This month we are talking about life alignment and specifically evaluating whether or not our lives and our careers reflect our deepest intentions and align with the people that we want to be at our core.

But how do you know if you’re on the right path or if some adjustments need to be made?

There is something about that exploration that is so primal and so awesome that our immediate response is often to ignore the very weight of it. That’s when you know you’re asking the right questions and it’s time to look deeper.

With so many options and societal pressures, it’s easy to get lost or end up pursuing a path that doesn’t truly resonate with you. But what if you could tap into your inner guidance to uncover a career that aligns with who you truly are? Here’s a guide to help you discover what you really want to do with your career, using one simple tool in the process.

New me, who dis?

Before you can figure out what you truly want to do, you need to understand who you are. This involves digging deep into your passions, values, strengths, and interests. Consider the following questions as a starting point:

• What activities make you lose track of time or put you into a “flow” state?
• What topics could you talk about for hours without getting bored?
• What do people often come to you for advice about?

Reflecting on these questions helps you tap into your innate interests and strengths, which are essential clues to your ideal career.

Document your journey!

When my first marriage started to slowly crumble around me and I was tap dancing on the edge of a dark depression, journaling was one of the tools that helped me get my head back on straight and see true north again. Journaling is one of the most powerful tools for self-discovery because it allows you to explore your thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental space, uncovering insights that might otherwise remain hidden.

By regularly journaling, we become more in tune with our intuition and inner voice. Writing allows us to access insights and guidance that might otherwise remain buried in our subconscious. It’s a way of listening to ourselves and discovering truths that can guide our decisions and actions.

Try out the questions above or these journaling prompts to get started:

• What does my ideal day look like?
  Write in detail about your ideal workday. Where are you working? What tasks are you performing? How do you feel throughout the day? This exercise can reveal aspects of your ideal career environment and tasks that bring you joy.

• What did I love doing as a child?
  Children naturally gravitate toward activities that excite them. Reconnecting with these early passions can guide you toward a career that feels authentic and fulfilling. (Psst, did you hear my revelation on the podcast about my childhood forays with telekinesis?! I was (am?) a weird kid, simple as that.)

What do I really care about?

Your core values are the guiding principles that shape your decisions and behavior. When your career aligns with your values, you’re more likely to feel satisfied and motivated. Spend time journaling about what truly matters to you. Is it creativity, helping others, financial security, freedom, or something else? Use a journal to identify your top five core values. Once you’ve identified them, reflect on how these values can be integrated into your career. For instance, if “helping others” is a top value, you might thrive in a career centered on service or support.

Be open and flexible

So often we get caught up in the “hows” of life. We want to know exactly what our path forward will look like before we decide whether we want to embark on it. But that’s just not how life works! Often times, the only way to discover your true career path is through continued faith and experimentation. The beauty of this approach is that you don’t have to flip a switch and become a new person overnight. Instead, you can take on small projects, freelance work, or volunteer opportunities in the areas that interest you and see where those take you. This hands-on experience can provide clarity about what you enjoy and where your strengths lie. You might even use your newfound journaling skills to unpack the experiments and see what you liked or didn’t like about it…

Use your resources!

Talking to others who are already in fields you’re interested in can provide valuable insights. Reach out to professionals for informational interviews, join relevant networking groups, or find a mentor who can guide you through the process. Sometimes, an external perspective can illuminate aspects of yourself or your career path that you hadn’t considered. (It’s me, I’m a resource!)

Take a good look at it.

Visualization is a powerful technique to connect with your future self and your desired career. Spend time imagining your life five or ten years from now. Picture your career, your lifestyle, and how you feel in this future scenario. In your journal, write a detailed description of your future self, including your career, accomplishments, and daily life. This exercise helps you clarify your goals and align your actions with your desired future. Don’t skip this step! You don’t need to know your exact path forward but you do need to have a sense of the direction you want to be heading and visualization will help you clarify that direction.

Trust the Process

Figuring out what you truly want to do with your career is a journey, not a destination. It’s okay to change directions, make mistakes, and take time to explore. Trust that each step you take is bringing you closer to a career that resonates with your true self. With your ideal future in mind, ask yourself what simple steps you could take today to move toward that idea. Progress is made through consistent, intentional steps.

Conclusion

Finding your true career path is a deeply personal journey that requires introspection, exploration, and patience. By embracing self-discovery and using journaling as a tool, you can uncover a career that not only fulfills you but also aligns with your authentic self. Remember, the answers are within you; it’s just a matter of giving yourself the time and space to discover them.

