be.

still.

Once we decided that we wanted to be attorneys, the journey was not that difficult. There’s a list. There are instructions. There is a long checklist of things that must be accomplished and done in order for this dream to take place. Once we get our first job, the instructions become even simpler. Say yes to all the work that comes to you. Do a good job. Don’t make waves. Just keep executing and don’t ask questions. So we spend even more years continuing to live in this fight or flight mode where we just move from one challenge to the next. Inevitably, we come to a crossroads where we catch our breath for a moment and start to wonder

what’s next?

Many attorneys come to me for coaching support because they don’t know what to do next. They are overwhelmed with the possibilities for their life and they want to know how to figure out where to focus their energies now that they have come so far. Having a law degree affords us many opportunities as to what we can do with our life. We can go down the partnership track…. counsel track….teaching at a law school….go in-house….go into business…..start our own firm…. When we start looking at all the options available to us it can easily become overwhelming.

But when we find ourselves stressing about where are we “supposed to” go next, the more important question we can be asking ourselves is

Is there anything wrong with just being where we are without having a plan for what’s next?

I recently found myself in a coaching session with a woman who was overwhelmed with the possibilities for her life and the decisions that needed to be made at some point in the future. In the future. Not now. There was nothing pressing. Despite this fact, she was incredibly overwhelmed and uncomfortable with not knowing what her long-term plan looked like. After exploring various possibilities and trying to get a sense of what resonated most closely with her, I finally asked her what if nothing is wrong here?

At that moment everything seemed to click for her and she realized that this need to have a plan and this desire to know the end result was creating a tremendous amount of discomfort for her. She had spent her entire life and her entire career living in fight or flight mode getting things done and now that she had found some space to breathe, she was uncomfortable just being where she was. No pressing decisions. Nothing urgent that needed to be done. Just a regular job. No family matters to attend to. No drama. No chaos. The calm following the storm of chaos that had comprised the early years of her career was causing her a tremendous amount of anxiety. She was uncomfortable just being in this space and not having a plan. In that quiet space, her brain wasn’t accustomed to being still, instead, it kept telling her that something wasn’t right, it needed a plan…she should be doing something more.

All those shoulds are indicative of how we value ourselves. Those shoulds come from our historical patterns where achievements and checking things off the list meant that we were doing well. It meant that we were good enough and that we were successful.

But when the list runs out and the goals have been achieved, we are left in this open space where we have to reexamine our worthiness.

In that space and on those plateaus where our brain starts telling us all the things we should be doing, it reveals a need for us to reexamine our worthiness and where we place our value. It is not a time to create a new goal and a new plan and something else to strive for. There will come a day where you will run out of plans you will run out of checklists and you will only be left with yourself. Those plateaus and spaces between the items on our checklists afford us the opportunity to work on that relationship because ultimately, that is truly the only relationship that matters. Those spaces force us to stop running and take a look in the mirror and that can be terrifying.

(Sound familiar? Grab a free session now and get support during your times of plateau.)

When our brains are used to living in panicked, fight or flight mode, it can be difficult to understand WHO we are if we are not busy accomplishing. It can be difficult to recognize our value if we aren’t busy checking things off a list. What’s more, for many of us it’s been so long since we’ve had the opportunity to explore that aloneness. To really consider our relationship with ourselves. We have lost sight of that relationship and so when we have reached this summit and find ourselves alone with no one other than ourselves, we panic. We feel like we have to develop some other goal and something else to strive for so that we don’t have to sit here in this stillness and take a long hard look at who we really are when we’re not focused outwardly. It’s easier to have something to be striving toward; it’s harder to do the work on yourself. It’s harder to challenge that voice that’s telling you that you should be doing more you and that you should be wanting more.

That’s the beauty of coming to these plateaus.

That’s the beauty of the stillness.

It reminds us that we’re not a long list of things to do. We are not achievements and we are not defined by our long-term plans. Where are so much more than that and once our current plan reaches that plateau rather than jumping into a new plan I urge you…no, I implore you to take that time to be with yourself and learn how to be still. At the end of the day when the race is over the only person standing next to you will be yourself. Those plateaus afford us the opportunity to rekindle that relationship and learn how to see our innate worthiness, without all the fluff.

Sometimes it’s okay to just be where you are.

If you find yourself uncomfortable taking an hour to relax on the couch or uneasy that you don’t know whether or not you want to make a partner it’s an opportunity to ask yourself

What is wrong with just being where I’m at? What is it about this place that makes me so uncomfortable? What judgments am I lobbying at myself when I am not frantically achieving and checking things off my list?

That my friends is truly where the work begins.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Voltaire

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how detrimental certainty can be in our lives. How certainty, if left to its own devices, would have kept us believing some pretty ridiculous stuff — tobacco enemas, changelings, icepick lobotomies. In order to progress, scientists (and the rest of us) had to let go of our closely held beliefs and be open to the possibility that those old beliefs weren’t serving us. One of the hallmarks of good science is constantly challenging our prior conclusions — to never truly be “fixed” in any given certainty.

Outside the world of science, our tendency to acquire certainties remains pervasive and, at times, limits our own innate abilities.

We are certain that no one is hiring during the pandemic.

We are convinced that it is harder to network with people virtually.

We believe that our neighbor is stealing our newspaper to spite us.

We believe that we have to respond to emails over the weekend.

Certainty is the enemy of growth. We can’t tell the future yet we parade around telling ourselves we can’t do XYZ because we know how it will pan out for us (the answer is always: badly). We soothsay away our options to justify our unwillingness to shake things up. We predict calamity and hellfire if we dare challenge the norms.

