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 felt very fortunate that throughout the entire pandemic my gym remained open. For many weeks, they only admitted 10 individuals and I happily sat on the curb outside waiting for my opportunity to get in and enjoy the limited 30 minute workout in the nearly empty gym. Over time, they adjusted to a limited capacity and eventually full capacity. About a year ago, I started working one-on-one with a personal trainer at my gym. Over several months, we started to set clearer and more challenging goals and increase the time we spent working together. With his help, I was able to check off my first round of goals: 225# squats and unassisted pullups. Having achieved that goal, we moved on to bigger and more challenging goals and started meeting three times each week for one hour with assignments to workout independently two additional days. Admittedly, the sessions are grueling and my body has been sore in new, unexpected ways and I’m starting to appreciate the “pains” of getting older (but that’s another story for another time).

When the virus finally reached our home, it was the first time during the pandemic that I legitimately quarantined and never left the house. This meant no personal training whatsoever. I found myself thoroughly enjoying my wide open calendar given that personal training was occupying more than 5 hours each week. Now that training was no longer an option, I was blissfully enjoying the added time in my calendar. I was able to stay up late without worrying about the next early morning workout, I was no longer concerned with my protein and carb intake, and my body was no longer sore everyday. It was heavenly and my primitive brain was loving it.

Eventually, our quarantine ended and it was time for me to get back to work. I found myself resisting reaching out to my trainer to get our session scheduled again. I didn’t want to do it. I enjoyed the free time that I had. I enjoyed not being sore. I enjoyed having wide open mornings where I could do my yoga and meditation unrushed. I just didn’t want to do it anymore! I knew that we had goals and things that I wanted to achieve but I was really enjoying this nice cozy space I was finding myself in and I just didn’t want to change that. I told myself I just didn’t care anymore.

My primitive brain had taken over–it wanted to bask in the pleasure and avoid the pain that came with pushing toward my goals. That’s when I realized, it wasn’t about wanting to go to the gym or not. The question was whether or not I was still committed to my goal.

Did I still want it?

If the answer to that question was yes, then reconnecting with my trainer was the next right step and what I wanted to do was irrelevant. If I was truly committed to the goal, it meant being willing to do things I didn’t want to do. It meant going to the gym even when I didn’t want to because I had committed the goal.

Want had no place in the conversation. It was simply–are you committed or not? And what’s the first test of commitment?

Being willing to do things you don’t want to because they are in furtherance of your goal.

In the end, that is truly what distinguishes those of us that achieve our goals from those that don’t. It’s not about having more time than anyone else, it’s not about having a drive that others don’t have. It’s simply about your willingness to show up even when you don’t want to.

It’s about your commitment to the goal and how you react when your desire to stay in place challenges that commitment.

The reason people don’t achieve their dreams and fulfill all of their goals is simply a matter of commitment. How committed are you to the goal? Committed enough to do it because you said you would even when you don’t want to?

If this resonates with you and you are struggling to take action on your goals, you are not alone. All of us struggle sometimes to take the actions that we know are necessary. Schedule a free consult with me and let’s get you back on track to create the life of your dreams.

I reached out to my trainer and got our sessions back on the calendar. It felt good to show up for myself even when I know that I didn’t want to and even though I was dreading it. It felt good to follow through and to challenge that part of my brain that wanted to stay safe and cozy. I gave my primitive brain the finger and I will continue to move toward my goals and honor the commitment I made to myself.

Today when you find yourself saying I just don’t want to….I just don’t feel like it consider what it would be like to say So freaking what? That doesn’t matter. I’m going to do it anyway.

Photo by Markus Winkler

Look, See, Tell the Truth, Take Authentic Action

LOOK & SEE

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day demands of life. Our jobs, our families, our sanity peace of mind, our obligations, all scream for attention as we rush around putting out fires all the live long day. We get into a routine. We get used to the chaos. We know what must be done to keep everything moving forward.