When I was reeling from the impact of my divorce and trying to navigate the trauma following a decade of abuse, I went home to visit my parents. I noticed that my mom had picked up a new piece of art — some Banksy knockoff that included a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald. She never said anything to me about the art or its meaning but I always felt like it was directed at me–I was, after all, the only child that was presently burning down her entire life only to begin anew, despite the very responsible lives my brothers were leading. I always felt like it was her silent confirmation that I was doing the right thing and that I had made the right choice. It made me feel seen. It made me feel brave. To this day, I love this quote so much and offer it to you all here in hopes that it will similarly inspire you as well.

“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”

― Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Photo by Porapak Apichodilok

It’s not uncommon for attorneys to question their sanity in the face of a dysfunctional work environment which is all too common in the legal industry. Today we are digging into endemic toxicity in the legal industry to help you better understand whether your workplace is a danger to your mental health and long term well-being and what to do about it.

As you may know, in the Collective we have spent the entire month of March exploring the ins and outs of relationships. This month we are exploring a related topic: how to transform relationships and start advocating for ourselves. This month’s newsletter and podcast episodes are packed with actionable steps to help you start taking action to transform toxic workplaces and relationships and start using your voice more effectively.

It may come as no surprise to many of you that a 2022 study in the MIT Sloan Management Review cited toxic work cultures as the top driver of employee attrition. The study concluded that toxic work cultures drove employees out the exit door faster than job insecurity or lack of recognition for performance. The report noted that the leading contributors to toxic work cultures include: failure to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion; workers feeling disrespected; and unethical behavior.

This study sheds light on several red flags that should not be ignored and may very well indicate a toxic work environment which could wreak havoc on your well-being and productivity. Below are a few of the common toxic characteristics identified by studies and ones that I see most often in my own experience working with hundreds of women lawyers:

Common Red Flags in the Legal Industry:

High Turnover Rates: A consistently high turnover rate can indicate that employees are not satisfied or are experiencing difficulties in the workplace. Not only does high turnover rate indicate significant workplace challenges, it also suggests higher pressure and workloads on those continually left behind due to ongoing attrition issues.  For those of you entering the job market or looking to make a move, asking about turnover rates can be critical in avoiding this sign of a toxic workplace. 

Poor Communication: Lack of open, honest, and transparent communication between management and employees, or among team members, can create confusion, misunderstandings, and resentment. IMHO This one is all too common in the legal industry. Productive feedback is rarely provided and passive aggression is generally the preferred approach. This toxic characteristic not only makes it difficult for you to hone your skills and understand your strengths but ultimately is detrimental to your clients.

Micromanagement: Excessive control or micromanagement by supervisors can stifle creativity, demotivate employees, and create a sense of distrust. Micromanagement in the legal industry makes it difficult to complete work efficiently and effectively but also prevents attorneys from developing their own approach and style within their practice. Over time, this leads to senior attorneys who are insecure in their abilities to operate independently.

Lack of Work-Life Balance: Expectations of long working hours, constant availability, or pressure to sacrifice personal time can lead to burnout and decreased job satisfaction. This one needs little explanation. If you look around at your coworkers and do not see a single person whose life you would like to emulate, there is a good likelihood that the organization has a low tolerance for healthy work-life balance.

Unclear Expectations: When employees are unsure about their roles, responsibilities, or performance expectations, it can lead to stress, frustration, and feelings of incompetence. This issue becomes particularly prevalent as attorneys advance in their career. As you become more senior and approach partnership, your responsibilities should similarly evolve and there should be a clear understanding of what is required to advance to partnership. Where those requirements are undisclosed or amorphous, the situation is ripe for further discussion and clarification or a speedy exit.

Resistance to Change: An organization that is resistant to change or innovation may become stagnant, hindering growth opportunities for employees and the company as a whole. This has become more and more common in the legal industry. In my experience, today’s generation of attorneys are unwilling to accept “this is just how we’ve always done things” or to tolerate firms that are unwilling to concede any need for growth or evolution. I have witnessed countless attorneys leave firms due to stagnant hiring practices, lack of DEI investment, archaic return to office policies, and inflexible (or nonexistent) family leave protocols. If you see an organization seemingly stuck in the dark ages my recommendation is to have frank conversations as early as possible to best understand the organization’s willingness to evolve.

