Why We're Unhappy in Law - Part 2 Lack of Direction

SUMMARY: Today we are working through part 2 of a 3-part series exploring why we aren't happier in law. Last week, we talked about fighting with the realities of our practice and how that can often contribute to a fair amount of misery. This week, we are digging in to how our drive to produce and work hard can result in a lack of direction and avoidance that has so much  to teach us.

Watch the full episode on YouTube!: https://youtu.be/4FvcQb8ubls

RELATED TO THIS EPISODE: 

• Getting Clarity: http://thelawyerlifecollective.com/getting-clarity/
• Fear: http://thelawyerlifecollective.com/fear/
• Putting Out Fires: http://thelawyerlifecollective.com/putting-out-fires/
• Goal-ing: http://thelawyerlifecollective.com/goal-ing/

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0:00  

You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast episode number four. Why we are unhappy at work: lack of direction.

0:23  

Welcome lawyer, ladies, lawyer gents and lawyer, humans to the lawyer life podcast. I am your host Autumn Noble. I am a practicing attorney. I am also a life and career coach for lawyers. During my practice, I worked at firms of various shapes and sizes I've built and chaired my very own practice group from the ground up. I've taught in business schools and law schools and eventually transitioned my career in house with a Fortune 300 company. Now I teach all of my clients how to do the same thing. If you want to learn how to build your practice and your client base, establish some independence, find more time, get more done, or just generally find more happiness and balance in your life, you are in the right spot.

1:15  

Welcome back, everyone. Today we are working through part two of our three-part series exploring why we aren't happier in law. Last week, we talked about fighting with the realities of our practice and how that can often contribute to a fair amount of misery. This week, we are digging into how our drive to produce and work hard can result in a lack of direction and avoidance that has so much to teach us.

1:48  

In today's hectic world, and in our chaotic practices, it can be easy to get swept up in the action of all of it, we can lose ourselves in the momentum of our lives. And in doing so we often overlook the most important question that we need to focus our energies and understand our emotions, including our unhappiness. And that question is, what do you want? 

2:14

Starting a legal career is so much like a mad dash towards a finish line. As women and as attorneys, we're really good at following all of the instructions. We receive a guidebook on how to become successful attorneys and we execute on all of the steps. We take the LSAT, we go to law school, we sit for the bar exam, we find the clerkship, the summer associate programs, the first big job, paying off those pesky student loans and on and on and on the checklist goes. We spend years working and stretching and pushing to get to that final legal job. But when we finally get there, we don't stop. We just keep running. And we don't even realize that we're doing it more often than not, we just keep going without even asking what's next. 

For instance, take a moment to consider what your typical day looks like. Do you envision yourself doing 1 million different things at the same time, we're answering phone calls, we're responding to emails, we're getting yelled at. Maybe we're blurting directives to other people in the hallways, or maybe we're yelling at somebody else. We're juggling flaming torches, we're running a marathon and planning a birthday party all before the cool hour of 10am. Just a regular old Tuesday, EH?!  

You have to love and appreciate and maybe be terrified by the panicked frenzy of practicing law. On those days, our brains are laser focused and you can feel the adrenaline coursing through our bodies. As we move from one thing to the next thing with effortless precision and focus. 

3:47

For a lot of us, we get kind of addicted to this frenzy, we develop a strange love affair with the pressure and intensity of those days. It makes you feel alive to execute and just run like that all day long. Like we've actually accomplished something at the end of the day and connected to the work like a total boss. If only we could feel like that all the time, right? 

While these bursts of energy, and manic productivity can be incredibly addictive, and create tremendous surges of satisfaction and accomplishment. Working from that state is problematic for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it's just not sustainable. 

4:27 

During those moments of manic productivity and putting out fires, we're actually operating from a primitive part of our brain. Our body infuses our system with tremendous amounts of adrenaline, because the pressure and stress that we've put on ourselves and created in our minds has led our primitive brains to believe that we're actually on the verge of being murdered by carnivorous clients or litigators. 

We switch into a survival mode operating on adrenaline our heart starts race our brains become laser focused on the task in front of us because suddenly our body and our brain equates everything before us with survival. 

In those moments, our primitive brain and the survival mechanisms that kick in, they're powerful, and they're addictive in many ways. But we have to recognize that living day in and day out being driven by our adrenaline, and our primitive brains, it's simply not sustainable. It's not how our bodies were designed. Our bodies were not designed to flourish under those amounts of continued adrenaline, which is a finite resource. It's just not possible to maintain that high level and that level of focus on productivity long term. We're literally living every day in fight or flight, kind of this frenzied panic, our bodies start to prepare for battle. And while it's very productive, sadly not sustainable. 