But when was the last time you took at hard look at all those activities? Do you have a clear grasp of where all of your time goes everyday and what is drawing upon your energy?

When we operate on auto-pilot, we forego any opportunity for honest self-examination. Absent that, transformation is an impossibility. It is only when we take a hard look at our lives that we are able to ask–is this what I’m really wanting? What’s really going on here?

TELL THE TRUTH

This is where having an unbiased third party like a coach can be invaluable. It’s easy to tell yourself:

I just don’t have enough time, I can never lose weight, I just need to make more money, I just need to find a new job.

Those thoughts are incredibly persuasive. They ask nothing of us and they allow us to make others the villain–we are simply the victim to happenstance and bad luck. Making others the problem is easy because it asks nothing of us; we just have to continue being the victim.

Instead, when we commit to telling the truth, it means we have to start exploring possibilities beyond our powerless thinking. It requires us to seek out the facts. If you don’t have enough time, consider tracking your time for a week and trying to get a better understanding of where it’s all going. The same can be said for your spending and eating habits — What are you eating every day? Where are you spending your money?

Are we living consciously and aware of all the choices we make in every day or are we operating blinding and placing the blame outside of ourselves?

If we don’t have a clear handle on the facts underlying all the drama, it’s nearly impossible to craft workable, authentic, and lasting solutions.

In this part of the process, we take back our power. We recognize where we are losing time during the day, where we are indulging in that second glass of wine because we’ve had a long day, or where we are buying random garbage on impulse because we are trying to soothe some other unhappiness. This is the part where we own our truth and take control over our lives; where we stop letting ourselves be a victim to circumstances outside of ourselves.

TAKE AUTHENTIC ACTION

Then we decide. With all the newfound knowledge this exploration has given us, what do we want to do differently? The answer may be, “nothing.” But that nothing will be a clear and conscious choice. That answer will come from a place of power and ownership.

On the other hand, the answer might be, “I don’t want to keep spending money this way….losing time on social media…moving from job to job…eating all the things when I’m unhappy.” With those realizations, we can start taking authentic action and experimenting with solutions. That is power.

When we believe we have no control over our woes, the only solution that fixes those woes is one where all the triggers change. The boss stops being a jerk, your salary increases, your metabolism suddenly changes, etc.

When everything else is the problem, the only solution is for everything else to CHANGE.

(And we all know how unlikely that is to happen.)

When we look, see, tell the truth, and take authentic action, we take back our power and start making changes within our own realm of influence.

Today, when you catch yourself wanting to indulge in inaction from a place of powerlessness, consider what it would be like to take back your power: to look, see, tell the truth, and take authentic action.

It’s your life after all, you might as well pretend you’re in control.

When we find ourselves wanting things to be different, there is only one way to bust out of that plateau and build a life that will blow our own mind: intentional investment of our time, energy, and resources. Because wanting it, is never enough.

I recently invested in a personal trainer for the first time in my life. I’ve always been really fit and active but I finally got to a point where my health and fitness seemed to plateau. My weight wasn’t changing, my body wasn’t looking any differently, I wasn’t excited about working out; I realized that it was time for me to mix it up. I went to the gym anxious about the meeting and not committed to purchasing anything. As someone who’s always been into health and fitness, I figured that they could just give me some pointers and I can figure out the rest from there.

As we made our way through the session, I had a rude awakening. The workout was grueling and painful (and moderately humiliating!!!). At the end of the session, I realized that maybe I didn’t have it all figured out. Maybe it would make sense to bring in some support. So we sat down in the cubicle in the middle of the gym floor and started crunching the numbers. And I was completely floored! It was significantly more expensive than I had expected, and it was significantly more money than I had intended to spend on that particular afternoon. At that moment, I realized I was experiencing the same thing that many of my clients experience:

I wanted to change but I was hesitant to commit to doing the hard work.

