Prior to the pandemic, most of my clients admit to feeling like chickens running around with their heads cut off half of the time going from soccer games to PTA meetings to client board meetings to practice group meetings to being screamed at on the phone by angry clients and partners….They were constantly running around juggling 10,000 different things but there was some semblance disconnection. By “disconnection” I mean the time and energy it took to actually get from one of these places to the next. Even though it felt like we were running around like mad women most of the time, there were periods of space between those emergencies — time wasted in the kitchenette talking up a colleague, hopping onto the elevator to grab a quick lunch or coffee, actually walking (or even driving!) from meeting to meeting. There was a transitional moment or moments (if we were lucky)…not that we appreciated them at the time.

What I’m seeing now with my clients is that the time it took to transition from one of those things to the next whether it was the five minutes you spent in the car or the five minutes you spent walking from meeting to meeting, there was breathing space available to us.

Little did we know how valuable that time actually was.

For many of us who have been working from home for the past 30+ months, we are finding that those transition periods have completely disappeared. There is no opportunity to clear our heads or return text messages walking from meeting to meeting. There are no 15-minute breaks to walk outside (READ: breathe fresh air) and go pick up something for lunch. No more chit chatting with your girlfriend at the coffee bar. Instead, we click from meeting to meeting without breaks and without a moment to catch our breaths.

In this remote work environment, we have conditioned ourselves to be 100% connected with our work and our clients 100% of the time.

Keeping office hours seems unusual given that our office is now our homes where we spend 100% of our time.

In a pre-pandemic world, many of my clients struggled to disconnect when they were home. They had that nagging itch to check their email every time they sat down with their partners to watch a movie. While they were waiting for the pasta to boil and cooking dinner, they would absentmindedly scroll through their emails to see what was happening. We did these things automatically and without thinking. But now it seems the desire to check in and remain connected has become even more extreme as expectations around our availability have changed.

How, in a world where our homes are now our offices, do we find space to breathe?

I recently had a client who was struggling with this very same thing and wanted to spend some time learning how to disconnect. She wanted to be able to step away from her computer for periods of time to have lunch, go for a walk, turn over the laundry, or simply take a break. She was craving those small pleasures that we all overlooked when life was in person. Who knew that the 20-minute commute into the office would now be seen as a luxurious moment of peace?!

In a digital world, boundaries have become essential.

The primary struggle as I see it is how to best communicate those boundaries when people are not actually seeing whether you are in your office or away. While we can implement certain strategies like setting clear office hours and communicating those to your team, over utilizing out-of-office messaging (no matter who it annoys!), and updating your status on digital messaging platforms, the real work to disconnect is internal. I can give my clients all sorts of tools to implement better boundaries at work and to seek some separation from their professional lives, but if they’re not doing their own inner work, none of the tools that I offer will work.

To illustrate this point, I asked my client to start conducting a simple experiment. First and foremost I asked her to set clear office hours that she would commit to honoring every day. When people called her outside of those office hours she wouldn’t answer — in the same way we didn’t answer our office phones after hours while driving the car pool. We also established a schedule for checking her email. We agreed upon using a timer on her phone to remind her every two hours to check her email. In between those time frames of checking her email, she was free to focus on research and actual projects on her plate. She was to close all email platforms during those two hours. Last, I asked her to start paying closer attention to how much this whole set up freaked her out. Specifically, I asked her to write down all of the nasty thoughts and worst case scenarios playing out in her head as we implemented this plan.

Someone is going to be mad at me. I’m going to miss something. Someone is looking for me. People are going to think I’m not available. I’m going to get reprimanded. If I remain unavailable I’m going to get fired.

While it’s certainly possible that some of those wild scenarios could have become reality, it was also equally possible that none of them would happen. Is it really unacceptable to be away from your email for two hours? We all go to the doctor. We all have continuing education requirements. When life was in person we would often attend 2-hour lunches or meetings. Why is it that our brains are OK with being absent for blocks of time in those scenarios but not OK with us doing it to actually do the job we are being paid for? Because we allow all of those nasty thoughts to carry such weight that it compels us to run to our emails every 30 seconds to confirm that the sky is not, in fact, falling.

If this sounds familiar. Do this. For your sanity and for the good of your long-term career.