Lack of Support for Growth and Development: When opportunities for learning, training, and career advancement are scarce, employees may feel stuck and unfulfilled in their roles. This toxic trait exists at all levels of the legal industry from baby lawyers looking to develop fresh new skills to young partners wanting to understand business development and management. If your workplace is not willing to provide that level of support and mentorship I strongly encourage you to explore alternative avenues for support.

While the foregoing are just a handful of the toxic characteristics identified in recent studies and that I have witnessed in the legal industry, there are countless others that is simple Google search can highlight.

Identifying these red flags as early as possible and taking steps to address them is crucial for fostering a healthy and productive work environment. If you find yourself disconnected from your workplace struggling to access motivation and disengaged from your work, you may be suffering the side effects brought on by a toxic workplace. Overcoming a toxic workplace can be challenging, but it’s essential for your well-being and professional growth.

 What to do in the face of toxic workplaces

• Identify the toxic behaviors: Be aware of your organizations toxic traits.
• Maintain professionalism: While it’s important to address toxic behavior, it’s equally crucial to remain professional. Avoid engaging in negative behavior yourself and focus on your work.
• Seek support: Talk to a coach, trusted colleagues, or friends outside of work about your experiences. Sometimes, simply sharing your feelings can provide relief.
• Set boundaries: Establish clear boundaries between your work life and personal life. Don’t let toxic behavior consume you outside of work hours.
• Document incidents: Keep a record of any incidents of toxic behavior, including dates, times, and details of what occurred. This documentation can be helpful if you decide to escalate the issue.
• Address the issue directly: If you feel comfortable, consider addressing the toxic behavior directly with the individual(s) involved. Check out the podcast this month to learn how to have difficult conversations and negotiate on your behalf.
• Talk to HR or management: If the toxic behavior persists or escalates, consider discussing the issue with HR or management. Present your documentation and express your concerns about the impact of the toxicity on your well-being and productivity.
• Seek alternatives: If the toxic environment persists despite your efforts, start exploring other job opportunities. Your mental and emotional health should not be compromised for the sake of a job.
• Focus on self-care: Engage in activities outside of work that help you relax and recharge. This could include exercise, hobbies, spending time with loved ones, or seeking therapy.
• Know when to walk away: Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a toxic workplace may not change. In such cases, it’s important to prioritize your well-being and consider leaving for a healthier work environment.

Want more on these topics? Check out this month’s newsletter and related Lawyer Life Podcast episodes where we dig into to how to transform relationships and how to have difficult conversations!

I remember one afternoon, we were playing “tag” on the dirt bikes. My older brother was “it” and I was riding around the backside of the farm. As usual, our farm was filled with random equipment and machinery scattered around the barns, out-buildings and grain bins. As I was running (riding?!) away from my brothers on this motorcycle, I had my head on a swivel, constantly checking behind me to see whether or not they were closing in on me. At the time, my dad was putting new tin sheet metal on one of our barns which meant that there was a flatbed trailer on the backside of the farm that had stacks of incredibly sharp sheet metal on it. As I flew around the corner to the backside of the farm, looking all around, hoping that my brothers hadn’t seen me yet, I failed to notice the flatbed trailer sitting right in front of me. When I finally turned my attention back to my path, I realized that I was quickly closing in on this sheet metal death trap sitting right at the height of my neck. I also realized in that moment that the brakes on my motorcycle were pretty much non-existent from years of idiocy by my brothers and I. Instantly, I knew I had to dump the bike to avoid the sheet metal at my neck. As I went down, the sheet metal caught me across my upper chest as I dove to the ground and left a long slice across my upper body, leaving a scar I still have to this day.

I think about this experience every time I have the urge to burn it all down –

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?

Sometimes in life we don’t pay attention to all the warning signs and everything that’s happening in front of us. Instead we’re so focused on small distractions or we’re mentally lingering in the future or the past that we overlook all the warning signs right in front of us.

Logically, we know that our difficult experiences have a lot to teach us about our own inner work. It doesn’t mean that learning those lessons and putting in the work on ourselves needs to be done in the middle of a hurricane. Sometimes it’s admirable to walk away with your head still intact, start with a clean slate, and do the work from a new vantage point. Sometimes it’s okay to recognize that the space you are in is hurting you and that you need a fresh start.

It’s perfectly acceptable to just abandon ship and pull the plug if that’s what you need to survive. There’s nothing wrong with getting out when you have gotten in too far over your head.

Do I regret that scar? Absolutely not. I know that if I had continued on my path I would have been hurt much more significantly. I did what I had to do to get out. No regrets, no second-guessing. I can apply that same logic to various instances in my life when I simply threw in the towel and walked away — I did it for my own safety and no one else and that was enough for me.

