Kathleen Brenner 0:01
You're listening to the thriving lawyer with Kathleen Brenner. Are you a lawyer who's feeling burnt out or wants more in life? Do you want to live a purpose driven life that is filled with more meaning? Enjoy a life where you can absolutely thrive as a lawyer, but not at the expense of everything else that's important to you? If so, you've come to the right place. I'm a lawyer, a coach, a dreamer, and a changemaker. My mission is to help you grow and thrive, to embody your values and strengths both a lawyer and human being, and to expand what is possible for you. So you can create a more joyful, fulfilling and impactful life than you ever previously imagined possible. To thrive.
Hello, welcome to episode two of the thriving lawyer. Today's theme for the podcasts which I thought might be appropriate for this January period, is really about the perils of the doing obsession. So why do this is a podcast at this time? Well, when this comes into the world, it will be January. And it's a time of rest for many of us. And it's also a time where so often we are making plans for the coming year. So for those of you who listened to Episode One last week, I spent a lot of time talking about New Year's resolutions and goal setting. And one of the things that I mentioned is that we really need to be careful when we're setting our goals, that they're the right goals, and that we actually want them. I refer to the fact that sometimes what we might actually need to do is subtract things in our life, partly because of this culture, around measuring success through doing and this constant need to be busy and engaged in this culture of busyness. So I thought that maybe taking this bigger lens, looking at things from maybe a cultural perspective and seeing how we can address it might be helpful as you start planning for the coming year. And I also think that in the aftermath of the COVID lock downs, and as we've emerged into a more normal life over the past year, so many of us generally, but including the lawyers that I talked to in my life, are really still experimenting and thinking about how our work lives and our lives more generally can be different. I know that many of us don't want to return, and have been really trying hard not to return to a life that looks exactly like it did pre COVID. And so as hybrid and remote working have become the norm for so many of us, we're still considering how we structure our lives. This is causing interesting issues all around too, with employers as some of them, usually the more conservative and old fashioned to trying to force people back in the office more and more, and neglecting the benefits that they can potentially get - there's room for all sorts of tension there.
But more generally, I think the point of this episode is around the cultural issue about always needing to do more, about being constantly busy. And this feeling that if we are not constantly busy, there's something wrong. And at the same time for so many of us, there's so many things that are competing for our attention. And that's heightened by our obsession with our phones and social media, you know, that constant peeing on our phones to distract us. And so many things that we could be looking at that will give us that dopamine hit that we so often crave. And for women in particular, who still so often carry the double load of taking primary caring responsibilities for children or elderly relatives, this altogether can simply be simply exhausting. You know, we might feel that we're constantly busy yet never living up to expectations, you know, there's always something extra that we have to do, or something that we're not achieving. And we just feel like we're barely holding it together, if at all. Now, in the last number of months, I undertook a course with the Neuro Change Institute, which is an Australian company, or Institute sorry, that's linked to life in balance careers. It's called transcendence. And I did that course. And one of the things that I learned about was this idea of the doing obsession, which came from a coach called Brad Stolberg who has written an excellent book about this called 'The practice of groundedness: a transformative path to to success that feeds not crushes your soul'. I'll refer to it in the show notes for this episode. What I really liked about it, I grabbed the book and absolutely ploughed through it and have been recommending it to friends.
What I like about it is that he has a great term for the phenomenon that I've just described. He considers it a doing obsession, and calls out what he terms heroic individualism. So his definition of heroic individualism is that it refers to a game of one upmanship. And that limiting belief that measurable achievement is the measure of success. Now, I found that really profound, because I think that that permeates so much of our culture. I think it's a really great way to describe the cultural ills that we're dealing with. I think it's particularly American. But I do think that it's infiltrated Australian culture. And for us, given that this podcast is pitched as lawyers, I think it's pretty clear that it's particularly endemic in lawyer culture.