The panic that this plan elicited in my client and the discomfort that she experienced as she stepped away from her email for short periods of time really brought to the forefront of her awareness what a critical problem this had become. How checking her email had almost become an obsessive addiction to confirm that she wasn’t messing up. To assuage her concerns that people were upset with her. Now that she had some space, she could see how toxic her relationship with connectedness had become. While she was making dinner she was thinking about her email. While she was talking to her husband, she was thinking about her email. While she was eating her lunch, she was worrying about her email. The anxiety was constant.

She saw those worries build and compound during her day as we conducted the experiment. It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t comfortable for her but at the end of it all, she saw that none of her worst case scenarios happened by stepping away from her email for two hour blocks at a time. She was more productive. She was more present. The experience allowed her to foster the belief: I can step away to focus and do my job and nothing life-altering will happen in a span of two hours.

In a world where everyone is so connected and the lines between our home and our professional lives have become so blurred, the need to set boundaries and start paying attention to our automatic impulses to constantly check our email and be available are critically important.

How are those impulses serving you?

If this is to become our new normal, we need to start re-employing the small daily treasures that can make life so much more enjoyable. Taking breaks. Disconnecting. Stepping away. And honoring a set work schedule. Your professional world will not come crumbling down if you are away for two hours. I would even posit to say that your professional world will not come crumbling down if you step away from your email for as long as three or even four hours. What would you gain have if you were able to eradicate the thinking that is gluing you to your phone and your email all day long? More peace? More happiness? I encourage you to conduct your own experiment to find your own answer.

Photo by İsra Nilgün Özkan

Early in our professional lives, we are driven to accomplish. We work hard to fill our resumes and hit all the markers that are going to get us where we need to go. Our focus and commitment to checking all the boxes propels us forward on our journey. But then we get there and we can’t turn it off. That drive to accomplish and check things off the list keeps us grinding and pushing even harder.

The problem is that we have new task masters and those masters will take as much as we are willing to give, even to our own detriment.

Constantly pushing and striving and achieving without hesitation is part of what got us all to where we are. For many of us, once we land there, we start to realize that the same grit that got us there is going to kill us if we don’t find another way. During those years of pushing, we are often fueled by beliefs like–

I’ve got to keep doing, I’ve got to keep accomplishing things, I need to focus and do what they tell me to do.

While historically, that tenacity yielded great results, we often get to a place where that approach no longer serves us. In fact, it often does the opposite.

I see so many women who carry that grit and tenacity into their first job and they find themselves pushing, striving, and going nonstop until they completely fall apart. They have finally reached a place in their lives where, they have to start reining in their own drive lest they run themselves off the road for good.

Your profession will take as much as you are willing to give. If we allow our grit and tenacity to answer that call, we will end up giving everything we have (and then some).

Sound familiar? You are not alone. Join the Lawyer Life Collective community and learn how to make the power shifts that will ensure you don’t burn out and walk away from your dream. It all starts with a free coaching consultation.

It’s during this phase of our professional lives, that we have to rein in our grit and find a better way. We must no longer be driven by the belief that we have to keep accomplishing and pushing so hard. We have to start rethinking what we are willing to give and reconsidering what we want to motivate us.

This realization can be incredibly jarring and painful.

Who am I if I’m not someone who’s constantly giving her all? If I’m not pushing for another accomplishment, what does that mean?

When we are used to focusing externally on the pursuit of the dream, we often disconnect from our true selves and the evolution of our desires. When we get to this place where grit must be replaced with something else, it’s an opportunity for us to spend some time evaluating who we really want to be during this chapter of our lives. That exploration is foreign to many of us and, for that reason, many of us ignore that call for deeper understanding and just keep pushing forward, running the same patterns. And we all know how that plays out.

When you realize that you are giving more than you want to and your historical pattern of pushing harder and harder no longer serves you, it is a calling to re-evaluate your motivations and reconsider how you want to show up during this next season of your life. This will likely require you to learn some new skills (e.g., time management, boundaries, flexing your “no” muscle).

Your life is evolving — are you evolving with it?

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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 operate from our prefrontal cortex (the grown-up part of our brain that’s good at planning, strategizing, and anticipating challenges) it’s easy for us to see where change needs to happen. It’s easy for us to identify areas of our life where a new boundary would be helpful. We can look at our To Do List and the tasks that we take on and easily come up with things that we could take off our plates. Logically, this all makes sense but executing is where the battleground begins.