Are you looking to make a fresh start? There’s no better time to let in support to ensure that when you start anew, you show up differently and create a better, brighter future.

Perhaps those experiences of chaos are intended to wake you up to the work that you actually need to do on yourself and that is all the learning you need to take from that place.

The point of the experience may not be to force you to do your own inner work in the middle of the hurricane. Perhaps it’s that you need to see that the hurricane always exists, at least partly, within you as well as around you. From that realization sometimes leaving and getting space is the only way to actually start doing the work on yourself.

Beethoven never wrote a beautiful sonata while he was drowning. You don’t have to “fix” your issues while you are burning alive. Sometimes it’s just okay to leave and start again because sometimes that is the only way you can do the work.

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you are not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Photo by cottonbro

I recently had a client that was going through the process of finding another job. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go in-house or if she wanted to go to a smaller firm but she did know one thing for certain: she wanted out of her current firm. As she was moving along through various parallel interviewing processes, she was struggling and feeling hopeless. On its face, she had secured some pretty amazing final round of interviews with some pretty amazing companies and pending offers. Despite all of this, she was convinced that she didn’t have what it takes and that none of them were going to work out. She resisted any feelings of hopefulness and excitement about her prospects and instead concluded that she was never going to get out of her firm. She was failing ahead of time, assuming the worst before it even happens.

So many of my clients are making career changes right now–both in and out of traditional legal roles. If that is you, grab a free consult and take advantage of my experience. Let’s craft a plan for your next step.

So many of us do this. Instead of allowing ourselves to be hopeful and believe in ourselves and our futures, we decide that it’s better to feel disappointed now and not get our hopes up so that we don’t have to deal with BIGGER disappointment later. We don’t want to be surprised by our own lack of success. So instead of allowing ourselves to enjoy feelings of hopefulness and to get excited for the future, we start feeling disappointed about the future. We fail ahead of time, anticipating the negative results and feeling terrible now, before we really have any evidence of failure or any real reason to feel terribly.

The whole process is long, drawn out, self-created misery without regard to the facts of the situation.

We beat ourselves up for getting excited. We beat ourselves up for getting distracted and thinking about the future. We tell ourselves that we’re stuck and that nothing is ever going to change.

What kind of a story is that?

If this were a movie and the main character was about to make a huge change in her life for the better, to fight for her happiness, and go after what she really wanted, would we want to watch her sit in misery and disappointment during that whole process? Or would we want to see her show up confidently, believing that she was going to make it happen regardless of the number of setbacks?

Making a change is never easy and our first “solution” rarely works out. We all know this to be true but for whatever reason we seem surprised and disappointed when our first attempts don’t pan out. We don’t want to experience disappointment over and over again so instead we sit in quiet disappointment and discontent the entire time.

This practice of trying and doing and assuming failure before it even happens is problematic for two reasons.

First, when we utilize this process over and over again in our lives, we do not become skilled at experiencing true disappointment. We withhold excitement and hopefulness from ourselves and instead wallow in a kind of a mild disappointment and failure anticipation. We never allow full on disappointment to meet us because we never allow ourselves to feel hopeful or excited. You can’t crash if you never allow yourself to soar. That lack of experience and lack of understanding of how to deal with and process REAL disappointment is part of the reason we’re so invested in this cycle. We don’t know how to experience disappointment so we just keep trying to prevent it by never giving room to hope.

We are avoiding the full spectrum of the human experience. Unless and until we learn how to experience and process real disappointment, this cycle will always be persuasive. It is a sign that we are trying to protect ourselves from feeling something negative. But the only way to make that negative feeling less scary and more accessible is to allow ourselves to actually experience it instead of trying to insulate ourselves from it. With that work we become less afraid of failure and more willing to live and breathe in hopefulness for the future. From that space, failure across-the-board becomes so much less scary because we know how to handle, experience, and process feelings of disappointment without allowing them to completely devastate us.

Second, the other problem with this cycle is that it still involves feelings of disappointment. While they may be less intense, they are certainly more drawn out. Rather than allowing ourselves to experience the positive emotions of hopefulness and excitement for a period of time and then experience full on disappointment if things don’t work out, we choose instead to live in mild disappointment for a longer period of time until we ascertain the facts to determine whether or not our disappointment is warranted. In other words we choose weeks of mild disappointment as opposed to weeks of happiness and excitement followed by a brief period of disappointment (but only if that worst case scenario actually happens!).