My reptile brain was freaking out, objecting to this new possibility….when will I find the time…it’s too expensive…I can do it on my own…I don’t need this….it won’t work…, etc. As my brain spun out of control, I realized in that moment what was happening. I realized that it wasn’t really about the money, it was about my level of commitment to making an actual change…to signing up to do the hard thing…to spending a ton of money on myself in furtherance of a goal. To spending a ton of money knowing that I would HAVE TO show up to justify the expense! I didn’t actually believe that it wouldn’t work. I had clear evidence I wasn’t figuring it out on my own and I knew that I could find the time. None of my brain’s thoughts were the truth.

The REAL truth was that I wanted the transformation but committing to the work was freaking me out.

At that moment, I gave my reptile brain the middle finger and signed up. It was something I wanted and this was the first step to making good on that commitment to myself.

After I left the session several dollars lighter than I began, I realized that this is the challenge that many of my clients go through. No one gets excited about spending tons of money on personal training. People don’t get excited about spending thousands of dollars in therapy sessions. And many of the people I encounter are not excited about spending money on a coaching relationship. Why?

Because we’ve gotten along on our own for so long.

What more could these people possibly offer?

It’s not sexy. It’s not fun. It’s not a new purse that we can show off to our friends. It’s something that will require more of us. It requires us to put our money where our mouth is. To do something more than WANT THE CHANGE. Do we want it badly enough to submit to a process that will demand more of us and that will push us to take a hard look at where we really are? After I left my training session, I realized that just maybe I wasn’t in as good of shape as I thought I was.

Just maybe I had some things that I needed to learn. And just maybe I need a little bit of humility about what I was capable of and how badly I really wanted things to change.

When we choose to make an investment in ourselves or not make an investment in ourselves, it is never really about the money or the time. It’s really about our humility and our willingness to recognize that we can’t do it all alone; that we aren’t getting there on our own.

I like to think about our investment in our professional lives and careers, in the same way, I think about buying a house. In both scenarios, we spend THOUSANDS of dollars on the investment. Both investments will provide for us and our families, will protect us, and give us stability. But the main difference is that when we buy a home, no one ever believes “that will be the last money I spend on that!” We know there will be upkeep and maintenance costs. We will make improvements and changes. When it comes to our homes, it seems we are always spending money to care for them and improve them.

But when it comes to our careers, we are much more reluctant to spend our own money on upkeep and maintenance. It is no wonder that for so many of us, our careers are run down and abandoned houses, left to wear away on their original foundations. Just like a run-down, decrepit house, treating your investment in that manner will never provide any return!

If you want your career and your life to blossom, you have to care for your original investment.

Professional athletes are the best in the world at what they do and they all have coaches. They acknowledge that there is room for growth, there is value in the different perspectives that those coaches offer. In order to create the life of your dreams, you must be open to the possibility that you aren’t seeing everything clearly. That just like me and my personal trainer, maybe you have more room to grow if only you had someone to push you.

I’m here and ready to push you out of your plateau. Are you in?

At that time in my life, I was roughly 29 years old. I had been practicing for about four(ish) years. I had a solid foundation and I knew enough to be dangerous but to start a whole practice group–pure silliness. What kind of maniacs would take that risk on me?! Despite it all, I sold them on the idea and I gratefully leapt from the arms of one task-master to another.

As I settled in and started to take an inventory of everything that went along with “running” a practice, I realized that I was going to need some support. I already felt myself bristling at the tired mentalities and structures that I disliked at my last firm and I could tell that many of the challenges I had run away from at my last firm would be waiting for me in this new place. So I hired a coach–a female attorney who had successfully built her own firm. I wanted someone who got it. I wanted someone who understood the subtext, the struggles, and the environment without my having to explain it.

(If you are interested in that kind of support, grab a free session now.)

In working with her, I was able to see and deconstruct many of the patterns that were following me into my new firm. I was able to shift into a different mentality — a space of confidence and unwavering belief that I COULD do it. That I did have what it takes. We worked through the imposter syndrome that many of us carry with us especially those of us that didn’t come from professional, college-educated homes.