Once we’ve started something we have a hard time backing out. Once we’ve developed a pattern of saying “yes” we struggle to develop a new pattern. Even if we know intellectually that a new pattern will benefit everyone in the long run.

When we know that we need more “no” in our life, the only way we are going to get there is if we can deconstruct the rationale that got us to the place of overloaded to begin with. The next time someone asks you to take on an additional project or to sit on an extra board or help them through a problem, whatever it may be, we must pause in those moments and ask ourselves what rationale is driving us to accept these requests. It likely sounds something like this:

I should help

It’s the right thing to do (meaning, if I say “no” I’m not being a good person)

I don’t want to disappoint anyone

If I don’t say “yes” there will be a negative consequence (I won’t get anymore clients, I will lose out on work, people won’t trust me, people won’t like me, etc.)

All of these thoughts are incredibly persuasive in the moment. All of these thoughts are also rooted in fear. We worry that if we don’t help, others will judge us. We worry that others will think we’re not a good person or we’re not a team player. We worry that something bad will happen if we don’t follow through on all of these requests.

Sound familiar? Setting boundaries and time management is a huge part of my work with my clients. If you want to change the way you respond to requests and manage your time, grab a free consult and let’s get to work. You deserve better!

Those fear-based thoughts spring from our fight or flight brain that wants us to continue our usual routine of saying “yes” and chasing the endorphins of people pleasing. When we consider saying “no” and deviating from this pattern, our survival brain goes on the defensive. It starts offering to us all the reasons why this new approach will be catastrophic for our lives and our reputations. Knowing this, we must look at all of those fear-based thoughts and challenge them (using our prefrontal cortex).

I should help.

What does that even mean?! How do you know when you should help?! Who decides? Would everyone agree with that?

When we tell ourselves that we “should” help we often get ourselves into scenarios where we’re overloaded and we do a poor job in the end. In fact, it would be more of a service to the person making the request if we actually didn’t help because it’s possible they would find someone with more capacity who could do a better job. In other words, when you find your brain telling you that you should help the exact opposite is typically true: you should not help. Back away! Let them find someone else who will be more engaged and more available for the task.

It’s the right thing to do.

Again, says who?! What does that even? Is it right to help people when you don’t really want to? Isn’t that just dishonesty in a prettier outfit? Besides, when it comes to the “right thing” to do, shouldn’t your wants, needs, and sanity be the primary driver of those decisions?!

I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

The only way we disappoint people is when we overcommit ourselves, overextend ourselves, and do not show up in the manner that the requestor knows we can provide. When we say “yes” even though we mean “no,” we set ourselves on a clear path to likely disappoint not only the requester but other people who have similar requests already sitting on our plates.

Similarly, when we tell ourselves something bad will happen if we don’t say “yes,” it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are likely to take on something that we don’t have capacity for and we do a bad job and create a negative consequence simply by doing a bad job and not being able to show up as our best selves. It’s a lose-lose scenario.

All of these thoughts are red flags that we are setting ourselves up to create the exact opposite result than what we’re wanting. More failure, disappointment, and chaos await us when we allow those thoughts to drive our actions.

Rather than allowing ourselves to be persuaded by these thoughts, we must remain rooted and grounded in our commitment to ourselves, our balance, and our happiness. We must reconnect with our prefrontal cortex that knows we already have enough on our plate, we’re already overextended, and some things just have to start coming off the list. Allow our prefrontal cortex to make those decisions ahead of time and go into the day knowing that any new request will be met with a simple “no”.

That is power.

That is having your own back.

That is putting yourself in a position to show up as your best self every time and ensuring that when people rely on you, you will have the time and energy to rise up and meet those expectations because you’re caring for yourself first.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

Saying, “No, ” is always an option available to us to make more time for ourselves. To make time for the things that actually matter to us. So that we can find some space and happiness. We know, logically, that if we want more time, more balance, and more peace, boundaries are part of the deal but we are reluctant to flex those muscles because we fear the consequences.

There is a difference between not knowing how to resolve a problem and being afraid to implement solutions you know exist.

When my clients consider the possibility of not responding to an email at 8:30pm on a Wednesday night, it doesn’t seem like a real option. Their brains tell them that those kinds of boundaries will get them fired, demoted, judged, and “into trouble.”

Possibly.

We set boundaries because we know what is good for us; that doesn’t mean others are going to like it.

