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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When you get that phone call late at night, you are choosing to value it more than your time at home with your family.  You are choosing to place greater value on not being yelled at than getting a full night sleep.

You are always making choices where to spend your energy.

Your job is not robbing you of the balance you seek. You are opening the doors and burning down all your guard towers. Why then are we so surprised when they keep doing it? You set the precedent by communicating where these types of interactions fall on your list of priorities: right at the top, above all else.

The only person you need to be mad at for constantly pushing your boundaries is you. Other people will not naturally violate our boundaries — they are taught what is acceptable. WE teach them what is acceptable by our actions. When they continually do so, it is only because they have become the monsters WE CREATED.

We’ve all seen those attorneys who just don’t give a F about not responding immediately to calls and emails. Everyone knows it, everyone gossips and gripes about it, and everyone is secretly jealous that they don’t have the guts to do the same. Not only do those attorneys still have a job but they also have all the balance we’ve been craving. People learned not to call them after 6 and deduced that they won’t respond to late night emails unless it’s truly an emergency.

They made a choice about what they valued more — not being gossiped about or having work life balance. For them, having more balance is worth so much more than being gossiped about for not be “responsive” all the time.

They made conscious decisions about their values and where the demands of the job fell with respect to those values. They clearly communicated their values and they stuck to their guns.

It can be as simple as that.

You do not have to respond to every email just because you saw it and just because someone else decided it was an emergency.  Develop the art of cultivating your mail and only responding after hours to true emergencies (here’s a hint: they never are, we’re not ER doctors) or when you REALLY want to.

Humans are creatures of habit. If we allow others to call on us at all hours of the night, they will continue to do so if it yields the result they want. And they will stop if it doesn’t get the result they want.

You are not a victim to others.

You are only a victim to your own choices and luckily for all of us, we can start making better choices. Choices more in tune with our values.

Sick of the constant barrage of emails and phone calls 24/7? Get support figuring out how to chart a new course at work by signing up for a free session.

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You cannot simply “thought swap” your way to happiness.

However, when you know and understand that all the results you are creating in your life are anchored in your thoughts, you start to see the utility in viewing aspects of your life from a different perspective.

For instance, I had a free consult with a midlevel associate attorney who was stuck in anger. She explained to me that she had been discriminated against at her firm–her male cohorts were being paid more than her despite equivalent hours billed.

Unfortunately, this experience is not all uncommon in the corporate law firm environment. Recent studies have revealed that women at law firms earn less than their male counterparts even when they work longer hours and have more experience.

None of us want to be part of that statistic and I can certainly relate to the inclination to cast aspersions upon any perceived pay discrepancy.

As part of my work with this particular client, we first examined the facts of the situation. What did she know to be true about the situation?

Separating the facts from your opinions and perceptions is always the first required step whenever you are spinning in some negative emotion. Know what parts of your story are self-created drama and what parts of factual.

Force yourself to look at the facts and separate out the drama.

If you are going to take authentic action, you must have a clear picture of the facts. You cannot succeed in any action when you are operating from your own drama.

The Facts: A male associate told my client he was paid $10,000 more than her and that he billed 300 hours less than her.

The Drama: I am being discriminated against. This is unfair. I will never be treated fairly. I don’t trust the management. No one has my back. He doesn’t deserve to make more than me. There’s no point in working hard if I won’t get fairly compensated for it. I don’t want to do this anymore.

The sheer amount of drama outweighed the facts by a landslide. There wasn’t much that had actually happened. There seemed to be a lot of holes in the facts. Lots of opportunities for exploration.

Before we give any weight to the drama, we have to decide whether the facts WARRANT the dramatics.

Do you have the full story? Have you done your diligence? Are you settling for victimhood?

Once we examined the facts of the situation, we examined the thoughts behind all that anger.

Typically, when I have a client present with hot boiling rage and indignation, what I find is that the anger is a cover for some underlying hurt. It’s simply easier to be angry at someone else than it is to feel sad or disappointed; to own those negative emotions and examine the associated thoughts. When you are angry, it is directed at someone else or something else. Something outside of you made you a victim and you are just defending yourself.

There is no self-exploration to be done in anger. Anger is easy. It feels worthy.