Why would we withhold positive feelings from ourselves and instead choose long and drawn out periods feeling hopeless and stuck? Are we really so wed to the avoidance of negative emotions that we want to withhold positive experiences and feelings from ourselves? What if things do pan out and you waste all of that time just feeling terrible for nothing? There are no rewards from failing ahead of time. It’s just self-flagellation.

I can’t imagine that anyone who has achieved anything noteworthy in this life did so assuming and expecting that it wasn’t going to work out.

Call it blind hope or delusional all you want, I know for certain that when I am living in hope and faith in my path, I show up more in alignment with who I want to be and I take actions in furtherance of my goals. If and when disappointment comes to the party, we can experience that part of our path as well and allow the ebbs and flows of life. In that way, we learn to understand disappointment so we no longer have to fail ahead of time to try and avoid it. We can embrace the yin and yang of life!

My client had been charged with managing a particularly large project that was not within her traditional practice area. The initiative required input and contributions from various practices across the firm and ongoing strategy sessions with the team. In addition to the strategy sessions, my client had regular one-on-one meetings with her supervisor. During a recent meeting with her supervisor, he indicated that he expected her to take the lead on the upcoming team discussion and that she would be managing the project from there on out. He wanted her to use this to get project management experience. When she attended the first team meeting to present the project plan, her supervisor took over and did not offer any opportunity for her to make contributions. As the meeting progressed, it became clear to my client that her supervisor and his team had not read any of the materials relating to the scope of the project and had grossly misunderstood the intent of the client. The meeting was largely unproductive, confusing for all members, and my client was pissed.

When we met, she relayed this story and went on to explain how her supervisor is a jerk, a terrible leader, incredibly disorganized, spiteful, arrogant, and childish. She said she hates working with him and that having to continually interact with someone who was such a poor supervisor was making her consider leaving her job entirely. How does someone like that get into a position of leadership!?

This kind of scenario and feedback is something that we all have to deal with at some point in time simply by being members of the human race. Although I like to think that we in the legal industry have an abnormal amount of individuals who are poor leaders and managers, the ultimate truth remains the same: sometimes people just suck.

But the problem with this scenario is that so many of my clients are driven to leave or consider leaving their place of employment due to this type of interaction. In attempts to remedy these situations, many of us vacillate between confronting the individual and outright avoiding them. We all know that feeling when you’re sitting in a meeting and you’re swimming in angry thoughts about the individual in front of you. They have no idea what they’re doing….I wish they would just shut up….why do they keep doing that….how can they be so oblivious….you’re such a terrible leader…. and on and on it goes. We feel our skin start to crawl and we actually start to believe that if we don’t get out of this place and get away from this person ASAP we’re going to lose our minds!

I get it. I have completely been there and so many of my clients have as well. So how do you dig out when every part of your body and every thought in your head is screaming to get away from this person?!

(Sound familiar? Sign up for a free consult, and let’s sort it out.)

First, we have to recognize that when we confront this person or simply avoid them, we are either trying to get the other person to change or we are trying to remove them from our orbit so we don’t have to do any work. We dream of confronting them and seeing them take our comments to heart so they can change for the better and then everything will be OK. In the alternative, we think that if we can just escape this person and not have to deal with them then everything will be OK in that scenario too. In either case, we’re trying to change or eliminate the problem person so that we don’t have to feel angry and frustrated anymore. Therein lies the problem:

Wanting someone or something else to change so that WE can feel better is a futile endeavor that rarely works. Instead, our work rests solely with us and how we handle the situation.

In my client’s scenario, she truly believed that her boss was a jerk, a terrible leader, disorganized, spiteful, arrogant, and childish. She provided those details to me as if they were well-documented facts. What she didn’t see was that none of that was true. These were all optional things she was choosing to believe about her boss. All of these thoughts and judgments about this person were making her completely miserable. She wanted me to help her learn how to navigate dealing with her jerk boss but she didn’t see that her beliefs and judgments about him were actually what was making her miserable. What she didn’t see was that in order to move forward she would have to at least open herself up to the possibility that her opinion about this person may not be accurate. That she was choosing to believe day-in and day-out that her boss was a jerk. Regardless of whether or not any of these thoughts could be proven factually accurate, it was clear that by living in these judgments of this other human, she was making herself crazy. The work wasn’t in learning how to deal with her “jerk” boss, the work was in seeing that she didn’t have to believe that he was a jerk.