But let’s explore that. My clients that are learning to set boundaries and say “no” continue to meet their hourly obligations to the extent those obligations are clear. They continue to do good work, often times even better work. They continue to be a team player. And with these changes their attitude and energy change dramatically as well. Is it reasonable to believe that a firm is going to fire someone performing in this manner simply because they are not willing to be a doormat, on call 24/7? It’s possible. But it’s also possible that the firm will swallow that pill even though they don’t like it.

If this resonates with you, grab a free session and commit today to start living differently.

Furthermore, when we tell ourselves that setting these boundaries, pushing back and saying “no” is going to cause us to get fired, I don’t believe that result differs from the alternative. I work with attorneys all day long, every day. Attorneys who are burnt out and unhappy. Attorneys who have implemented the rage quit or attorneys who are tap dancing on the edge of it. What I submit is this:

If we continue the path that we have historically been on, where we ignore our boundaries and forget how to say “no,” the ultimate result is that we leave. We leave burnt out, unhappy, and disillusioned, believing that practicing law is just not right for us. That path may take several years to trek but ultimately the lack of boundaries ends with a sad exit.

In contrast, we can choose a path where we speak our truth. We’re honest about our availability, we set clear boundaries and make time for what’s really important to us. If that path were to result in us being terminated, we must also ask:

Is that so much worse than the alternative?

How long do you think you could flex those “no” muscles, set boundaries, stand up for yourself, and make more time for what’s really important to you before the firm steps in and decides that they no longer want to employ you? Six months? A year? What would that time be like for you? To have more time, more balance, to have the ability to workout and spend time with your family instead of constantly feeling on the edge and on call. Wouldn’t that six months or one year of balance and peace serve you in a much better manner than those years of burnt out frustration?

The ending is the same most certainly but the person at the end of either of those journeys is absolutely not the same person. And the sacrifices each of them would make during those journeys could not be more different. The choice is yours. What do you have to lose?

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As the demands of the day press down upon us with such herculean force, it can be difficult to maintain composure and prevent the overwhelm meltdown.

Today, I found myself slipping into this old pattern and having to regroup and employ many of the tools that I teach to my clients. I had several large projects that I wanted to focus my energies on and I suddenly felt like there just wasn’t enough time to get everything done. Hopelessness was sinking in as I stared blankly at my calendar.

As I focused on how to get to work and execute on my daily goals, I found that my eyes kept drifting off to my email inboxes, tracking all the new things that kept pouring in. Because I maintain three separate email addresses–one for my legal practice, one for my coaching practice, and one for my personal and nonprofit work, a simple review of my emails to “just seeing what’s going on” can quickly spiral out of control and precious time is lost. Here I was, feeling overwhelmed with my daily priorities and now that overwhelm was like a rising tide of panic as I glanced at each new message coming in.

For every email, I felt the desire to jump on it and respond immediately. I wanted to answer the pleas for support, redirect my legal team working on important projects, check in with clients, and just GSD. In addition to those impulses, came other emails eliciting frustrated brain chatter. As I was frantically responding to some emails, other emails had me mentally berating my staff, complaining about my nonprofit boards, and angry that people just wouldn’t leave me alone. My overwhelm was now compounded with the downward spiral of victim mentality and frustration.

There isn’t enough time! I am going to let everyone down! I’m so irritated with everyone! Why can’t they figure this out on their own!? Bah!

All of this was making me feel pretty rotten and powerless. Despite all that, I was glued to my emails, trying to salvage some “feel goods” by tackling those low hanging fruits. I was avoiding the bigger picture and chasing the endorphin rush of helping in small ways in that moment, responding to “simple emails” and inquiries. Nevermind that that little foray was going to cost me even more later on as precious time ticked away.

In that moment, I realized that keeping up with my email today was not my number one priority — maintaining my email was not even in my top three today.  So, I set a timer and agreed to check my email in 2 hours. Then I closed the window browsers and got back to work. Not only would those emails still be there 2 hours from now when I finished my priorities, but I had already scheduled time to triage my inbox today, as I do everyday. Despite my prior planning, my email had become a persuasive distraction in those moments of overwhelm and pushed itself right to the front of the line.

It’s easy to dive into your email, get organized, address a million non-emergencies, and avoid the larger projects that will actually make an impact in your life.