To grow, we have to constantly question our beliefs about ourselves, others, and our reality. That is how we evolve.

The problem is that certainty feels nice. It feels easy and comfortable and requires nothing of us. It is easier to remain wed to your beliefs (certainties) than it is to test those beliefs and see whether they are true.

There was a time in my life when I believed that I could never have any balance while practicing law at a big firm. And then I went and I did it. I tested my belief and discovered that it wasn’t entirely true. I was CHOOSING to not have balance. I was choosing to say yes to every request. When I put that belief to the test, I discovered that I could have a practice where I came and went as I pleased and spent my time speaking, traveling, writing and networking.  Did it require me to challenge systems I had previously let alone? Yes. Did everyone like my new approach to practicing? No. Did people gossip about it and crab about it? Yes. But I got what I wanted because I was willing to accept that my closely held belief was wrong. I was willing to explore other approaches to practice and I was willing to let go of the need to be liked and safe from gossip. I released myself from face time obligations and I never looked back. 

(Now I help other women to do the same — sign up for a free coaching session to learn how.)

Wacky historical medical beliefs aside, our entire society is founded upon the value that emerges when we challenge norms. When we allow ourselves to become uncertain about things. When we question things and allow ourselves to see if there is a better way of doing things and thinking about things.

How would your life be different, if you started examining some of your closely held certainties?

Photo by Brendan Church on Unsplash

Indecision has so much to teach us about ourselves and, particularly, our fears.

How do we move out of indecision? Recognize the tunnel vision and get some perspective.

Many of us have struggled with decision paralysis from time to time because we put these decisions on a pedestal.

We allow them to loom ahead of us like giant crossroads in our lives. In order to move forward you have to separate from the facts from your primitive-brain-thinking.

In my client’s situation, the facts were that she was giving a presentation at a seminar in three weeks and she hadn’t yet picked a topic. Pretty non-threatening.

BUT, in light of those facts, her brain was explaining

You have to pick a good topic or people won’t want to work with you.

If you pick a topic you don’t know EVERYTHING about, you are going to get stumped in the Q&A and people will think you don’t know what you are talking about.

If you pick a topic that is too easy, no one will listen to you and they will think you don’t know anything useful.

All the important partners will be there and they will be measuring you up.

This is a huge opportunity for you to make a name for yourself.

None of those juicy dramas were factual. They were all totally optional choices. Sentences in her head. Sentences that were making her anxious, nervous, and scared.

In order to move out of indecision, you have to first recognize the thoughts you are choosing as just that: thoughts.

Focus on the facts of the situation and examine how else you could be thinking about them.

For this client, alternative thoughts included: This is a great opportunity for me. This is going to make me a better speaker. I can handle any question with grace even if I don’t know the answer. It’s okay to be nervous, this is not supposed to be easy.

While, pretty thoughts can be useful to shift your energy, they ONLY work if you if examine what’s really going on below the surface.

Indecision is fueled by the fear of making the wrong choice. You can’t move forward until you examine and address that worst case scenario.

Whenever, we are avoiding a decision it’s because we have convinced ourselves that there is a right and wrong path ahead of us and if we choose the wrong one, our world will fall apart. In my client’s case, she was worried that if she picked the wrong topic, the audience Q&A would stump her and everyone would think she was dumb.

Your worst case scenario fears are comprised of two things:

Obstacles that you can anticipate and negative self-talk.

When we are afraid of making the wrong decision, it is because of what we will make it mean about ourselves if things don’t pan out how we hoped.

We allow our brains to convince us that if we make the wrong decision it proves something negative about ourselves: we aren’t good enough, we aren’t smart enough, we can’t do this, this will never work out, etc.

Those thoughts feel terrible: shame, guilt, fear, worry, doubt, all come crashing down when we spin in those sentences.

But what if we decided that when things don’t go the way we hope, we won’t make it mean something negative about ourselves?

What if we decided to have our back in the future?

Recognize that when we make choices, we are doing our best in the moment and that sometimes things don’t work out the way you hoped. No big deal. It doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It could simply mean that you are figuring things out. That it was just another step on your path.

If we can commit to not beating ourselves up if our decisions don’t pan out the way we want to, then there is nothing to be afraid of.

If we make the wrong decision, we can keep moving. We don’t have to believe that the wrong decision means something bad about our ability.

Once you commit to having your own back in the future, the pressure and weight of these current decisions goes away. You can make a decision and know that whether it pans out or not, it has nothing to do with your skills. It’s just part of the process.

From that space, everything else is simply an obstacle to overcome.

For my client, we strategized how she could handle questions from the audience when she didn’t know the answer. We talked through how she could think about that kind of an experience from a place of humility and curiosity as opposed to perfection-seeking.

When you find yourself stuck in indecision, force yourself to examine the worst case scenario. What comes up for you? What negative self-talk do you indulge in when things don’t pan out?

If you can plan to treat yourself kindly if things don’t work out, indecision loses its foothold. It stops being scary because you remove the negative consequences.

Everything else is just planning. Identify potential obstacles that might come from the decision and develop strategies ahead of time.

Don’t let your brain tell you the sky is falling. Tell your brain to get to work figuring out how to handle the sky when it wants to fall.

Don’t allow indecision to take the wind out of your sails. Look at the indecision, it has so much to show you!

Need support making a big decision? I reserve three spots each week for FREE mini-sessions with me. Bring your big decision or latest struggle and let’s get you back on track. Sign up now before this week’s spots are gone.