Working with my coach, I was able to build a practice that was bursting at the seams within one year. Within one year, I had so much work and garnered the confidence and trust of so many large and demanding companies that I was drowning in billable hours. We hired two partners from opposing firms to come and join me…partners that were 20 and 30 years my senior and had been practicing for many years to great success without the oversight and wisdom offered by this 30-something little girl. So naturally, with that change, came all sorts of new challenges.

During that time, I was traveling all over the country selling our services to clients. Every day, my calendar was jammed with breakfasts, lunches, and happy hours where I was selling and schmoozing without end. I was asked to teach at a business school and then to also teach at a law school and I was constantly presenting at one conference or another.

My practice was thriving and I had done what I set out to do. I loved every minute of it.

The last time I related this story to a client, she asked me whether I thought my success was attributable to skills I had developed or whether I just had “it.” “Do you really think that is something I can do? I just don’t think I’m the type,” she explained.

This, people, is why I do this. There is nothing magical about my success.

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure.”

Nicholas Sparks

The only reason people aren’t going out and creating the life of their dreams is that they believe they can’t do it. Because they, like this client, allow themselves to consider that there is some innate “it” and you either have it or you don’t.

Let’s level set here. I am an introvert and I do not love to speak publicly. Prior to joining that firm, I hadn’t spoken publicly since COLLEGE. At my prior firm, I wrote the speeches, I prepped the slides but I was the silent partner — speaking was never permitted for associates. I was good at my job but I was not (and am not) any kind of a legal prodigy. Aside from leading bar crawls during my sorority days, I had never “led” anyone other than a secretary and a paralegal. I had no idea how to set budgets or project income, how to “sell” legal services, how to talk to partners who weren’t pulling their weight, and the idea of presenting my business plan to a Boardroom full of men made me sick to my stomach.

If there was some special “it” that made this stuff easy, I didn’t receive that gift.

I created my success because I INVESTED in myself. I put in the work. I allowed my coach to push me to do things that made me very uncomfortable. I got really good at uncomfortable conversations, I got really practiced at humility, and I learned how to “sell” myself authentically. Does it come easily now? No. It still doesn’t. But I have done it so many times despite the discomfort, I understand now that’s just part of the process for me.

I came to understand that in order to create a different career for myself, I had to do things differently. I had to take time to actually work on myself and that meant I had to get comfortable spending my hard-earned money on the fluffy stuff. I had to invest my money differently. I needed to acknowledge that, in order to create a different future, I was going to have to completely revamp my approach to practicing and that meant getting a coach on my team.

She pushed me to do things I didn’t want to do; things I WOULDN’T have done but for my respect and commitment to her. She helped me to see things about myself that were holding me back and she helped me to find my voice in a world where many of us just put our heads down and “accept” the legal profession with all its warts.

I wanted to share this with you today because I want to dispel this notion that we can’t all have the lives of our dreams. There is no magical “it.” You have what it takes and we have to stop considering that we aren’t enough. Instead, I implore you to consider —

What if you are wrong — what if you have EXACTLY what it takes?

When we are faced with a choice that could have lasting repercussions, how do we know when to take the leap and when to stay put?

While I am not a soothsayer and I do not pretend to have any answers for anyone’s life other than my own, what I can offer is what I have seen so many women grapple with as they sort out big decisions. When new opportunities come to our door, they often bring the same party favors with them: self-doubt, fear, and guilt are common accompaniments.

We worry that we won’t have what it takes, what will happen if it doesn’t work out. We feel guilty for contemplating decisions that might upset those around us.

When all of those fuzzy feelings come to the door, it can be very difficult to think clearly and decide whether to act. In those instances, I work with my clients to start getting very clear on what it will cost them to act or not to act. In any choice that we make, there will be pros and cons. There will be consequences of many varieties, even when the opportunity seems too good to be true. In those instances, we have to consider what we gain by acting.

What could we gain if we try and end up failing?