It’s the difference between throwing a boulder or a handful of pebbles into the pond–how big of an impact are you wanting to make today?

We all have those moments where suddenly everything feels so chaotic and we feel hopeless and lost. It is in those moments that we have to stop, reconnect with our priorities, and step away from all the things we use to feel better amidst the overwhelm. We have to force our primitive brains to stop freaking out and believing that everything in our orbit is suddenly life or death. For me, in this case it meant shutting down my email and believing fully and wholeheartedly that nothing would happen in the next 2 hours that would destroy my career or my credibility. From that space I was able to redirect my energies and calm the chaos in my mind. And what do you know, I got those projects done and checked my emails and no one fired me, no one died, and the world kept spinning.

Part of the reason this redirection is so challenging for most of us is because of the things we tell ourselves when we pull away from our inbox. All those worries, judgments, comparisons, and worst-case scenarios. That is where coaching comes in because when you believe that you “need” to or “should” respond immediately or that other people are doing it better than you, you will never break this cycle. Challenging those closely held thoughts and beliefs is the first step to freedom and peace. Join us.

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First and foremost, let’s blame biology.

In brief, as humans, we are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This means that when our brains perceive danger, rightly or wrongly, our brain will begin crafting an escape route. This biological wiring is designed to keep us out of the mouths of hungry lions.

So where does this danger come in? For those of you living in the thick of your practice, you might be thinking that some of your partners and clients actually resemble hungry lions out to rip your throat out and that’s actually not too far off…. When we have something that we are avoiding, the REASON we are avoiding that project is because we have some underlying fear associated with the project. There is something about the project that is arousing your biological flight response. It might sound something like this

I’m not going to get this right and she is going to be so pissed at me.

I don’t know how to figure this out and he is probably going to fire me when I mess it up.

I cannot stand working for this client, they always leave out crucial facts.

I am so nervous, I cannot botch this project.

I hate working for this partner, I really don’t want to do this.

This is going to be miserable.

All of those thoughts will arouse some type of fear-based response. All of those thoughts trigger more negative thoughts and on and on it goes until we have built up this project to be cruel and unusual punishment that must be avoided at all costs. We are afraid of the consequences of not getting it right, pissing off the partner or the client, or we simply dread the perceived misery of the project.

In either case, we are being driven by some unacknowledged fear.

No problem, says the procrastination fairy, Starbucks has a new latte you need to try, and have you checked out your ex-boyfriend’s Facebook page lately? Then we indulge in our other biologically motivated response–seek pleasure! Gobble up endorphins wherever you can find them!

This routine will stretch on only until another, larger, and more critical fear enters the dance floor:

the deadline

Suddenly, the fear that we won’t get the project done in time looms larger in our minds and drowns out the earlier fears of failing the project. We start to imagine the SHOUTY CAPS emails raging over our missed deadline or failure to respond. Our mind is abuzz with a full-on parade of horribles showing us what will happen if we don’t stop shopping on Amazon and get. to. work.

Off we go, motivated by fear once again.

But this time, our earlier procrastination has likely set us up to fail in the exact same manner we were afraid of failing to begin with. We work frantically, our thoughts are scattered, and our work is filled with a chaotic sense of urgency. Ultimately, we end up beating the project to death with the procrastination stick until it is unrecognizable. We make mistakes that are completely out of character because we are rushed and panicked and now even MORE convinced that the partner is, in fact, going to seriously impede your survival at the firm. When we work from that mental space, motivated by fear, we do not do our best work. We miss things we would not normally miss and we overlook basic things that we KNOW. In sum, we fail ourselves and show up much less than our best.

This whole routine is tethered together by one small similarity: fear. We procrastinate because we are avoiding some negative emotion; we are afraid of something about the project. Then we procrastinate until a larger fear gets us moving. Ultimately, we end up creating our own self-fulling prophecy where we do the really terrible job that we feared we would do in the first place.

So what do we do?

We have to start getting honest with ourselves about why we are procrastinating to begin with. Once we get to the root of fear, we can ask whether we like that reasoning. Furthermore, we can acknowledge how this story will end if we choose to invest in that fear and go down the Facebook rabbit-hole instead. Combating procrastination only requires one thing from you: honesty. Honesty with yourself about your actions and your justifications. From there, all you have to do is ask yourself whether you like your reasons for acting or not acting and make a new, informed, honest choice about your next steps. Those are the choices that will determine the type of person you become — one who procrastinates or one who doesn’t. The choice is ultimately yours and all that matters is whether you are comfortable with your reasoning.