For this particular client, it was easier to be angry at the firm for mistreating her than explore how painful it was for her to be treated unfairly. To come all this way and work so hard for her law degree only to find that she would be mistreated by her employer because of her gender. She was shocked and saddened by this possibility and it de-valued her perception of the legal industry. She had glossed over these hurt feelings and jumped right into anger.

When we ignore our negative emotions and bury them under anger, we ignore what is really going on. We deny ourselves our own truth. Without experiencing those negative emotions and those associated thoughts, we can never shift away from anger to something more productive.

We will never shift the landscape of corporate law firms from a place of anger. To make lasting change, we must find a better way to approach our experiences. This does not mean making them prettier.

What it requires of us is to see each perceived slight as an opportunity to bridge the gap. To have honest and courageous conversations. To speak our truth. You can only access that clarity and takes those actions if you remove the anger, allow the hurt and disappointment, and start developing a different strategy.

As women in corporate law firms, there will be experiences that you are not going to want to “feel good” about.

There will be events and circumstances that will challenge you and wake you up to some ugly realities. Don’t reach for anger right away; allow yourself to be hurt and disappointed. Take a good look at these events and find a way to use them as a stepping stone on this journey. To create lasting change.

Need support? Sign up for one of my free consultations–I offer three each week. Sign up before they are gone!

Don’t allow anger to run the course of your career. No lasting social change ever came on the back of anger. We have to find another way.

Whenever we experience a negative emotion we can take comfort in knowing that it is simply a part of life. That negative emotion allows us to fully experience the positive emotion and vice versa.

If we were happy all the time, we wouldn’t have the reference point to identify the emotion of happiness. To experience happiness,  you must also have an understanding of sadness.

On it’s face this is not a wild proposition.

But whenever we have a “bad day”, whenever we are feeling less than, this notion goes out the window.

In those moments, most humans look for something outside of themselves to feel better.

Ever reached for a glass of wine (or two) after a “really long day” to “take the edge off” or “wind down”? Ever plow through that whole package of Oreos because you were feeling lonely on a Friday night?

Those actions are intended to bury that negative emotion. It is our attempt to buffer the negative feelings of loneliness or disappointment. We may even be consciously thinking, “A glass of wine will make me feel better,” or “having a piece of cake will cheer me up.”

The problem with buffering is twofold:

once that cake is gone, the feeling will still be there.

Furthermore, this pattern will create only more negative emotion when your clothes fit a bit more snugly or the mirror reminds you that you aren’t happy with your body.

Buffering only leads to more negative emotion. Naturally, we attempt to buffer that emotion and on and on the cycle goes.

We are not taught as children to take ownership of our feelings. We are not taught to experience negative emotions as a part of life.

As children, we are often asked “Did so-and-so hurt your feelings?” “Let’s make you feel better. How about some ice cream…or a new toy?”

It’s completely acceptable in our society to believe that other people “cause” our feelings and that when we feel badly, we need to “fix it” (typically with external things).

It’s no wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this country and offices filled with people who drink too much, shop too much, or indulge in other unhealthy ways.

I support my clients to develop habits of acknowledging and fully allowing negative emotions. Had a “bad day” at the office? How about owning it and recognizing that you feel disappointed and frustrated and just experiencing those emotions?

When your life offers you the “bad” part of the 50/50, just take it and experience it.

Rather than drinking too much wine or eating too much cake and paying for that tomorrow or later on the scale, we work to recognize the yin and yang and life and allow ourselves to experience the darker side of life.

Negative feelings are like your childhood boogey man.

In the dark they seem so threatening and we are paralyzed with fear. We just want them to go away! But when we flip on the light switch we can see that it was just a coat rack and there is nothing to be afraid of.

Similarly, when we run and hide from negative emotions through buffering, they will always seem scary, like something we should avoid and cover up. When we can shine the light on our negative emotions and allow them to pass through us, they quickly fade.

By continuing to allow yourself to experience negative emotions, you no longer have to buffer. The fear of those emotions diminishes.

Imagine what you could do with your life if you were never afraid to experience fear, loneliness, sadness, inadequately, or guilt? How freeing that must be.

Are you buffering negative emotions with food, alcohol, shopping, etc.?

How would your life be different if you were able to eliminate over-drinking, over-eating or over-shopping?

What negative emotion are you covering up? Let’s find out. You might be surprised.