What could we gain if we end up succeeding?

What does it cost you to NOT act?

The answers to these questions are something we all must answer for ourselves but these questions force us to look beyond the negative feelings that accompany change.

Fear, self-doubt, and guilt are all parts of the bargain when we choose to make changes — those feelings do not mean you are doing it wrong.

But we must set those feelings aside and focus on weighing the costs. For instance, when we know with certainty that staying in our current job or relationship will stifle our development and we can see what taking a risk will force us to grow and develop in new ways, we then have the assets we need to push through those negative feelings and take the leap.

When we have clarity about what is at stake with every new decision, that clarity will light the path when things get murky (because they will). That clarity will allow you to keep moving.

So when all those wonderful feelings meet you at the door of opportunity — self-doubt, fear, and guilt — invite them to sit down at the table because they will most certainly be coming along for the ride.

That is simply the price of evolving.

We have to ignore those feelings in the short term so that we can truly focus on and weigh the options ahead of us and make an intentional rather than an emotional decision.

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

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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Don’t get me wrong, I love my daily stretching routine that I lovingly think of as yoga-lite. I love connecting with my body and taking that inward time before I sit in my daily meditation. Whenever I muster up the fortitude to dive into a yoga class, I feel so good afterwards and sometimes I even enjoy it – the WHOLE time. I know it’s good for me and I know I always feel better once it’s done. So what’s the problem you ask?

I simply don’t want to do the hard things. I am in love with the IDEA of being a flexible, lithe yogi but, put simply:

I don’t want to do the work.

I don’t want to hold uncomfortable poses for long periods of time. I don’t want to go to a yoga class. I don’t want to put my leg there or twist in such a way. There is something about it that I really detest. And yes, I know deep down that I should see this as a signpost that yoga is hiding something delicious for me. Somewhere within its depths is an awakening, a realization of some sort that I must find. But, here I am. Not a yogi. Barely a yogi-lite. Annoyed at the thought of it all.

I am in love with the dream but not willing to act on it.

I don’t want to do the hard work. I am rebelling against the discomfort. That’s it. There is no magic here.

I share this story because we all do this! We are so good at identifying all of the things that we want that we don’t have. We have laundry lists of skills and accomplishments that we want to attain or achieve. Most of us rarely chip away at those things because when it comes down to it, we don’t want to do the hard work. We just want to wake up one day and realize that the accomplishment was simply waiting to be unearthed all this time, it was always ours for the taking. All we had to do was wake up, go to that yoga class and suddenly the heavens would open up and rain down our dream.

We want the dream but we want it to come easily. We don’t really want to do all the work that necessarily precedes it.

This is why we don’t achieve our dreams. There is no secret here. We just don’t want to do the work.

Once we see all the work that comes with the achievement, we continue to *want* the thing but we stop taking any action to get there. Instead we resign ourselves to dreams of longing. I wish I could climb a 14-er…I wish I could play the piano…I wish I was really good at yoga. We are more than happy to lament our lacking. Rather than figuring out how to do the hard thing, we resign ourselves to being the victim of our circumstances, as if others were simply blessed with these gifts that we don’t have. For them, it was easy but for us, we just can’t do it. We live our lives with a laundry list of things that we want or wish that we had. If only we had more time…more money…more innate ability….

The truth is while we want these things, it is not our misfortune that we don’t have them: it is our unwillingness to do the damn thing.

I’m not saying that if you decide to climb Mt. Everest and wholeheartedly commit to doing all the work that comes with that endeavor, you will inevitably be successful. What I am saying, instead is this:

Wouldn’t it be so much more gratifying to say: I trained for a year to climb Mt. Everest but eventually opted for a summit where people die less frequently.

Or

I’ve always wanted to climb a mountain so I’ve recently started training for it. 

Those statements are so much more FUN and illustrative about our lives than to say I would love to climb Mt. Everest some day.

Why carry dreams around with you that you aren’t willing to put in the work to accomplish?

