’t make a real assessment of any situation when we are frayed at both ends.

It’s certainly possible that your Sunday mourning routine is indicative of a need for a career change. BUT what is more likely is that you could change your career and find yourself swimming in the same Sunday Mourning pond.

When we find our brains overrun with negative thoughts about our careers, those thoughts are rarely isolated to that one circumstance.

They are often part of a larger belief system that will follow you no matter where you go or what you do.

I want to enjoy what I do for a living.

I just want to be happy in my job.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Thoughts like those will creep into other aspects of your life later on. The belief that your job and your life “should” be a certain way. You should be happy. Your career should be easier. The fact that you “don’t want” to do your job anymore matters. (It doesn’t!) Not wanting to do something is simply a thought. That thought will sidetrack anything you do. It is not helpful. Not wanting to do something does not mean there is a glitch in the matrix.

It likely means you are doing something hard.

Something that forces you to grow.

When you give credence to that thought “I don’t want to do this” you are allowing yourself to use the easy button. To avoid the growth. You are allowing your brain to become really skilled at NOT doing hard things.

None of these thoughts are good reasons to quit a job. They are thoughts you are choosing to believe. They are thoughts that open an escape hatch–an easy out. Cleaning up those thoughts will allow you to truly experience your job, unclouded by these judgments and burdensome beliefs. Then you can decide whether you want to do something else with your life.

Before you make any monumental decisions while in the despair of Sunday mourning, I challenge you to examine the thoughts and beliefs creating your misery. Those thoughts will go with you no matter what you are doing for a living.

“Where ever you go, there you are.”

You are really good at thinking those thoughts and you will keep thinking them even if you change the scenery.

What is it costing you? Have you allowed those thoughts to sabotage you over and over again?

This is the meat of my work with most of my clients. Many of them carry toxic thoughts and beliefs about how their lives “should” be. Thoughts that cause them tremendous pain and cost them their happiness. Working through those thoughts provides them with the peace and space to truly move on and transform their lives.

Want a reprieve? Try it out for free today.

Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels

I hate being a lawyer

What else can I do with a law degree

How do I know if practicing law is right for me?

You will get a boatload of hits and stories of woe from “recovering lawyers.” Law school and practicing law are like any good love story. You can’t really understand how amazing and yet how terrible it can be until you experience it yourself.

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.

I deeply empathize with those of you going through that turmoil. The feeling of hopelessness and pressure. That heavy, oppressive fear that you just spent thousands of dollars getting into a prestigious club only to quickly realize you want right back out.

Fancy degree, fancy office, fancy car, fat paycheck and miserable. Congratulations!

Ooof. The agony.

So, what do you do?

One of the things we coaches love to do is “question your most closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions.” These are the words of my coach who makes me pledge to do this very thing at the beginning of every session.

Many of our most closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions are really wolves masquerading in sheep’s clothing. They sound so nice and innocuous, even virtuous. Yet, pretty thoughts have a way of causing so much unnecessary pain.

I want to have a job I can feel good about

I want a boss who respects me

I don’t want to be treated like an idiot

I want to love what I do

We have so many thoughts like this that we are choosing to swish around in our brains. They are not facts. They are not gospel. They are only true because you are choosing to believe they are true.

There are people in this world (ESPECIALLY during this pandemic) that would be thrilled with a job. Any job. If they could go to law school and work for someone who yelled at them, treated them like an idiot and didn’t respect them, they would be thankful just to have a job.

There are people in this world who would rather have a job for a horrible boss making tons of money than a job with Willie Wonka making pennies.

There are people in this world who neither love nor hate their jobs; it’s just a job. It is not who they are, it doesn’t define them, it’s a means to an end.  It pays the bills. They don’t care that they don’t love it. They have other things to love.

If you want to believe that you should love your job, that is 1000% your right and your option. My only question for you is

How is that thought serving you?

Does it make you feel terrible? Does it make you jump from job to job constantly searching for something better? Does it inspire you to get out of bed every day?

There is no such thing as inherently good or bad thoughts. Thoughts are good or bad based upon the impact those thoughts have on you–how they make you feel, show up, act, and the results they drive you to create.

Last week, I had a mini-session with a woman who was really grappling with her career. She was trying to figure out what to do next. As we discussed her reasons for considering a change she keep coming back to

I just want a job that I can feel good about; that brings purpose to my life.

Lovely. Beautiful. Commendable thoughts.

They were making my client miserable.

Those thoughts made her feel anxious and panicky. They drove her to overly criticize every job opportunity and scrutinize every aspect of her work. She was creating an impossibly high standard for her career and it was wrecking havoc on her life as she jumped from job to job and career to career seeking that elusive “purpose”. It was blocking her ability to see and appreciate the good in any aspect of her life. Those thoughts were keeping her from being happy in ANY environment.

This applies to everything. Not just your job. Thinking about quitting your marriage, that relationship, that friendship? Whatever it may be, the first step is getting honest with yourself about your brain.

What closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions are contributing to your present strife?

Are some of your pretty thoughts blocking you from happiness? 

If you can get a handle on your brain and the role you are playing in creating your current misery, you can move into a space of greater clarity. From that space of clarity, you can make clear-headed, logical decisions about your life. Decisions that aren’t frantic, panicked or based in fear. Part of that process is examining some of your closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions.

How are those beliefs/thoughts/assumptions serving you? Are they blocking your happiness?

You have the freedom to believe whatever you want but you must ask yourself whether those thoughts deserve real estate in your brain. It’s your future. What thoughts are you using to fuel your journey?