“Following-through is the only thing that separates dreamers from people that accomplish great things.”

Gene Hayden

Start taking actions towards your goals and stop letting fear derail your progress. Sign up for a free session and stop procrastinating today.

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I hear that comment every week from many of my clients. As women, we have so many hats that we wear — wife, partner, mother, sister, daughter, friend, boss, advisor, career-woman. We inevitably have a ton of things on our plate, it’s no surprise that we are periodically overwhelmed with life and all that is demands of us.

One of the reasons so many of my clients struggle with time management is because of the expectations they put upon themselves. In order to become a lawyer and snag that great position at that amazing firm, we bust our asses. We have grit and tenacity and that is what gets us to this place.

That grit and tenacity is also what sets us up for this battle with time. 

We know we can do hard things. We know we can put our noses to the grindstone and make it happen so we never stop trying to achieve more. As you know, I am a huge advocate for goals, in general, but my question to all overachievers is this: What is your why? Why are you doing all those things? What will it get you?

What are you looking for?

For many of us, we have spent the majority of our lives chasing the dream of becoming a lawyer. When we get there, the excitement that comes with achievement doesn’t last very long and we end up right back where we started — looking for some other mountain to climb.

The rationale for this pursuit, is typically that my clients are looking for something to make them feel fulfilled. They want to find something that will bring purpose and meaning to their lives. They want to feel like they have succeeded.

That. Never. Works. Many of my clients spend years pursuing accomplishment after accomplishment only to feel empty all over again once each new accomplishment high wears off. The truth is that those things outside of ourselves will never give us the purpose and happiness we seek. We have exclusive authority over our sense of purpose and happiness. Piling on goals and tasks and achievements will not only fail to give you that sense of pride you are seeking, it will bog you down and overwhelm your life. It will prevent you from being able to see and appreciate everything you have accomplished because you will always be distracted by the things you failed to do–the cleaning that you didn’t get done, that email to your new client that you wanted to get out, that phone call to your friend for her birthday. You will always be clouded by self-judgement because you have set yourself up for failure.

Part of this is driven by imposter syndrome. We haven’t internalized our worthiness so we seek outward validation that we belong. We don’t believe we are good enough to be here so we try to manufacture feedback confirming that we DO belong, that we are good enough. Implicitly, we care more about what others think about us than what we think about ourselves. We put the wants and needs of others (and thus their opinions of us) before our wants and needs for ourselves. Self care goes out the window and over-achieving pushes down the throttle. It’s no wonder that so many of my clients are overwhelmed with their self-created pressures.

At the end of a busy day, my clients are frustrated by all the things they DIDN’T get done. They spend zero time considering all of the things they DID get done and all of the ways the day was a huge success. Instead of committing to drink more water every day and get their billable hours in on time, they commit to reading a new book every week, working out four times a week, walking the dogs every day, cooking dinner three nights a week, and calling their mom every Thursday. We pile so much on that it would be impossible for any human to keep up. We set ourselves up for the complaint — I never have enough time.

You will never “have enough time” when the expectations you are putting on yourself are unreasonable.

Read that again.

It is not about not having enough time. It is about what you are choosing to pile on your plate and why!

Whenever you find yourself thinking that you don’t have enough time, I challenge you to take a hard look at all the things you have put on your list and ask yourself “why” for each and every one. Why do you think you need to cook a fresh meal every night of the week, why do you need a read the newspaper every day, why are you committing to a book club? Underneath all of our to-do list tasks are often a series of shoulds as well as a desire to feel accomplished and have others see you that way as well.

Are those good enough reasons for you to run this hard?

You are amazing, just as you are, without anything more. But unless and until you believe that, you will also be pursuing an unattainable form of happiness. You will never “have enough time.” It all comes down to our relationship with ourselves. If you aren’t investing in that relationships first, everything else you are doing in this life is just noise.

Stop this madness and start reconnecting with your intrinsic value. Sign up for a free session and let’s see if we can get to the root of this mania and find you more time for real happiness.

Their time and their practice is completely out of their hands. There’s a general feeling of helplessness and overwhelm. As if every moment, every lull in workflow is just another calm before the storm where there is too much work and no room to breathe.