The next time you catch yourself expressing a wish/hope/desire for some unattained goal, stop yourself. If you aren’t willing to put in all the hard work that comes with that particular goal, is it really true that you want it? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to state:

Climbing Mt. Everest sounds amazing but I am just not interested in going through all that training and the risks!

Even THAT sounds more authentic than all that wishing and hoping and lamenting!

Why is this important? When we offer empty wishes and dreams to the universe without any commitment behind them, we slip into victim mentality. It’s as if we are wishing that we could be so lucky to accomplish such a thing. If only we had been so similarly gifted. Implying: we weren’t blessed with luck or gifts. We just don’t have what it takes. It is an energy of lack. An energy of dissatisfaction with one’s life and place. Is that really the energy you want for your dreams?

Dream from a place of abundance. A place where your words are more a forecast for your future than a condemnation of your present. Where your dreams are at your fingertips and not some vague hope.

The first thing I do with all of my clients is cast the dream: what is it that you want from life? From there we start planning and taking actions to bring that dream closer and closer. Interested in getting some clarity for your future? Ready to dive into some righteous discomfort? Sign up for a free session before they are all gone!

We all want to be more confident and when we think about our ideal selves, that woman lives in a bubble of quiet confidence. She is never afraid to speak her mind and she trusts her ability to do anything. So, if our work together is to help you move one step closer to that ideal version of yourself, the next question invariably is:

How do I get there?

How do we build self-confidence?

We have to practice failing.

Stay with me here….as attorneys and women who excel at examining options and weighing risks, many of us struggle with action. We thrive when we are planning and analyzing. We excel at PREPARING to act. The problem is that we don’t have any clear metric as to when our preparations are complete and it’s time to act.

How will you know when you have fully vetted all the alternatives? How will you know when it’s time to act?

The truth is we don’t. We never do. And that is why it’s so easy to remain stuck–stuck planning to act but never actually doing anything.

All action must acquiesce to the truth that there is no such thing as being fully prepared.

There is no way to ensure success. We must simply act. Only through acting will we ever know if our preparations were in vain. Only through acting will we see whether we overlooked anything. But many of us get stuck in the faulty belief that we aren’t “ready yet.” We tell ourselves we have more work to do, more data elements to analyze. So we just keep preparing. And. We. Never. Move. Forward.

My rationale for drawing out that point is simple:

If we want to build self-confidence we have to start acting and stop preparing.

We have to start acting even when we might not be 110% ready. Why? Because only through acting do we force ourselves to experience the pressures that create self-confidence. When we are stuck in inaction, we never get the chance to really see how we perform under fire. We are so busy believing that we must do it “right” that we don’t allow ourselves the chance to simply TRY.

Passive action robs us of the opportunity to develop confidence through action.

When we act and fail, we might experience embarrassment, shame, or guilt. But when we commit to continued action despite those failures and the crappy feelings, that is where we build self-confidence. Self-confidence doesn’t mean we never fail. Self-confidence means that we know we can fail and get back up and keep going.

Self-confidence means that we trust that we can experience any emotion and keep moving.

We trust in our ability to handle whatever fallout may come our way. Self-confidence acknowledges that we have a goal and we are going to start taking action to get there, no matter how many times we have to face-plant on the way. Self-confidence means that we aren’t going to sit and wait and plot and plan until we can do it perfectly–because we trust in our ability to have compassion for ourselves and keep moving even when it doesn’t go perfectly.

When we know that failure simply means one of our theories didn’t pan out we can keep moving. It doesn’t mean we did anything wrong. That is self-confidence. We trust ourselves, despite the failure.

You aren’t going to grow self-confidence in your analytical lab.

You aren’t going to create self-confidence strategizing and planning. You will only create self-confidence when you put a time limit on the passive action and get out and start taking massive action. Stop with the planning and start practicing at failure. Once you master that, you will have all the self-confidence you could ever imagine.