5:50

Add to this madness, the physical and emotional toll of living on adrenaline for too long. Persistent surges of adrenaline can damage your blood vessels, increase your blood pressure, and elevate your risk of heart attack or stroke. It can also result in, let me know if any of these sound familiar: anxiety, weight gain, headaches and insomnia. Look, I'm not that kind of a doctor, but the Google box and real doctors will back me up on this if you need more convincing. 

As if that weren't enough, when we operate from that space of fight or flight, and we let our primitive brain drive our actions and our responses, we actually lose the ability to think rationally from our prefrontal cortex. We're just busy, physiologically trying to survive. 

So this brings me to reason number two, why that is simply not the best mode of operation. And I promise you, I'm gonna bring this all together and land the plane, just bear with me. So reason number two, why it's not best for us to operate in that kind of panicked frenzy, quickly working laser focused mode, all the time, and that is because we do not make good decisions with our primitive survival brains. 

Our primitive brains were designed to keep us safe, to seek pleasure and to be efficient. Our primitive brain, it's the fact act fast acting part of our brain. It's not designed to move slowly and analyze facts and make well reasoned decisions. All of the things that you would typically associate with your attorney and what you pay your attorneys for, right? We want them to think slowly, analyze the facts that make well reasoned decisions. It doesn't really work like that, when we're being driven by our primitive brains. That part of our brain is designed simply to react. Everything presented to that brain is going to be perceived as an emergency, a matter of life or death. So that means that when we're in that state, every email that comes across your desk, every person that darkens your doorway, every phone call that comes in your brain is going to interpret as an emergency that has to be attended to immediately. Simply put, we're not biologically capable of making the best decisions when we're operating from fight or flight and letting our primitive brain drive the boat. 

8:04

It's almost like letting a toddler make all of the decisions about your finances, right, they're gonna spend all of your money going to the amusement park, eating cotton candy, and raw cookie dough and ordering all of the things from a late night shopping channel. Yes, and that sounds like a familiar Saturday night, but bear with me here. They are not going to tell you to eat the damn salad to go to the gym and NO, that designer purse is not going to be the solution to your tale of woes. That primitive part of our brain will seek the pleasures that come from responding to that email immediately, or from trying to please that person that suddenly darkens your doorway, instead of focusing on whatever project we told the client we will get done by the end of the day. In that space, we just see everything as something that has to be attended to right away and our ability to make clear, priority based decisions just goes out the window. 

9:02

So what does this all mean? When we're talking about why we're not happier in law, and having some form of direction? Part of the reason that we struggle in law is because we live every day in this frenzied fight or flight and we never really stop and allow our prefrontal cortex to answer that simple question. Where the hell am I going? Where does this all for? 

I am a firm believer that in order to truly on our power, we have to in every aspect of our lives, pause and allow ourselves to set course. Where does this road take me? Why do I stay at this job? Why am I doing these things? And to choose to live more intentionally! It is incredibly jarring and a little painful to wake up one day and realize that we don't know what we want next. We've gotten so good at following the orders that have been provided to us. We got the recipe for coming a lawyer and we just executed it. Then we started doing the lawyer thing, and we get swept up in it. And we start living in that kind of fight or flight brain. And in doing so we get really disconnected from ourselves and our wants. Because we often don't have the energy because we're so depleted to access that prefrontal cortex and really ask the question. We just crossed the finish line, and just keep going without considering where we're actually running to next. If you think about it, in that context of a race, no one wants to run a race without knowing where they're going. We set a destination, we plan a course and we run until we get there and then we stop.

10:40  

Similarly, if we're going to the grocery store, we have a list based upon whatever you want to prepare. We don't just hop in our cars and start driving around aimlessly, unless we're running away from something which actually brings me to my next question. Are you running away from something by aimlessly allowing your career and your life to run on autopilot without a clear destination? 

If we're not consciously connecting with our lives, our wants our feelings, our thoughts, we are living blindly. We're continuing a marathon that has no end in sight. And as we all know, and as I've mentioned already, it's just not sustainable. So first, let's bring this all together and see what does this have to teach us. 

11:25

One of the things I find so interesting about professional degrees, like a law degree, is that often the degree represents the end of our goal making activities. Whether you end up seeking an advanced degree by chance, or just decided that you were going to do that in the seventh grade, once that degree is confirmed, we simply stop making other goals as part of our natural state. I experienced this myself. 