We want to believe that we don’t have any control. We want to believe that work overload just happens to us and we have no role to play in it.

But that is only true if you decide to make it true.

In every moment of every day we have control over ourselves and the choices that we make. We decide how to handle every task that comes to us. We choose whether to do the work or not do the work. Rationally, we all know this to be true. But when we are stuck in the midst of the chaos and struggling to keep afloat, how do we silence the chaos and harness our own agency?

When we are swimming in overwhelming thoughts about our workload, it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. Given this, my recommendation is very simple:

Get brutally honest.

Write down everything that you are telling yourself you “have” to do. Make a long list of all the things that are overwhelming you. Next to each project write the deadline BUT only include true, factual deadlines. When a partner emails you and says “We really need to get this out today,” that is not a real deadline. That is a preference; a request; a hope. For purposes of this exercise, we note that project’s deadline as “TBD.”

Get all the facts.

For all of those projects whose deadlines are TBD, we develop a communication strategy with the goal being additional fact-finding. We need to determine whether this is a  real deadline or not and whether there is flexibility in how we prioritize this item.

This may require you to contact the partner or the client and express to them where this request falls with respect to your other factual deadlines. Let them know that you want to do a good job and give the project the attention it requires but, given your other deadlines, you are concerned you won’t be able to give it the attention it deserves.

Be honest and focused on the goal: you want to find a way to good work for everyone and you don’t want to give any project short-shrift unless there is absolutely no alternative.

Eliminate and prioritize.

Whenever we start to think “there’s too much work to do,” our brain simply piles on. That email you have been sitting on for a week is suddenly an emergency to your brain; it MUST be dealt with today!

We have to stop this avalanche of “to dos” right in its tracks. If, after completing your list in Step 1 and assigning fact-based deadlines in Step 2, you have a project that is still TBD or unclear, that project gets moved to a NEW list: the Wouldn’t It Be Nice list.

We all have those little nagging projects that we just put off and put off and once things get heated we suddenly make that project a massive, career-making or -breaking priority. Stop doing that. Do not let the overwhelm create an avalanche of tasks. Know what projects are not priorities in this moment and move on. You don’t have to do it all today. You can prioritize real deadlines today and prioritize your Wouldn’t It Be Nice list on another day.

Recognize your limits.

Do not allow yourself to believe that there is no way to get help or support. I often hear my clients tell me “there’s no one who is able to help….everyone else is super busy too…my paralegal isn’t any help…my secretary can’t do that.” Those statements only keep you stuck. They make you the victim to your to do list. Do not believe that any of those statements are true unless and until you have asked for and allowed in support.

You do not and should not have to do it all on your own. (Rinse and repeat.)

You will be a better lawyer and a better team mate if you learn to recognize your limits and ask for help when you need it. If you want to believe that there is no help available to you, I challenge you to investigate the truth of that statement. Maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not but my guess is that you aren’t even open to the possibility of asking to see if there is any truth to that belief.

If you want to believe there is no help available for you, prove it to yourself first. You owe it to your sanity.

An ounce of prevention….

Even before the workload heats up, there are things that you can do to take control over your practice. In order to do that you have to decide what you want your practice to look like–are there certain clients you don’t want to work with? Are there partners you want to avoid? Is there an area of law you want to focus on? Is there an area of law you want to move away from?

If you don’t know where you want to go, you allow yourself to be at the mercy of others and where they want your practice to go.

Early on in my practice, I had a partner who told me that she wanted me to work only on her projects, within her specialty. She didn’t want me to expand my work into other areas of the group; she wanted me to become an expert in her specialty and her clients. Not only did I not want to work exclusively for this partner for a variety of personal and professional reasons, I did not like her type of clients. I wanted to have a broad understanding of our practice area as a whole because I knew that someday I would leave that firm and I didn’t not want to set myself up for a hiring handicap by limiting my experience. I organized a meeting with the other partners in the group and the practice group chair and I told them what I wanted for my career–a well-rounded practice with full exposure to all of our clients and sub-specialties. And that is what I got. Had it not been for that moment, I would never have had the skillset I needed to move on and found my own practice group serving all areas of specialty.

Make a decision about where you want your practice to go and commit to it for at least a year. You can always change your mind later. Do not allow room for thoughts that this will limit you in the future. This is not only intended to allow you to focus your efforts but is also intended to insulate you from project overload.

When you identify where you want your practice to go and you voice that desire to your partners, you have established an order of priority for your work. You permit those partners that you WANT to work with to see you as their “go to.” It will be understood that they get first priority over your time and it sends a message to others to keep their “busy work” projects for other associates.

Rather than waiting in fear that you will get buried in work that you don’t want to do, seek out a stream of work that you WANT to do and continually work to keep that plate full. When your plate is full for a particular partner or client, you can better anticipate the ebbs and flows and practice defensively–keeping your plate full of work you WANT in order to avoid others filling it with work you DON’T want.

In the middle of work overload? Take advantage of a free session, and let’s get your head right.

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There are many ways people make decisions in every moment. What I find interesting is that so many of us are willing to hand over those decisions to others. Rather than making a conscious decision, we (subconsciously decide to) answer to whomever or whatever is immediately before us.

Part of being a skilled attorney is the ability to answer to many masters and juggle various projects all at once. But what I often see is that when those masters ratchet up the heat and those juggling balls become flaming wands, all decision-making goes out the door. Instead, in that instance, we hand over our agency, put our heads down, and just keep taking the blows.

In those moments, it may feel like you don’t have a choice. That this is just part of the job. But the truth is that you are making a choice in that moment–to answer the phone, to say yes to that new project, to respond to that email. You are choosing to allow whatever is in front of you to slide into the front of your priority line.

The nature of having various projects on your desk at any given time is that you are going to have to make decisions about which projects to handle first and where new projects fall with respect to your already strained attention. When we allow our project list and the demands of those around us to overwhelm us, we wear out our resolve. We simply run out of clear-thinking. At that point, we just keep drinking from the fire hose until it calms down.

What I offer is a different choice: put in the legwork ahead of time to minimize the decisions to be made in any given moment.

We make decisions ahead of time so that there is no decision to be made in the heat of the moment or, if there is a decision to be made, it is simplified. This means planning in advance from our prefrontal cortex (i.e., fully functioning, good decision-making adult-y brain) instead of allowing our primitive brain (i.e., a tantrum-y, capricious, toddler brain) to make any decisions whatsoever. With my weight loss clients, this means planning meals in advance. For my other clients, this means setting priorities and scheduling each of our to-do list items on our calendars.

We know that work is going to get crazy and we make decisions ahead of time what gets our attention that day; we don’t invite the toddler to the dumpster fire.

When we go into each month, each week, and each day, knowing our priorities, we can get to work the minute we sit down.

There is no need to agonize over the to-do list or make ANY decisions about what you are going to work on or when you are going to check your email. We’ve already decided what is important and everything else has gotten it’s own place on our calendar. There is no decision-fatigue because the most important decision of the day has been made: where we are going to focus our energy.

Having avoided that decision-fatigue you will have the energy to re-evaluate any new project or fire that comes your way. For each item presented to you for your attention, you can decide:

How does this compare to my priority for the day? Is it consistent with my priority? Why or why not? Does this new project require heightened priority?

Those are the only decisions to be made. We don’t have to step into the pool of overwhelm about all the other projects on our list; we don’t even have to look at the whole list. The only metric for comparison in that moment is your priority for the day.

If the new project conflicts with your priority and there is no justification for reshuffling priorities, then you either don’t take the new project or you decide if you have other open time on your calendar for that project. When our priorities are clear and when our non-priorities are scheduled out on our calendars, we know exactly how much availability we have and we know exactly whether we will be able to fit in anything new.

This approach does not allow room for: When am I going to get this all done?! I can’t say no to this project. I’m never going to have enough time!

If you find your days regularly hi-jacked by surprise projects and feel overwhelmed by your to-do list, I encourage you to implement mechanisms to start minimizing the decisions you make in every moment. That will require you to get clear on your project list–What is a priority? What are the real deadlines? What can wait? Do I have to say yes to this?

Set priorities in anticipation of the chaos that comes with practicing law.

You will get pulled in various directions.

You will be challenged to “do it all.”

Don’t hand over your power.

Don’t offer your day to the mercy of others. Make decisions about your time and your priorities and evaluate everything else from there. Make decisions ahead of time so that you are better equipped to make decisions in the moment.

Need support getting your daily practice in order? I offer free coaching consults every week to get you back on track–sign up now before they are gone.

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