Self-confidence is one of the most highly sought after skills my clients want. I have so many ways I support my clients to get out there and get moving. The transformation I see in them is why I do this work. If self-confidence is something you want, let’s get you some free coaching and see what we can do together.

Cheers!

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The truth underneath that notion is that when we allow ourselves to delay action until it can be done perfectly, we are really just trying to protect ourselves from failure.

But what I often see happening is that perfectionism morphs into complete inaction; permission to remain in place. I’m not ready to move forward yet so I’m just going to stay where I am.

It is not logical to believe that we can plan everything to such an extent that we can eliminate all risk of failure.

You are going to have to risk failure if you are ever going to act.

Those that work with me regularly know that I believe perfectionism is for scared people and I’m not the only one who objects to perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionism is a just a prettier word for self-protection.

While I agree that we must all act in a manner that protects ourselves in the highest sense, that self-protective impulse is not relevant when it comes to commonplace activities — applying for a new job, reaching out for support, finishing a large project, sending an email. So many of us apply that self-preservation impulse to those every day tasks and the net result is that we don’t apply for the job, we never reach out for support, and we agonize over the tiniest details of projects and simple emails. Our work takes longer and our emotional fortitude wanes.

When we allow ourselves to linger in preparation mode rather than simply acting, not only do we prolong our current state (assuming we will EVENTUALLY act, which is not always the case, some of us prepare indefinitely) but we rob ourselves of the opportunity to create self-confidence.

Self-confidence is not something we are born with; it is something we create for ourselves.

How do we build it? We take action and fail and develop the ability to move forward despite the failure. When we know we can survive failure, heartache, embarrassment, shame, humiliation and all the other fantastic emotions that accompany failure, we learn to trust ourselves. We realize that we can weather any storm, overcome all those negative emotions. In that experience we develop confidence in ourselves because we know we can do and survive anything that comes our way.

Naturally, that means that in order to become more confident, we must fail. We must take action and set ourselves up to experience failure. If we don’t ever experience failure and adversity, how can we learn to trust in our ability to do and survive anything?

If we play it safe forever, allowing ourselves to linger in preparation so that when we do act, we can act perfectly (as if that ever really works) we prevent ourselves from simply acting and taking the chance that we might fail.

At the same time, we rob ourselves of the possibility that we might act and do it perfectly the first time. It just might work out! All those details you wants to distress over and sift through might never even matter. But you won’t know until you take the risk.

When we linger in preparation we imply that it is possible to know exactly what is needed for success and what is necessary to prevent failure. That is ridiculous.  If that were true, our lives would be very different. The truth is that we never know what will work or won’t work until we start acting and learning all the things that didn’t work.

When my clients explain to me why they aren’t taking action on things or why they are taking so long to complete their work, I challenge them to experiment with the concept of B- work. What if you allowed yourself to present B- work where it was warranted? What if you allowed yourself to recognize that sometimes done is actually better than perfect? What if you accepted that all the minutia, all those nagging second-guessing thoughts might not actually be important to the overall project? What if a client wants a B- answer and doesn’t want to pay for a A+ dissertation-worthy response?

What is the worst that could happen if you just committed to acting and stopped second-guessing?

Embarrassment…shame,…guilt…?

Those are all just vibrations in your body, caused by your thoughts. YOU and how you talk to yourself when things don’t go as planned, THAT is what causes those emotions.

The beauty of it all is that you control those thoughts and you can decide what you want to make it mean when your commitment to action is met with failure. 

It doesn’t have to mean that you are a failure or that you aren’t cut out for your job. It could simply mean that you learned how to not do something; you can add that learning to your arsenal, practice experiencing the feelings of embarrassment of guilt and just keep moving.

Without acceptance of failure, you will never create meaningful success. The price for success is repetitious failure. The process of repetitious failure creates self-confidence. What do you have to lose?

Are you wanting to take action but can’t figure out how to get moving? One session can make all the difference. Sign up for free session and get started creating the life you really want.

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