Years ago, when I started into this little self help realm and started really exploring my own experience in practicing law, I realized that I didn't have any concrete goals that were motivating me every day, I was just doing my law job. I wasn't thinking about the next steps, I was just really on cruise control trying to survive, truly. I wasn't sure if I wanted to become partner and I didn't really give it much thought I just knew that if I stayed around long enough, if I did a good job, and I didn't get fired, everything would eventually work itself out. At no point did I ever really seek out anything -  partnership or additional work - in the same way that I sought out and worked at law school, I was truly just cruising and I think a lot of us do this in our own and very different ways. 

So I started asking my friends, you know, do you have goals, it really started to fascinate me. As I was asking more and more people about this, they kind of looked at me and thought, you know, are you having a midlife crisis? What is this about? But not a single one of them had a goal had anything concrete that they were actively working toward. And so I really started to kind of wonder, you know, are goals important? Should I have something that I'm working towards? And is it not healthy for me just to continually go through the motions and just hope that I don't get fired every day? What I decided after going through this exploration and in working with the hundreds of attorneys that I have, my conclusion is emphatic: yes. We all have to have something that we're striving toward. But the reason why it's so important is not what you would typically expect. 

13:28

So first, just as a preliminary matter, when we talk about goals, I really have to stress that we shouldn't be thinking about what we want next from a place of lack or judgment for your present state. For instance, if all you're thinking about is, I need to figure out my life, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I want. That energy that you're sending to the universe and instilling in your life is an energy of judgment and criticism and kind of hopelessness. Instead, if you think, I've come really far, I wonder what feels like the next right step for me, the energy that you're going to bring to this exploration is going to be one of gratitude and curiosity. And that line of thinking and those types of feelings are going to propel you down a road of self exploration and new experiences. 

In contrast, those thoughts of negativity and judgment are only going to make it easier for you to keep hating your current situation and feeling completely stuck, stuck. Those conditions are just not conducive to effective goal setting and actually taking action in furtherance of whatever it is you want. So as a rule, as you start thinking about setting your own destination, you have to do so from a space that's positive and gives thanks for everything that you've currently gotten in your life and all the hard work that you have done. Recognize all of the prior goals that you've already achieved, and come from a place of Thanks, before you start this process. 

If you think about New Year's resolutions, or any type of goal setting activity, a lot of people really hate those activities. And the reason is because those types of explorations often remind them of all of the things that they don't like about their life, all the things that they want that they don't currently have. So immediately from the outset, we're starting to feel kind of angry, like maybe I got the bad hand at this game of life. And so they don't come to the goal setting from a place of look at all the things I can be thankful for, for all the things that I've can accomplish. They don't come to it from a place of look at all the things I have to be thankful for, Look at everything that I've accomplished, what more can I do to challenge myself and grow. Instead, they come at it from the space of energy and feeling almost like a victim to life. Without that mindset of gratitude and appreciation, goal setting can be a very sobering and upsetting experience. It is a reminder of all the things that you want and still don't have. But that energy, even just saying that feels so hopeless, and so victim laden, it's simply not productive. So as we talk about kind of setting a destination, we want to be very clear about the energy that we're bringing to this exploration. 

16:23

So with that mindset in place, I want to kind of set the foundation as to why goals are so important. 

Goals are important, because of the trajectory that comes with them. The goal itself is not the point, the experience is the point. Setting, and achieving a goal is never going to provide lasting happiness. Many of the attorneys that I work with believe that once they achieve a certain goal, they will be happier, they'll be less stressed, there's always some anticipated emotion associated with the goal. The problem with that approach is that nothing external, no achievement of a goal, can or ever will produce that happiness and peace that we're really seeking. Because that's only something that we can create for ourselves. 

So from the get go, a lot of us come to goals, putting them on a pedestal as if they're going to fix something, they're gonna give us something emotional, that we're wanting: peace or less stress or more happiness. And that setup alone is doomed for failure, because it's allowing that external thing to drive how we feel, and it just doesn't work like that. how we feel about ourselves, our value, our stress level, or level of peace is something that we create. It's not possible for that achievement to implant those feelings into you. 

17:52

So why would we pursue a goal if it's not going to make us happier or give us more peace and less stress? Because we're not put on this earth to run on autopilot. We're here to learn and to grow and develop to become the best possible versions of ourselves. In goal setting and having something to work toward, it forces us to step out of the pattern and routine of our lives. That will cause a whole host of negative thoughts and emotions to come up. 