Our judgments of other people are founded on the belief that those around us are supposed to act a certain way.

My client’s boss was supposed to be a good mentor, a good cheerleader for her, and supportive. She had this whole perception of who he was supposed to be. Her conclusion that he was a jerk was at odds with how she wanted things to be. That tug of war with reality was causing a tremendous amount of discomfort and frustration for her. So much so that she just wanted to get away from it. But as many of you know, anytime you leave one experience for another we often encounter the same types of humans who elicit the same types of challenges all over again.

We end up creating for ourselves a pattern of moving from place to place, identifying a new jerk in each situation, and moving on again and again.

Rather than showing up to work believing that her boss was a jerk, she had myriad options available to her as to how she could potentially think of the situation. She could instead recognize that he was showing up exactly how he was meant to. He was being everything that is uniquely him. And that is completely OK. In fact, that is the beauty of this world. We all have the ultimate right to show up and be whomever and however we want to be. So rather than showing up in judgment and stewing in anger and frustration, my client could instead look at this person as an opportunity for her to experiment with compassion and unconditional love. She wasn’t frustrated because of him or the things that he was doing. The reason she was frustrated was that she was focusing on who she wanted him to be and was marinating her brain in all of these negative judgments about him when he didn’t fit her mold. So instead I asked her, how do you want to think about this person? How do you want to show up in this experience?

She revealed that she wanted to be calm and collected. She wanted to advocate for herself. To step in and LEAD just like he had asked her to. She wanted to focus on the fact that she knew he never wanted to be a manager and that he seemed to be trying to do the best he could with the position that he never sought out.

This didn’t make her feel warm and fuzzy. It didn’t make her want to stay at the firm forever. But it did allow her some neutral emotions and some space to look at this person from a different perspective. It allowed the judgment to subside and along with that came a reduction in her frustration and anger and her desire to flee. Instead, we developed a plan for her to have an honest and curious conversation with him about the project. A conversation that was not intended to CHANGE him but one rooted in compassion and a desire to better UNDERSTAND him.

After all, it’s so much easier to speak your truth from a place of neutrality than when you are fueled by pent-up anger and frustration.

Imagine how much happier we all could be if instead of judging everyone around us and believing that things should be different we chose to believe that everything was happening as it should and just tried to love those around us? It’s not easy but it certainly feels a lot better than the alternative.

I truly believe that the only thing preventing us from loving everyone around us is our thoughts about them. If you could change that, imagine how much happier you would be.

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

The desire for a quick fix truly ignores the most important work that must be done.

Even before the pandemic, I would characterize myself as a bit of a reclusive introvert. I love my time alone. And I have managed to find a partner whose 24-hour shifts afford me ample opportunity to enjoy my time alone at home. What this also means is that I tend to avoid going out in public if I don’t have to. Again this was still me prior to the pandemic…now it just seems I have more people in my club. I have all my groceries delivered and I do as much shopping as possible online. I have my favorite liquor store delivery resources and my go-to grocery delivery resources. There are very few things that require me to actually leave my house. Everything is available at the click of a button. If I want an extra bottle of wine for my dinner party it can be at my door in less than an hour. If I wanna get extra pool floaties for my dogs I can order them on Amazon and have them at my house tomorrow. Feeling like sushi at 11:00 PM on a Tuesday? No problem, it will be there in an hour.

In today’s society, we are so accustomed to getting what we want immediately without having to wait for it. We are so wired and used to the quick fixes; however, there are aspects of our life that are not conducive to a quick fix no matter how much we want them to be.

This desire for a quick fix often comes up when I find a client in a rush to make a big decision or implement a big change. They just want to get it done, they want to file for divorce, quit their job, rip the band-aid ASAP.

Whenever you find yourself acting in a rush or a frantic kind of manner I urge you to stop and ask: what am I trying to get away from?

What is it in my current experience that I’m wanting to stop?

For many of us, we will experience transitions between jobs at some point during our professional careers. Once we open our minds to the possibility of leaving and start engaging in the search, the desire to leave becomes incredibly persuasive. It almost develops this weird urgency especially when your present state is unhappy, toxic, or stressful. We consider leaving and then suddenly are brains scream YES, this is the answer to all our prayers. This will solve everything. Let’s get out of here and NOOOOWWWWW!!

This drive to leave is your biology trying to keep you safe, running toward the closest exit. Your brain is not loving the current vibes and just wants it to stop — this sense of urgency happens because we don’t want to experience our current experience any longer. But when we act from an urgent panicked space we don’t often make the best decisions

Furthermore, we foreclose the opportunity to learn what’s available to us at that moment.