Now, I don't doubt that. Over the past few years, since the pandemic, a lot of it has been challenged. And there has been cultural change. I think law firms and legal employers more generally are much more cognizant of the need for sustainability and that emphasis on the wellbeing of lawyers. But I don't for a minute think that that culture has overall disappeared. I think it's still there, I think in some places more than others, and it can be all pervasive. And so I just want to, you know, put together a little case study that I thought of, which I think kind of personifies or demonstrates this cultural malaise, if we call it can call it that.
So just consider the stereotype of the private sector lawyer, we'll call her Sally. So just imagine Sally, she went to a top law school, maybe it was Sydney University. She joined a top tier firm and has put in long workdays for years, maybe 60 to 80 hours a week. The endless hours is not just a means to success, but it is success. Sally believes that if she didn't work those hours, she would not be successful. Nor would she be important, because working those hours is the sign that she has an important role. She can't ever probably disconnect. Even when she's on holiday, she can't help but check her email. She's chasing partnership at a firm. And in the latest performance review that she undertook, she's definitely on the path to achieve it. But, and here's the issue, despite those sounds that have sorry, despite those signs of outward success, she isn't satisfied with her lot. She can feel that something is wrong. But she's not quite sure what she is so busy. She has a family too. So she's got two young children that she's looking after that that constant low level anxiety is just always with her. She feels that she's being pushed and pull from one thing to another. Then there's inflation and all those economic issues. And she feels that she's always on. You know, even when she steals a few hours on a Sunday to rest, she's restless and has a lot of trouble unwinding, she has trouble focusing is there's always something interrupting her or competing for her focus. She wants change, but she just doesn't know where to start. How can Sally be more content?
Now, I don't know about you. But for me, that is quite a powerful little story. And I can think of quite a few lawyers in my circle, who are definitely in the trap of this heroic individualism. And it's a constant merry go round. And it's not a happy place to be in because no matter how much you achieve, how many clients you get a great outcome for whatever your accolades, even if there's the goal of partnership, it's just not enough. And what happens is that these lawyers, they never feel feel fulfilled. Because there is just something always that they need to achieve, even greater. So it's like this treadmill, or maybe you could call it a hamster wheel. You know, that circular feeling where you're running and you're running faster, no matter how fast you run, you still end up where you began. At least that's the way it feels like. And so all of this is not to say, of course, that goals are bad. And I mentioned this in last week's podcast, you know, achieving things is not bad. We want people in the world who are working to achieve hard things, perhaps really, really hard things and that might take an enormous commitment and persistence. But the thing is, is that we need to be able to do that sustainably. We can't have our entire life tied up with the success of achieving the thing. We need to feel whole and grounded in the rest of our lives. So that we're achieving those goals just because it's fun to do so or it's something that we're committed to. But I suppose the differences is that our whole worth as humans is not tied up with that. Because if we don't do that, and our very identity is tied up with the goal, well, let's just seems to me to be a pathway to burnout and exhaustion really quickly. And in my mind, that doesn't help anyone.