If you think about even just simply going to the gym and setting this goal of trying to go to the gym a little bit more regularly, your brain is gonna be like, Well, I don't know how, I don't have time, I can do something like that. Or if you think about a goal of I want to work less, or I don't want to work on the weekends, your brain's like this isn't going to be worth it, I don't want to fight with everybody. It's going to come up with all of these reasons why this isn't going to work. It's going to challenge you right out of the gate because remember, that primitive brain that we've been operating from is designed to maintain efficiency. When we add a goal, by its very nature, we're changing things up. We don't want to be on the hamster wheel anymore. We want to go down a different path. So your brain is going to offer you all these reasons why this just isn't going to work. With that is where the magic is. In working toward that goal. You're going to be forced to work through and confront all those garbage thoughts, and all of the negative emotions that come with them. You will be challenged to disagree with those thoughts, and to take steps to prove to yourself that you can do it and to take steps to prove all of those negative thoughts and worries wrong.

19:42  

Once you start working through those thoughts and emotions, and move forward in the face of adversity, that's where you start to grow. It's easy to stay where you are to continue living in fight or flight and churning out billable hours, left and right. It's easy to stay there and not make waves in your life and your primitive brain really likes it! But is that what you really think life is all about? Is that all you want your life to be? I don't think there's a right or wrong reason for it. But I think the benefit comes in really asking yourself that question, Do I want to stay where I am because it's comfortable and I know it, and that's okay for me? Or am I coming to the realization that being where I'm at because it's easy and comfortable is no longer a good enough reason for me and I want to be uncomfortable, and I want to try something new and I want to force myself to evolve. I think either answer is fair and appropriate. But I think a lot of us operate on this autopilot, and don't ever really ask a question. And that's what this is truly all about. 

Personally, I believe that we're all here to be brave, to have the courage to explore, to learn and fail and grow. That is why goals are important, because that is what they will force you to do. The goal is simply the period at the end of your own growth story. The real beauty of it is everything that happens along that path. The goal is just sort of the cherry on top, it's not the point. 

21:12

If you're not setting goals, that bring up negative thoughts and emotions, you're simply not goal-ing big enough to force that growth. And again, it's really about getting uncomfortable, as we talked about in our first episode. 

Okay, so now we know why having some direction in our careers is important. Why do we often choose to remain in the tornado rather than looking at these questions or setting new goals? The question that I posed earlier was this: what are we running from? What are we avoiding by not looking at these questions and giving them an honest answer? 

For many of the lawyers that I work with, it's actually pretty simple. They know that something has to change. But they don't want to face it because they're afraid to fail. They know they want to work less, have more balance, change their practice area, move firms, form their own firms. All of these are goals that I hear, but oftentimes, we're afraid of the risks that accompany those challenges. We're afraid of the growth and the negative thoughts and negative emotions that come with identifying that goal and starting to act towards it. 

The ultimate risk that a lot of people are afraid of is that they pursue those avenues, and they end up with egg on their face. They're afraid of how they're going to feel if they push for boundaries, or balance, and get completely rebuffed by their supervisors or their firms. If they ask for a new supervisor, and they're told no, or they ask for a raise, and it's declined, or if they start their solo firm, and it completely tanks. That is what keeps a lot of people from acting in furtherance of their goals. The idea of those emotions, and how is going to feel is so huge and looming, that it's a lot easier just to stay where we are. But ultimately, it's just fear of failure dressed up in sort of a very grown up noble and rational outfit. 

23:15

It might sound something like this: I'm concerned with what my life would be like if I stayed and I have some worries there, but ultimately, it's safe here to remain where I'm at, because I have a good job, and I make good money and everything else is just unknown, and maybe it's going to be worse somewhere else. 

It's surprising how often I hear something along those lines in my sessions with lawyers. Recognizing that things aren't working, and that something has to change, it is incredibly painful. Realizing that we have to endure the pain of leaving or the pain that accompanies a fight for change is also not a great place to be. It's not fun to fight for more boundaries and space and balance in your life. So we stay, and often we stay and we hate it and secretly boil beneath the surface about it. 

What I see that often looking like is we pour ourselves in our work because we don't want to face those realities. It's a lot easier to live in that fight or flight frenzy all day long than it is to stop, connect with that part of you that's wanting something different, and ask those painful questions. And so instead, we work like crazy to avoid that knowing. 

I see attorneys who stay and they're bitter and they're conflicted about it. They hate the fact that they know at some level, they're not living authentically that they want something different and it pains them knowing that and knowing that they're not acting on it. 

24:47

The wild thing about it is that whether they face that reality head on or not and really own it and sit down with it or just keep working and ignoring it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't change the impact that it has on their lives. It weighs on us like this weird albatross that we're trying to ignore, through our busyness. But it doesn't work! We become angry and kind of bitter or workaholics. Because over time, that becomes easier and a lot less painful than facing those truths and figuring out what is next. 