Whenever we are experiencing something negative that’s so intense we are driven to run away from it and rush into something new. When we do this without questioning the response, we ignore the pattern that we’re creating for ourselves. That negative experience is largely created by ourselves and our thinking. If we don’t utilize that opportunity to explore what’s really going on and work to clean up the panic, we overlook an opportunity to grow. You develop a pattern of running away from discomfort instead of facing it.

Anytime we feel rushed to make a decision or execute a plan it’s often because we’re running away from some type of negative emotion and feeling. Is that the kind of pattern you want to create for yourself? You will be challenged again; you will be uncomfortable again; wouldn’t it be better to develop skills to experience those emotions rather than run away from them? Whatever thinking you contributed to your current negative space will absolutely come with you into the next.

There is never better than here.

Because where you go, there YOU are.

Frantic acting and that desire to get out as quickly as possible assumes that once you get out, things will be better….that THERE will be better than HERE, that the grass will be greener on the other side. That is never the case. Your challenges will be waiting for you, no matter where you go because they are challenges you are meant to work through. Running away from them won’t change that.

While the fast order, quick-fix society that we find ourselves living in certainly has its perks, there are aspects of our life that will require the heavy lifting from us. While it’s certainly OK to reach for the quick fix at 11:00 PM on a Wednesday when you really want some sashimi, it’s not OK to run away from a challenging conversation into a new job with the expectation that you have “fixed” the problem.

Quick fixes in our emotional lives are never truly fixes, they are just delays.

To truly resolve anything in our personal lives, we have to dig into the ugly. We have to dig into the thinking that contributed to our present reality and try to understand it. Only then can we deconstruct the pattern and truly make “there” better than here but only because we have done the work to show up differently there.

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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!

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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.

It’s surprising how often I hear this during my sessions with attorneys. Logically, they know that long-term big law life is not for them. They know that they don’t want to be a slave to billable hours forever and they do not see anyone above them who has a lifestyle they want to emulate. They have all sorts of concrete, realistic reasons why they don’t want to stay where they are. But it is rare that I encounter a client who is “ready” to leave.

Why do they stay? The answers usually some of the following:

I don’t know enough yet

There is so much more I need to learn

People will judge me

What if it’s worse somewhere else?

Within that head space are the fears that if they leave, no one will hire them because they don’t “know enough” or that they won’t be able to get a job because they left “too early” in their career as well as the fear that everyone at the firm will judge them as someone who couldn’t hack it or wasn’t a good fit anyway. Lastly, the most important fear of them all–what if it’s a mistake to leave and it’s just worse elsewhere?!

So they stay. They stay and they hate it.

They stay and they are bitter and conflicted about it. They stay and they hate the fact that they don’t know where they want to be in five years.

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.

It is jarring! Understandably, so! You have just spent close to a decade learning and taking all the right steps and now those steps are exhausted and you haven’t given any thought to the next series of steps.

At this point, the majority of my clients have concluded that they don’t want to make partner but that is the extent of it. Should they go in-house, go to a smaller firm, start their own firm, leave law for good? The possibilities of what can be done with a law degree are endless.

The possibilities of what can be done with your life are also endless.

There is no right or wrong answer.

One of the biggest mistakes I see my clients making is that they wait for clarity to come to them. They continue to go through the motions hoping that some day the path will become clear. Maybe they will get a call from a headhunter with the perfect opportunity for them. Maybe they will get fired! Maybe they will wake up one day and LOVE their job. So they wait. They make good money, they don’t hate everything about their job, so they just stick it out. That type of passivity is why so many people stay in jobs they hate forever.

It’s easier to just wait for something to “feel right” than it is to take control and start making things happen.

The only way to truly get clarity about what you want in life is to start taking ownership for your path and experimenting with what you want. We can’t wait for the opportunities to come to us. We can’t wait for the firm or some partner to dictate our future. We have to take our power back.

First, we have to get clear about what we want for ourselves. What are your goals at your firm? What are the things that you still want to learn or think that you need to learn? There will always be more things to learn, that is simply the human experience. Stop allowing yourself to believe that there is some attainable point at which you will “know enough” and be ready to move on. It’s an empty, shifting target that is rooted in fear.

You will never know it all and no matter what you do next, there will be things you don’t know. 

