Sometimes it comes at the end of a killer workday but sometimes it’s after a relatively blah day. Like this exhaustion is just there hovering around you like a dark fog and despite getting enough sleep and not being overly stressed, you can’t seem to shake it?!

The cause behind that exhaustion may surprise you.

But first, a science lesson from our friend Albert Einstein. According to the Law of Conservation of Energy, which is the basic law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Second, an observation. For better or worse, during our legal careers, we will have abundant opportunities to lose our shit. Every day, we encounter humans and circumstances that will test our resolve, our patience, and our ability to keep it all together. Anger. Frustration. Fear. Self-Doubt. Guilt. They are all a natural part of our daily lives, along with all their ugly relatives and friends.

All of those emotions are energy. The Latin derivative for the word emotion, ‘emotere’, literally means energy in motion.

But how many times a day do we feel that rise of white-hot rage energy in our chests and stifle it? How many times a week do we get so frustrated we could burst into tears BUT WE DON’T?

Every time we do that we are holding that energy inside our bodies. In all of those instances, we are bottling up the energy that is trying to move through us. It’s like continually adding boiling water (high energy emotions) to an already screaming tea kettle (our body). We just keep adding more and more energy (emotions) to the tea kettle (our body) and fighting to keep them all contained, despite the kettle screaming to be loosed.

When we block the energy from moving through our body, we end up storing emotions in our cells and the power of those emotions is held there, boiling below the surface. Remember that energy can’t be destroyed per Mr. Einstein so now we just captured it and we’re fighting to contain it.

In other words, when we ignore those emotions that present themselves during the day, that energy remains in our bodies, fighting to get out. So we, in turn, express more energy to keep that energy hidden; to keep those emotions from leaking out.

We end up living our lives with an energetic timebomb just waiting to detonate and fighting to keep it under wraps.

Understanding that emotions are energy implies that they are fluid, moving resources meant to be felt and released vs. suppressed and ignored. The latter is the true culprit of burnout and exhaustion.

If you feel physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of every day and you aren’t sure why, it is likely that you are carrying around a lot of pend up energy that needs to be released.

How do we do this? A few ideas:

• Journal about it. Engage in a free write and let it all out. Let the tears come out as you write if that feels natural. Just engage with those feelings and write down all the thoughts that come with them. It’s like a mental and emotional exorcism — just get it out!

• Connect with the emotion. Where do you feel it in your body? What color is it? Does it have a name? What does it feel like when you touch it? What does it feel like when you let it move through you?

• Meditate. Meditate and connect with the emotion like in the prior example as a means to recognize and honor its presence before releasing it. Consider having a dialogue with the emotion. Can you name it? Where did it come from? What does it want? What is it trying to teach you?

• Get support. Talk to someone about it who won’t judge you or try to fix it. A verbal exorcism if you will – again, just get it out! It doesn’t have to make any sense. The goal is to release it not to fix it. (Ahem, I’m always available for that sort of thing!)

As you work through these options and release the pent up energy, your body will move from contraction (keeping the energy pushed down) to expansion (letting the energy pass through) and you will typically feel lighter, calmer and relieved. When you allow yourself to ride the emotional wave of these sensations you will regain homeostasis which allows your body to finally rest and heal itself.

Through these practices, you allow your body to feel the emotions it didn’t have the opportunity to release at the time of the triggering event. An added benefit of this work is that you can learn to understand these emotions and the thoughts that trigger them. When we understand our emotions on a deeper level, we no longer need to fear them and can instead learn to better manage them. We don’t need to rage at work or burst into tears when the emotion strikes us but we can, instead, commit to honoring those emotions and expressing them at an appropriate time.

They are part of our human experience and holding them in simply does more harm than good. So go on, pour yourself some wine and have a good ol’ cry about it!

“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