So to bring this all together, the first step is really recognizing what's going on with you to identifying that part of your unhappiness is tied to your deeper knowing that something has to change. If there's a part of you, that's like, I'm just not super happy at work, it's on you to start asking, you know, is, is that partly because there's something and I'm avoiding? Is there a part of me that maybe doesn't want to be a lawyer and thinks I maybe made a mistake or wants to try something else, and knows that I need to do something different that's gonna make me really uncomfortable, and I'm trying to ignore it? Because that can create a tremendous amount of weight, and heaviness, whether you acknowledge it or not. 

26:03

So the first step becomes recognizing what's going on. And then the next step is asking the hard questions about what's next. As you do that, as I stated before, we have to do that from a space of appreciation and gratitude for where you've become the other sort of magic sauce ingredient is there is no right answer. And letting that be your truth. 

When you ask yourself what you want, and where you're going, we can't allow ourselves to get confused. There are no right answers in life. There's no secret path you need to discover to find your way to happiness. When we indulge in that confusion, when we buy into that idea that there's some secret path, we've got to figure out for ourselves, we implicitly believe that there's a right answer and there's a wrong answer. Which really heightens the stakes of making any decision about what to do next, which just makes it seem scarier, and just more persuasive to stay where we are. 

That confusion keeps us stuck, until we can know with certainty, what's next. It keeps us sort of running blindly on the hamster wheel, because why would we stop running if we're confused about where to go next and we haven't gotten that epiphany, lightning that tells us what we're supposed to do with our lives?! 

We have to let all that go out the window, there is no right answer. The only goal here is to grow, to focus on what feels like the next right step for you and let this be an evolution story. To challenge yourself to become the best possible version of yourself. Because you're not going to evolve or challenge yourself when you're operating automatically. It just can't work. 

Part of his exploration in figuring out what you want is to really ask: Why do I stay? Why am I at this job? Why am I in this relationship? Where does this experience fit into the story of my life? Nothing has to be set in stone, and you can change your answer at any time that you want. The point here is that we have to give ourselves some direction and let go of the idea that there is perfect direction. Because to do otherwise, is to allow other people, events and circumstances to run your life for you. When we don't identify where we want to go next. It places our life at the feet of the people around you: your boss, your spouse, your kids, your partner, your clients, whomever, they're going to fill that vacuum and let you know what they think you should do with your life. When we don't set our own course others will step in, and they're going to fill that void for us. Do you really want them determining where you're going and why? What's your rationale for that?

29:00  

Our freewill and our ability to make your life anything that you want it to be is truly the greatest gift that we have been given. Don't squander it by floating in the breeze, you're better than that. You are in the driver's seat. So every day reconnect with your Whys and with your Wants and get clear on what you want from life. So you can set sights on your True North. To do it any other way is to surrender all of your power and to carry that heavy, energetic albatross of judgment with you wherever you go. It doesn't lead to happiness, just by ignoring it. 

Whenever I work with new coaching clients, one of the first things we do is set that intention What do you want? What is your dream? And then from there, we start planning and taking massive action to making that dream a reality. But before we can do that we have to own our pain. And sometimes understand that beneath that all that busyness and success is a deeper desire for something more and when we ignore that it becomes an energetic ball and chain that contaminates not only our careers but our whole world because how we do one thing is often how we do all things. 

When we don't honor ourselves in our careers, we're likely failing to honor ourselves in other areas of our lives. And that my friends can drive a tremendous amount of acknowledged frustration boiling below the surface all of the time while we're trying to ignore the fact that it's there. 

30:27

Okay, I want to leave you with one thing that my coach often says to me: frustration is often a sign of an unfulfilled intention. Our task today is to identify those unfulfilled intentions that are causing that frustration and create a life that is more in alignment with who we want to be. 

Okay, everyone, that is all for today. Next week, we work through the final chapter of the saga about why we aren't happier in law. That episode will dig into the third Horsemen of our career Apocalypse, and that is believing our own BS. We'll see you there.

Thanks so much for listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to leave us a review on your podcast streaming platform or shoot us a note if there's something else you would like to hear more about. And remember, the topics we explore on the podcast are just a sampling of the deeper work we do in coaching. If you don't have an unbiased mentor or a champion in your legal circle, you are missing out on the most essential tool for success. Check it out for yourself by signing up for a free coaching session or visiting the Lawyer Life Collective to join our newsletter where each month, you will receive the latest coaching topics and trends right to your inbox, along with essential coaching tools, all for free. Check out the links to those resources in the show notes. Until next week, thanks for listening and thanks for sharing with your friends. Cheers.