All it does is lead to not being very happy, nor being very satisfied in our lives, we're just going to run out of steam, we're not going to be able to show up in the relationships that are important to us. We're not even going to be able to perform in a long term. And this is the ironic thing, be able to actually perform at our peak, because peak performance involves rest and the sustainability. So this is the trap of this culture is it purports to be about success, yet, ultimately, it doesn't even support success, because we can't, as humans, sustain that kind of pace. There are biological limits, we are humans that embody bodies, we have a physical self. So that's just not going to work. What we're going to be if we are all tied up in this heroic individual humanism, is be like the Hungry Ghost, which is a Buddhist concept, you know, always filling ourselves but never feeling full. So what I think is a good idea. And what I would encourage you to do, is to compare your experience to that of Sally's. So how many of the symptoms Do you suffer from? So on a scale of one to 10? One not being at all, and 10 being the maximum? To what degree? Do you think you are suffering from the doing obsession or heroic individualism? What ideas do you have about lawyering being a lawyer that are tied up with this heroic individualism, the doing obsession? And what is your identity outside being a lawyer? I mean, do you even have one? Or is your success and achievement so tied up with that, that you actually don't know who you are outside your job? And crucially, what is your definition of success? Is your definition of success, one where your participation in this cultural obsession with constant doing is essential? Do you actually need to do less? Maybe you need to redefine what being a successful lawyer means to you. Or redefine your very definition of what it means to be successful in your life. Ask yourself, how can you formulate an identity to this separate to your identity and work as a lawyer. And so as we enter the new year, and many of us are on holidays, it's a good time to reflect on some of these questions, as well as how are you using this rest time? Ask yourself, are you truly disconnecting? Are you feeling the need to keep pushing and doing? Are you constantly checking your phone? constantly checking Facebook, or whatever your social media poison is Twitter? That's a real cesspit. are you resting? Or do you feel angst about how you're using your time? And then the next step, of course, is well, what can we replace the doing obsession with so that we can thrive in all aspects of our lives? And that's what this podcast is about? I'm not going to give it an easy answer right now, because that would just be dishonest and glib. But essentially, it's going to be the theme of this podcast over the coming year. And there isn't an easy answer. There's no singular answer. In my own life, it is something I too am grappling with in a deep way. Because at this point in my life, in addition to my lawyer in four days a week, I'm seeking to build a sustainable thriving coaching and course creation business, that is addressing these issues for lawyers. So I'm going to be really, really busy this year, or this coming year, with big goals. And the whole theme of what I'm about is about sustainability. So it's going to be challenging, because I'm going to have more to do than I ever had, yet. I can't be a hypocrite. So I'm seeking in my own life to avoid this curse of measuring success through doing and seeking to build this sustainable life and business where I can grow and live fully but not burn out. Now, I don't expect to be 100% successful in this. But what I do think is that if I'm engaging with these ideas to as I share them, then I've got the best chance. So I'm keen to experiment myself and share the lessons that I learned. And I hope that you as an audience can get something from them. A key idea that I'm playing with at the moment, and then I'm particularly taken with is one that I also learned from Stulberg, which is this idea of what he terms groundedness. And his definition is that he calls it this unwavering internal strength, and self confidence that sustains you through ups and downs. And he defines it as a sense of wholeness. Now, I love this definition, because it goes to the fundamentals, which we so often neglect in our busyness. And the essential question that he poses is, well, what if instead of pursuing conventional success, could you do instead? Like, how could you focus on cultivating groundedness? What would happen, I think this has merit, and is going to be what I will seek to cultivate over the coming year, to provide the foundations for real deep success. And that's real deep success, not just in my lawyering not just in my business, but in my overall life. So that goes to the relationships that I have both family and friends and professional life, as a lawyer, in my business and my life more generally. So the things that underpinned it like my well being at home, how I look after my home, how I engage with my physical health. So let's see what what can be created.
Now, before I wind up, there is just one qualifier I wanted to mention, and I feel the need to just acknowledge that there is a question of privilege here. I do think it's important to understand that for some people, particularly on low wages, that need to engage in that culture of that doing obsession, might be for very real economic reasons that need to work long hours, and to constantly Chase conventional success, particularly in this inflationary environment might be due to real economic needs of needing to put the food on the table. But I'm also very aware that as lawyers are generally, now not always, but generally, very well paid for what we're doing. So for many of us that source of this doing obsession is not actually in very literal terms, economic, it's not about literally putting food on the table. We're well beyond that in our salaries generally. So there's a certain amount of social privilege that we have and economic privilege. And so to my mind, as people who are viewed and have a certain kind of external success by virtue of our very profession, and privilege that comes with that, I do think it's our responsibility to use that privilege responsibly. And I also think that given that we have that little bit of extra economic freedom, we have the opportunities to kind of be at the forefront of the social change that happens post the pandemic, in that we can really push the boundaries. Have a think about what insights you gained. And then I encourage you to ask yourself, how could you implement just one thing from this podcast? I'd love to hear from you. So please feel free to email me you can get me at Kathleen at minervacoaching.net.au or on social media, feel free to look me up on LinkedIn to Kathleen Brenner and see the show notes for further details. Till next time and thanks for listening!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