So instead of allowing for this unattainable point of omniscience, set clear goals that are important to you. Recognize that we are overachievers and have a tendency to want to do all the things and cut your list of items down to three actionable goals. Don’t let yourself create a “learning” ball and chain that keeps you stuck forever. Pick three things that will force you to grow and provide you will valuable skills and focus your energies there.

If you can’t think of three concrete things you want to learn from your current work experience, you are in the wrong place. (Psst, it’s time for a change.)

Second, start taking action on these goals. What will you have to do to make them a reality? This step will likely require you to have some discussions with your partners or your supervisors about the type of work you like or the things you want to accomplish. This alone will force you to flex some new muscles.

Asking for what you want and being clear about your vision for yourself is a lifelong skill. Start practicing now.

No one knows who you will be or what you will want to do with your life once you attain those goals. That is the point. The point is to challenge yourself to grow and develop. Law firms are businesses and so are you. Use every experience as an opportunity to grow the value and worth of your business. The firm is certainly using you for its purposes, start using it for your own. Decide what you want to get out of the experience and make it happen.

The last part of this process is just recognizing that your primitive brain is going to try its best to keep you safe. We are biologically programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. So when we shake up our lives, start asking for what we want, or consider leaving the comfort of our current job, our brains lose it. Our brain goes into protection mode and starts offering all sorts of reasons why we can’t do that–you don’t know enough, you’re not ready, people will judge you, etc. Sound familiar?

Just because your brain offers you those thoughts, it doesn’t mean they are true. It doesn’t mean they are a message from the universe to stay where you are. It is biological pre-dispositioning.

As you evaluate where you want to be in life, KNOW that your brain is going to try and talk you out of it. Know that you are going to have doubts and fears. That is normal! The question is, are you going to allow that mind chatter to keep you stuck or are you going to do the hard thing and evolve? The choice is yours.

Unclear about your next move? Get some free support by signing up for a free coaching session. Sometimes all we need an unbiased perspective to see things more clearly.

Photo by Tonik on Unsplash

Starting a legal career is much like a mad dash toward a finish line. We spend years working and stretching and pushing to get there. But when we finally get there, we don’t stop. We just keep running. We don’t even realize we are doing it. We just keep going without asking: what’s next?

In order to truly own our power, we must, in every aspect of our lives, pause and allow ourselves to set our course — where are we going?

It’s jarring to wake up one day and realize that we don’t know what we want next. We have gotten so good at following the orders provided to us. We received a recipe for becoming an attorney and we executed. We have long forgotten how to sharpen our tools of agency. We have become disconnected from ourselves and our wants! We crossed that finish line and we just kept going without considering where we wanted to run to next.

It has been far too long since we stopped and asked–where to after this?

No one wants to run a race without knowing where they are going. We set a destination, plan a course, and run until we get there. When we go grocery shopping, we have a list based upon what we want to prepare. We don’t hop in our cars and just start driving aimlessly unless we are running away from something — are you running away from something by aimlessly allowing your career and life to run on autopilot without a destination?

Why is it that in the most important aspects of our lives, we fail to set a course? We don’t try to see the bigger picture. We are running without a destination.

There is only one rule:

When asking yourself what you want and where you are going, don’t allow yourself to be confused. There are no right answers in life. There is no secret path you need to discover to find your way to happiness. When we indulge in confusion, we implicitly believe there is a right or wrong answer. That confusion keeps us stuck until we can know with certainty what’s next. It keeps us running blindly–why stop running if we’re confused about where to go next?

The name of the game is growing, evolving and challenging yourself to become the best version of yourself. You are not going to evolve or challenge yourself when you are operating automatically.

Identify your why — why are you in that relationship? Why do you stay in that job? Where does your current experience fit into your overall plan?

Nothing has to be set in stone and you can change your answers any time you want. The point is that we need to give ourselves some direction. Why? Because to do otherwise is to allow other people, events, and circumstances to run your life.

Failure to identify where you want to go next places your life at the feet of those around you — your boss, your spouse, your kids, your partner. When we don’t set our own course, others WILL step in and fill that void for us.

Do you really want them to determine where you are going?

Your free will and ability to make your life anything you want it to be is the greatest gift you have been given; don’t squander it by floating in the breeze. You are better than that. You are in the driver’s seat.

Every day, reconnect with your whys and wants. Get clear on what you want from life so that you can set your sights on your true north. To do it any other way is to surrender all of your power.

When I work with new clients, the first thing we do is set that intention–what do they want? What is their dream? From there, we start taking massive action to making that dream reality. Work with me and start creating your life from a place of intention.

Photo by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash