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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Disclaimer: I do not share details of my coaching sessions without explicit consent from my clients and any personal information has been altered to protect their lovely identities.

In this particular session, my friend Claire explained how she is working on a new side-gig she is really passionate about. Her excitement for the project was evident and she explains that if she could, she would spend every waking hour on this endeavor. The problem? Claire is a full-time WFH attorney. Every day, Claire balances her passion project with the demands of her job. In addition, Claire is in the process of moving and has all the lovely tasks that come with that experience. She also has a boyfriend and a 3-year-old child. As I asked Claire to rate different aspects of her life on a scale of 1 to 10 it became clear to me that her dissatisfaction in various areas of her life all came back to one glaring issue: she believed didn’t have enough time and she believed the only solution was to quit her FT job.

She explained that any time she was frustrated at work or wishing that she was spending time on her passion project instead of sitting in conference calls and CLEs (can I get an amen?), her mind immediately responded:

You should just quit. This is too much. You don’t have enough time to do it all.

In the moment, those kinds of black and white thoughts are incredibly persuasive. They elicit such strong visceral reactions from us and strong feelings of hopelessness that it’s difficult to believe that they are not legitimate. However, surprisingly, sometimes those thoughts are simply just thoughts and there is no factual basis behind them.

Before we started exploring options for leaving her full-time position, I wanted to get clear on the facts.  I asked Claire to help me understand how she was spending her time. As we walked through a typical week, we got really clear on how much time she was spending on her side project, her grown-up job, acting as a mother and a partner, and moving.

At the end, it became clear to both of us that Claire was, in fact, getting it all done rather seamlessly. In addition, she rated her physical, emotional, and relationship health at 8, 9 and 10, respectively. Other areas of her life that she rated poorly, she reasoned was because she didn’t have enough time for them (e.g. she wanted more time with friends and more time for her passion project). However, as we explored her day-to-day activities, we realized that on most nights she wraps up by 6:00 PM, she gets to the gym three times a week, spends time with her boyfriend and her daughter every evening and over lunch breaks, and she was getting plenty of sleep.

So what was really the problem?

The problem was that she truly believed that she did not have enough time and she blamed that on her current job. As we worked through the session, we started to see that maybe those thoughts didn’t have a lot of factual support. Rather, we realized that by allowing her brain to demonize her job and marinate in thoughts of time scarcity, she was making herself miserable. In fact, at the end of our session she observed: I’m getting it all done I just don’t like the way that it feels.

Of course not! It feels terrible to believe that you don’t have enough time and you have to quit your job in order to make it all work. That is a frightening and stressful conclusion to carry around all day long. Rather, when Claire sat with the realization that she is getting it all done and is doing a good job, she was able to move out of the frustration cloud and start making different decisions about her days.

When you stop dragging hopelessness around with you all day long, you have a lot more energy to do all the other things you *think* you don’t have enough time for.

Claire realized that she was not going to be able to spend every day, all day working on her passion project while maintaining another full-time job but she also realized that she didn’t really want that. She didn’t want to quit her full time job and the faulty belief that she *needed* to in order to “have enough time” was freaking her out. Rather than living in her truth (I am a FT attorney with a side gig), she was choosing to live in a black and white world where her full-time job was the source of all of her woes: she had to do the passion project or the job but not both. Suddenly, she realized that if she snapped out of the funk and stopped ragging on her job every day, she just might find the emotional space to improve the other areas of her life that she felt were lacking.

How often have we chosen to believe that we can’t get it all done, that we’re failing, and that we just don’t have enough time?

How many times in your life have you taken the time to honestly explore the validity of those thoughts?

While there may certainly be times in our lives when priorities conflict and choices must be made, so many of us rush to believe we don’t have time, we can’t make it work, something has to give. That kind of either or thinking is terrifying and we often accept it automatically and without question. As Claire discovered, that kind of patterning not only makes you feel miserable but it can detract from the reality that you are in fact handling it all like a boss.

So what’s the answer to this time quagmire? Brutal honesty. Brutal honesty about where your time goes, what you want, and what you are capable of.

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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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For example, I love lifting weights. I try to go to the gym as often as I can, which generally is not as often as I would like. I love lifting until my muscles are jello-y and my legs shake. I love going home and soaking in Epsom salts and knowing that tomorrow is going to be rough. I love walking around like I got hit by a bus after leg day and I love when it hurts to laugh because I killed my abs the day before. I love it for the trade off — the endorphins during the workout and the physical changes I see over time. Absent those days of soreness, I wouldn’t have any of those benefits.

I recently had a client tell me how much she loves the majority of her work. She loves the people she works with and she loves the challenge. But there was a portion of her work that she didn’t like. Specifically, she didn’t like the people she had to work with during the other parts of her day. She came to me wanting me to support her to understand if it was time for her to move on.

(If you find yourself in a similar situation, be sure to sign up for a free consult today and get support tailored just for you.)

As you may have discovered by now, I’m not a big advocate for doing anything until you have squeezed all the juice out of your current experience. In my opinion, moving on implies that you have learned the lessons available to you in that moment of your life and, having done that, you are off in search of a new experience.

None of us want to run scared from job to job but usually we are doing just that. Rather than facing that horrible boss and flexing your skills of honesty and vulnerability, we throw in the towel and move on to the next thing.  We run from that negative experience and those feelings of embarrassment, frustration, anger, and disappointment. We don’t want to experience those emotions and we don’t want to rise up to those challenges, so we jump ship. We run away from them. Time and time again I have seen women do just that only to find that challenge show up in a different form in their next experience.

It is going to be hard.

As with lifting weights, you have to take the bad with the good. There will be pains that accompany your successes. It is going to be challenging and there are going to be days/projects/humans that you don’t like. And that is okay. That is not a reason to leave.

When we know we are signing up for a struggle, at least part of the time, the only thing we have to evaluate is whether our current position provides us the types of challenges that we WANT in our lives. The goal is not to get to a job without any challenges (spoiler: it doesn’t exist), the goal is to sign up for a life with the types of challenges you want. The types of challenges you are committed to tackling. If your current battles aren’t ones you see as worthy, then maybe it is time for a new challenge. But don’t leave because a challenge exists, leave because it’s not the kind of challenge you WANT in your life.

For instance, I know that in order to be fit and healthy and sane, I need to work out several times a week. I know it’s not always going to be fun and I know I’m not always going to look forward to it. Instead, I choose the types of challenges I’m willing to endure–dance classes, interval training, sprints, step aerobics YES. Kickboxing or Pilates, not for me.

I accept that it will be dreadful at times but it will be MY kind of dreadful.

For my client, the most important question I asked her was “what if nothing is wrong here? What if it’s okay that you don’t love every aspect of your job? Then what?” When we stop seeing the 50/50 as a problem that needs to be fixed, we can focus on accepting those aspects of our reality and stop fighting them. Only when we stop fighting reality can we allow the dust to settle and take real stock of our lives and authentically decide “what next?” The answer to that question will be very different once you accept the *bad* parts of your job and stop focusing all your energies on things/people/aspects that are beyond your control to change.

Living with and handling problems is part of what it means for life to be 50/50.

It’s part of what it means to be human.

The choice, then, is to decide what types of problems you are willing to deal with in your career. If a mansplaining boss isn’t the type of challenge you are invested in working through then, by all means, move along, knowing there will be other similar challenges wherever you go. There is no unicorn job out there waiting for you.

So, having accepted the 50/50, how do you know when it’s okay to accept the 50% that sucks or when it’s time to move on: you simply decide. You simply decide based upon reasons that are honest and authentic to you and you like your reasoning. That’s it. If you don’t want to fight the battle to make things better at your current job, just acknowledge it. Own it and know that lesson will be waiting for you in another rendition later on.

Accepting that the perfect job does not exist is only part of the battle. The other part requires us to consider the types of challenges we DO want in life. Once you make that decision–once you CHOOSE your mansplaining boss–it becomes so much easier to just roll with the 50/50 because it’s YOUR kind of 50/50.

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

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

I don’t know enough yet

There is so much more I need to learn

People will judge me

What if it’s worse somewhere else?

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

So they stay. They stay and they hate it.

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

When you make the decision to head to law school the long pursuit lays itself out before you. So many steps become very clear. You take the LSAT, research law schools, prepare applications, go through the motions of law school, apply to write for journals, do on campus interviewing, get a good summer associate position, and on and on it goes. Then you land the job and 2 years into it, you come up for air and wonder what you are supposed to do next.

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

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

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

There is no right or wrong answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Put your big girl panties on and figure it out (a first year associate trying to ask questions to the assigning partner).

You are just sour you didn’t get appointed to the Board (regarding being underpaid in comparison to male counterparts).

Sometimes people say the wrong things to the wrong people (from a managing partner a female attorney who just raised a sexual harassment complaint).

If you were [a male partner] I would fire you for this (after questioning why a male co-worker was getting paid nearly twice what she was making).

The practice of law is challenging and, for better or worse, the practice of law usually requires interactions with some very *challenging* humans.

Part of my work is helping women get to a place of self-examination–thinking on purpose and recognizing how those thoughts impact the results we create in our life. That work typically requires a hard conversation with one’s self about whether a thought is serving you.

I hate my body becomes I’m learning to love my body.

My boss is a jerk becomes I have a boss.

I hate working at this firm becomes I have a job at a firm.

Those subtle shifts have tremendous impact how we feel, how we show up, and ultimately on our reality.

But what about circumstances that you don’t want to feel good about?

What about that day you are sitting in that office having the most difficult conversation of your life, challenging leadership for an explanation why your male counterpart gets paid so much more than you and instead of listening to you, he threatens to fire you for raising the issue?

That, dear readers, is not a situation any of us would want to feel good about.

When we encounter these types of challenges, we don’t want to shift to a better thought. In truth, sometimes these experiences feel more like an out of body experience. We slip out of our bodies to watch these dumpster fires from a distance.

After these experiences, we don’t want to have flowery thoughts about it. We want to be angry. We want to feel indignant. We want to truly own the experience of being treated unfairly. To being ignored and belittled. Treated like a child.

Where do you go from there?

For any experience in our life, we have the power to decide:

How do I want to feel about this? What do I want to think about this?

We have choices to make.

What would my future self tell me to do? How would she tell me to show up?

While we truly believe that we have been belittled and treated unfairly, it is not productive to set up camp with those thoughts. It didn’t matter whether it’s true. Those thoughts created a spiral of unproductive anger, bitterness, and resentment.

Those feelings drive off on indignant rants and whining, complaining, and passive aggression. Those thoughts truly drive us to act like a bratty child throwing a tantrum.

You must challenge your angry thoughts and examine the impact each one has one you — how you feel, how you act from that space and the result that it gets you. Find one that sparks progress instead of combustion.

You have to find a thought that propels you to that vision you want for yourself.

In these situations, my clients want to show up strong and confident. They want to be truthful and unbiased and not cover up the experience.

They don’t want to spew hatred about their firms or their leadership; they want to shine the light. They want to be cool, calm, collected and HONEST.

A mantra we often discuss in our sessions is: This is my truth and this is what happened to me and I am not going to hide or sugarcoat it for anyone.

For most of us, those thoughts create confident, honesty, and strength. It makes us feel like a champion for women. When I have applied that mantra to some of my less than rosy experiences of my career, that thought made me feel a little bitter and indignant but not in a way that made me want to burn it all down. In a way that wanted me to open up about it.

Most of us ultimately walk way from toxic work environments. We do not transform them. We do not change their mindset. The firms rarely see any err in their ways.

So many of us have experiences like those above and we take it. We put our heads down and keep trucking. If we stop to ask ourselves – how do I want to feel about this? How do I want to show up in this moment? In 10 years, how will I wish I had shown up?

It’s easier to take the lumps as they come and just keep going.

It’s part of the job.

It’s just the way it is.

I will never change them.

Those thoughts keep us stuck in a world where things like this keep happening. Those thoughts are safe. They allow you to avoid the difficult conversation.

What would it be like if we all chose to speak our truth and be honest about our experiences? No matter what the cost. Would we be farther along than we are?

Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.

Marian Wright Edelman

If you are angry with what you are seeing in your work environment, how about some FREE support? Reserve a free mini-session before they are all gone!

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As attorneys, we can become so paranoid about making a mistake that we put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves. Our minds are filled with nonstop nasty chatter:

Don’t make another mistake

You have to get this right

This has to be perfect this time

You can’t miss anything this time

They all think you are an idiot

Maybe you shouldn’t have become a lawyer

You don’t have what it takes

Not only are you frustrated over the last mistake but now all that noise makes it even more difficult to focus and do a good job.

As a partner, I always knew when an associate was spinning in this fear. They were taking longer to do everything. They were agonizing over the smallest details. The result of all their mental berating was that they usually ended up missing the big picture and billing a ton of time in the process. What’s more, those associates rarely reached out for help before they got too deep. It was incredibility frustrating.

When you spin in self-doubt, self-judgment and pressure to do everything perfectly, you are demonstrating to those around you that you have some doubts about your ability to do it right. When you allow one mistake to send you into a tailspin, it makes it difficult for those around you to have confidence that you believe in your abilities; that you can handle feedback or that you can operate under pressure.

What’s more, that self-doubt spiral convinces you that you can’t reach out and ask questions for fear that it will affirm to others that you DON’T know what you are doing. You end up going down rabbit holes and over-analyzing the wrong details. Ultimately, everyone’s time is wasted and the project drags on.

How’s that working out for your work relationships or your confidence?

It is a never-ending death spiral of self-fulfilling prophecies.

What’s so interesting to me is that below the surface of all these thoughts and pressure is the belief that this path was easier for everyone else. That others didn’t struggle as much as you are.

Why are you choosing to believe that your struggles are special?

Why are you allowing your growth and development to be a sign that you are broken?

Consider the possibility that those around you similarly struggled. You don’t know that they didn’t yet you are CHOOSING to believe that is the case.

At this point in your career, I think we can ALL agree that law school doesn’t teach you how to be a lawyer. Your legal education was no different than anyone else’s. All attorneys wander the morass and confusion fog for YEARS before it clicks. You are not special in this regard!

The root of all those self-doubts and mistake spirals is the ultimate fear of failure. Below each overworked project and overly analyzed email is the fear of what it means when you make a mistake. And further, what it means if you keep making mistakes:

You can’t hack it.

You weren’t meant to be an attorney.

You made a mistake.

You shouldn’t be here.

That sneaky little worry is bubbling below the surface of all of those self conscious acts. You are afraid that those mistakes, when taken in total, are an indication that you can’t do this. From there, you build up these crazy expectations of perfection and try to think clearly and rationally from a place of frenzied panic and tremendous pressure.

It’s no wonder you keep making mistakes! How the hell are you supposed to do a good job when all you are thinking about is how you aren’t doing a good job? It’s madness!

Perfectionism is for scared people.

Repeat that phrase. Live it. Breathe it. Believe it.

When you try to mold yourself into some perfect “out-of-the-box” ready to perform, legal wizard you are setting yourself up for failure.

Law school does not prepare you to practice law. Welcome to the first phase of your life where there are no clear guidelines, metrics are fuzzy, and you have to just start trusting that you are doing it right.

Stop beating yourself up for signing up for the “on site” education that is the practice of law. That is how it works. Allow yourself to experience the process of learning on the job just like every associate attorney on the planet.

One small mistake does not mean that you are not cut out to be a lawyer. Do not let that mistake stoke the fires of fear and propel you into a frenzy.

You are a human. You will mess up.

Welcome to the party.

You want to do a good job and you want to improve and that is commendable. But first, you must do a good job for yourself. Honor the process of on-the-job development. Recognize that you don’t know it all and THAT IS OKAY. No one does.

Second, ditch your ridiculous expectations for yourself and get to work learning how to trust yourself and your judgment despite some bumps in the road.

Besides, what’s the alternative?

Where is all this worrying and fear getting you? What does it hurt to loosen up a bit and just keep rolling with the punches and using each mistake as a learning opportunity? An opportunity to honor yourself, have your own back, and learn.

The only thing you are learning when you continually run the cycle of negative self-talk is how to treat yourself terribly.

There isn’t room for much more and there certainly isn’t room left for growth. Recognize where your current patterns are leading you and decide if that is what you want. The choice is yours.

I help my clients get more confidence, roll with the punches, and have some compassion for themselves. Sound like something your practice is missing? Get some free support now and see what we can do together.

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Then it’s Sunday morning and the dread sets in. It’s like Monday is a looming gauntlet, like a watery grave for a stubborn cat–don’t you dare make me get in there, GDI!

Many of my clients lose the majority of their Sundays to that Monday morning dread. “Sunday mourning.”

They spin in negative thoughts and mental sparring matches with their co-workers and clients. They imagine the worst case scenarios–

I swear to god if Associate Suck-Up stops into my office to brag about how he billed 20 hours this weekend, I am going to explode.

When Monday does come around, they are mentally exhausted and wound tightly, just waiting for an opportunity to prove their fears true and blow up on some unassuming victim.

Practicing law is no walk in the park, admittedly, but this Sunday torture is not helping the situation.

Is it useful to imagine the worst case scenario?

Is it helpful to anticipate a dumpster fire?

How is that benefiting you?

What impact is that having on your happiness, never mind your weekend?

What it’s like to sacrifice half of every weekend to your own mental torture?

It is nearly impossible to rationally examine any situation when you are overcome with negative emotions. Instead of thoughtfully examining our choices, we act with knee-jerk reactions from fear, overwhelm, or anger.

Our Sunday mourning feels so justified. We have all sorts of reasons why we feel anxious and depressed. The problem is that we can’t make a real assessment of any situation when we are frayed at both ends.

It’s certainly possible that your Sunday mourning routine is indicative of a need for a career change. BUT what is more likely is that you could change your career and find yourself swimming in the same Sunday Mourning pond.

When we find our brains overrun with negative thoughts about our careers, those thoughts are rarely isolated to that one circumstance.

They are often part of a larger belief system that will follow you no matter where you go or what you do.

I want to enjoy what I do for a living.

I just want to be happy in my job.

It shouldn’t be this hard.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Thoughts like those will creep into other aspects of your life later on. The belief that your job and your life “should” be a certain way. You should be happy. Your career should be easier. The fact that you “don’t want” to do your job anymore matters. (It doesn’t!) Not wanting to do something is simply a thought. That thought will sidetrack anything you do. It is not helpful. Not wanting to do something does not mean there is a glitch in the matrix.

It likely means you are doing something hard.

Something that forces you to grow.

When you give credence to that thought “I don’t want to do this” you are allowing yourself to use the easy button. To avoid the growth. You are allowing your brain to become really skilled at NOT doing hard things.

None of these thoughts are good reasons to quit a job. They are thoughts you are choosing to believe. They are thoughts that open an escape hatch–an easy out. Cleaning up those thoughts will allow you to truly experience your job, unclouded by these judgments and burdensome beliefs. Then you can decide whether you want to do something else with your life.

Before you make any monumental decisions while in the despair of Sunday mourning, I challenge you to examine the thoughts and beliefs creating your misery. Those thoughts will go with you no matter what you are doing for a living.

“Where ever you go, there you are.”

You are really good at thinking those thoughts and you will keep thinking them even if you change the scenery.

What is it costing you? Have you allowed those thoughts to sabotage you over and over again?

This is the meat of my work with most of my clients. Many of them carry toxic thoughts and beliefs about how their lives “should” be. Thoughts that cause them tremendous pain and cost them their happiness. Working through those thoughts provides them with the peace and space to truly move on and transform their lives.

Want a reprieve? Try it out for free today.

Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas from Pexels

I hate being a lawyer

What else can I do with a law degree

How do I know if practicing law is right for me?

You will get a boatload of hits and stories of woe from “recovering lawyers.” Law school and practicing law are like any good love story. You can’t really understand how amazing and yet how terrible it can be until you experience it yourself.

In my practice, I spent many a dark night wondering if I had made the right choice in going to law school. I cried in my office more times than I probably remember. I missed important events, skipped parties, and used work as an excuse more times than I care to admit.

I deeply empathize with those of you going through that turmoil. The feeling of hopelessness and pressure. That heavy, oppressive fear that you just spent thousands of dollars getting into a prestigious club only to quickly realize you want right back out.

Fancy degree, fancy office, fancy car, fat paycheck and miserable. Congratulations!

Ooof. The agony.

So, what do you do?

One of the things we coaches love to do is “question your most closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions.” These are the words of my coach who makes me pledge to do this very thing at the beginning of every session.

Many of our most closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions are really wolves masquerading in sheep’s clothing. They sound so nice and innocuous, even virtuous. Yet, pretty thoughts have a way of causing so much unnecessary pain.

I want to have a job I can feel good about

I want a boss who respects me

I don’t want to be treated like an idiot

I want to love what I do

We have so many thoughts like this that we are choosing to swish around in our brains. They are not facts. They are not gospel. They are only true because you are choosing to believe they are true.

There are people in this world (ESPECIALLY during this pandemic) that would be thrilled with a job. Any job. If they could go to law school and work for someone who yelled at them, treated them like an idiot and didn’t respect them, they would be thankful just to have a job.

There are people in this world who would rather have a job for a horrible boss making tons of money than a job with Willie Wonka making pennies.

There are people in this world who neither love nor hate their jobs; it’s just a job. It is not who they are, it doesn’t define them, it’s a means to an end.  It pays the bills. They don’t care that they don’t love it. They have other things to love.

If you want to believe that you should love your job, that is 1000% your right and your option. My only question for you is

How is that thought serving you?

Does it make you feel terrible? Does it make you jump from job to job constantly searching for something better? Does it inspire you to get out of bed every day?

There is no such thing as inherently good or bad thoughts. Thoughts are good or bad based upon the impact those thoughts have on you–how they make you feel, show up, act, and the results they drive you to create.

Last week, I had a mini-session with a woman who was really grappling with her career. She was trying to figure out what to do next. As we discussed her reasons for considering a change she keep coming back to

I just want a job that I can feel good about; that brings purpose to my life.

Lovely. Beautiful. Commendable thoughts.

They were making my client miserable.

Those thoughts made her feel anxious and panicky. They drove her to overly criticize every job opportunity and scrutinize every aspect of her work. She was creating an impossibly high standard for her career and it was wrecking havoc on her life as she jumped from job to job and career to career seeking that elusive “purpose”. It was blocking her ability to see and appreciate the good in any aspect of her life. Those thoughts were keeping her from being happy in ANY environment.

This applies to everything. Not just your job. Thinking about quitting your marriage, that relationship, that friendship? Whatever it may be, the first step is getting honest with yourself about your brain.

What closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions are contributing to your present strife?

Are some of your pretty thoughts blocking you from happiness? 

If you can get a handle on your brain and the role you are playing in creating your current misery, you can move into a space of greater clarity. From that space of clarity, you can make clear-headed, logical decisions about your life. Decisions that aren’t frantic, panicked or based in fear. Part of that process is examining some of your closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions.

How are those beliefs/thoughts/assumptions serving you? Are they blocking your happiness?

You have the freedom to believe whatever you want but you must ask yourself whether those thoughts deserve real estate in your brain. It’s your future. What thoughts are you using to fuel your journey?