Season 2, Episode 3 Final podcast - fully edited 12 February 2025
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You are listening to The Thriving Lawyer with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. I'm Kathleen, a highly experienced lawyer and an International Coaching Federation accredited coach.
And I am Carla. Like Kathleen, I am an ICF certified coach and I have worked with top leaders and professionals, many of them lawyers, at some of the world's biggest organizations.
My focus is on using evidence based approaches to help my clients thrive at work and in the rest of their lives. Together,
we bring you the Thriving Lawyer podcast, a podcast filled with ideas and inspiration, as well as practical tips to help you thrive as a lawyer and in the rest of your
life. Let's get into it.
Welcome to episode three of season two of the Thriving Lawyer podcast with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. So in this episode, we're going to go into quite deeply something that we think is really crucial to understanding how lawyers can thrive. And this is looking at navigating what the hidden obstacles are that keep lawyers languishing.
We'll go deep into the barriers that prevent legal professionals from thriving. And we'll look at practical strategies and real world examples so that you can actually make real change. Before we get into it, I just want to make the comment that with the obstacles that prevent lawyers thriving.
There's two different kind of origins of them. One is very much the things and factors out there in this crazy world of ours that prevent people generally from thriving. And particularly professionals who are working in an office environment, whether it's remote or in person or a combination. And then on the other hand, there are certain things that are unique to our legal profession that really exacerbate.
The problems that we have and can really keep us languishing. So we'll go through and cover some of those, the key ones that we think that you should know about. Because it's really only once we start to identify them and then think about how they show up in our own life, that we can then work towards addressing, but before we get into it, I should welcome my cohost here, Carla.
And say welcome and check in. So why don't you tell me a little bit about how you're doing this week?
Hello, Kathleen. I'm well, I'm in the midst of adapting to a new routine with the kids back at school. My girls have a lot of afterschool activities, so life has definitely gotten full and now it's more important than ever to carve out time to take care of myself.
So that I can show up for my family and work with the same level of energy and enthusiasm. So I have learned that it always takes a bit of experimentation to find what works and what doesn't. So I'm like in the middle of experimenting with the routines and what is the self care that I need. I have to put in place to be able to handle everything.
How are you doing, Kathleen?
Similarly, I don't have the children, but I do have multiple priorities between the lawyering, this thriving lawyer work, and also a real focus that I'm having on my health. It really is bringing up new challenges. in particular in the fitness realm because I'm really investing a lot of effort there and I'm finding it so important for being able to actually rest, sleep, etc.
And it's also interesting working with the trainer in terms of really gradually and thoughtfully increasing the levels of challenge there and then noticing what difference has happened and what the impact of that is. So it's yeah, interesting space to be in.
Yeah, we're both in this similar aspects, right?
Like trying different things and making sure that yeah, we're taking good care of ourselves because that's so important.
Yes. And I think what's really important there to note too is that It's been really important for me to be very proactive and it was only after I've done this work of identifying the things that were keeping me previously from thriving as much as that I, as I wanted to, that I was able to begin to make those changes.
And so that's probably a great place to go back right into the theme for today and particularly quote a statistic that I mentioned in our very first episode of this season, which was around the theme of lawyer wellbeing. And you might recall for those who listened to that, and if you haven't, I really encourage you to, cause it was all about lawyers and thriving and languishing.
The College of Law Australia recently released its Law Forward 2024 Legal Industry Satisfaction Survey. And it found in that survey that almost 70 percent of lawyers that it surveyed had experienced burnout in the past year. Now that's quite an extraordinary figure. Carlisle. What's your reaction when you hear that again?
Absolutely. Seventy percent is such a staggering number, and yet, when I hear that, I'm not surprised. This issue has happened throughout the legal profession, hence why we've started with the thriving lawyer, right? And the question we need to ask ourselves is we can go in this in that aspect of why is this happening?
What are the underlying drivers of such a spread, burn out? But perhaps more important, it's how can we address this? It's clear that there are deep systemical and cultural challenges embedded within the industry. That's exactly what we're exploring here a bit today in the podcast, but what we want to dig into some of these obstacles, particularly those that sit at an individual level, right?
The hidden tendencies that might serve well in one area, but hinder in the other, and on the rent, the rest. The rentalist's pressure to perform, the ever present perfectionism, it all adds up, and it, over time, it can really, take a toll on wellbeing. But Kathleen, what are some of the key obstacles that you've seen the lawyers face in this profession?
Yeah I think the point that you made about those challenges existing both at a cultural and individual level are really important. And Before I start going into each one at a very micro detailed level, I do want to really emphasize that qualification, that we are in no way putting the onus totally on the individual here.
However, as individuals, particularly if you are a lawyer that has responsibility for managing a team. If you have the ability to really influence the culture, then through your own activities as an individual, you can also influence that culture. We can all influence the culture to some degree, but there are obvious power differentials, right?
Depending where we are in our role. So with that qualification in mind, I, one of the things that has really struck me, and I think something that is affecting the world generally, particularly in this cultural moment, is this idea which I came across a performance expert called Brad Stuhlberg. I've mentioned him, I think, a couple of times including in last week's episode on values.
He referred to something that called the doing obsession. What he meant by that was the concept that in our society as a whole, we value busy for busyness sake. Basically, there is status that we give ourselves, that we give others. on the basis of how busy we are at any one moment. Now, if you think about the most common answer, when you ask someone, how are you?
If they don't say good, thanks, they probably are going to tell you that they're busy and that they're very busy. And they often say it very proudly as if it's something to cheer about and be really happy about. Now, This is really prevalent, I think, particularly in US culture, but Australia is by no means at all immune to that.
And whilst it's very common generally across all the professions, It really does manifest in the legal practice. I think all of us, whether it's ourselves or friends that we have or our lawyers or our colleagues, we've all seen those lawyers and legal practices where there is a real culture of overwork and excessive hours.
This is nothing new. It's been written about in the legal profession for many years. But an interesting kind of thing to think about is the deeper kind of level or the, the deeper rationale for this. And Brett Stuhlberg went even further when he talked about the doing obsession. And he talked about what he called this hungry ghost metaphor, which is drawn from Buddhist philosophy.
So it's not original from him. And I think that's really interesting. But really what that hungry ghost is about this ghost who's always chasing something. They're always consuming, but no matter what they do, how much they consume, they never feel full. Okay. They're always chasing that next thing.
And so if we think about lawyers, There's absolutely no doubt that it's viewed as a high status profession. It's hard to get into. It's hard to practice. In certain sectors of the legal practice, the salaries are high that now that's not universal. Many lawyers also work in community sector roles. But nevertheless, often those high salaries, the income, the lifestyle comes with it.
And there's that thing, that's been termed hedonic adaption, where we adapt to our circumstances and it feels like we're on a treadmill that can get very it's difficult to stop. It's very difficult to get off. We often get trapped. I can certainly think of, lawyers in the past.
in my life who have certainly got trapped on that. And the interesting thing is that when you talk to them about it, they often can't even imagine an alternative. It seems like what comes with that is a belief that that's just a part of the profession, that working those excessive hours, sacrificing your own wellbeing is the cost of being a fantastic lawyer.
So there's a lot there, but Carla. I'm interested in your experience, you've coached a lot of really high level professionals, a lot of lawyers too. How have you seen this show up or have you seen this show up? Do you agree with me? And if so, how did it show up and what was the impact?
Yes, I've worked with many high achievers, a lot of high achieving lawyers.
And there seems to be a trend there. They will say. If I just accomplish this next goal, then I will feel satisfied. But when they get there, they immediately raise the bar. It's like running a marathon, but where the finishing line keeps moving, and you never quite reach it. The impact of this, it's profound.
It can lead to exhaustion. Burnout, in some cases, even loss of connections with what truly matters outside work. I had an example of a client that was always the last person to leave the office, right? She felt that there was a sense of responsibility to set the example for the team. But in reality, she was feeling really miserable.
It was just too much because it was really, deteriorating her health and the relationships that she had. She wasn't even enjoying the work that she loved so much. And through a 360 feedback and coaching, she came to realize that she was clinging to an outdated belief that success was equal to sacrifice.
At the same time, she was asking her team to prioritize well being, work life integration. But she wasn't walking the talk because she thought she could handle the long hours. But in reality, she wasn't being the role model that she wanted to be. But once she let go of the belief and she made some bold and transformative changes, she started delegating more.
creating clearer boundaries. And today I think we can say that she's in a much happier place and she's thriving. But in this case, she was in control of her change, right? She recognized and addressed outdated beliefs and created a productivity system that was serving her better.
So Carla, I'm curious then as to, like, how long that change actually took because you've actually.
Outlined a lot of change that she had to make. And I can't imagine that this is the kind of thing that you fix in a week or two.
Oh no, absolutely not. It took a whole coaching engagement in that case was around six months. We've. had to, she had to become aware of what was happening. So it was a series of conversations and the feedback and the sort of action steps that like, that led to that, like for her to create, having conversations around delegation, creating small boundaries.
We started with very small actions, like being able to leave, we started leaving the office an hour earlier. Checking email, not checking email past a certain time. So it was a series of small actions that led to that bigger change. So it, it's easier when we summarize and we put it all in one, in a five minute discussion here, that example.
But, in reality it takes one, gaining the awareness that's what was happening. Creating the space to have the conversation, creating these space to to, apply this more action steps. 'cause a lot of the times we don't do anything about it because it is hard. It's, it's a big problem to deal with.
But when we start breaking into small action steps, each week we work towards something, it was the balance around the email, the boundary about leaving the office a bit earlier, and having conversations, setting really strong agreements with the team, resetting the agreements that she had.
So in that case was around six months.
Yeah, look, I think those two points around firstly, doing things gradually and then also having that spirit of experimentation that accepting that things might not work is so important. And it just brings to mind an experience that I had with a client who was also a lawyer And she had taken on an acting role and at quite a senior level, she was working incredibly hard in this context.
And by the time she came to me, she already had the realisation, there was the awareness of the key challenges, which was the excessive hours and for her it was having the lack of boundaries. There was a quite a bit of pressure. Perfectionism in there about wanting to do the perfect job that just meant that she wasn't leaving work on time at all.
And our work with her, again, it took a few months, but it was that thing of gradually going, what is the one single thing that's the most important that I could experiment with this week? Yeah. Perfectionism.
Perfectionism. And look, in this case, like in my case, in the case of the lawyer that you shared as well, they were in control of their chains, like they recognized and they addressed the set of beliefs that were no longer serving them.
But what happens when the obstacles are not within your control? When they stem from outside pressures, from work dynamics that feel beyond That's the bigger challenge that many lawyers face. So I'm wondering if you could share a little bit more about the lack of control over work, the high intensity patents of the legal industry.
Yeah when you think about the research, there's definitely research I think it was the International Bar Association I'll check the sources and put it in the show notes. But it really found that some of these issues such as lack of control over work, the high intensity work patterns, the having to bill those cursed six minute into increments that so many of us have to deal with.
All contribute to lawyers languishing or worse, the mental health issues are greatly exacerbated at least by those issues. And you can see why if you think about control over work, particularly at the more junior levels, but even when you're senior. You might have a bit more control, but we are so service oriented in the nature of the work that we undertake.
We get, clients, and then we have to service those clients by providing them advice, representing them in court if we're a barrister, preparing for cases if we're, litigators working with barristers. Not necessarily a lot of control over, The volume of work, if we're dealing with courts, then court timetables are external to us.
A lot of external pressures. It can mean sometimes, if you absolutely have a case coming up, or an urgent advice that somebody needs the advice really quickly, then inevitably there are going to be peaks and troughs, and there are going to be really intense work patterns. To try and get that work done.
I think it's also fair to say that in recent years, client demands are only becoming more significant. The expectations on lawyers are sky high. The expectation of us as a trusted advisor with our clients. So these can all feed this cycle of stress where, you know we just feel like we're stuck. And that can be really hard to shift.
And depending on where we are, we're going to have differing levels of control. We're, we are not for a moment here saying that you as an individual lawyer can click your fingers and through a different mindset, get rid of all of these problems. Again, some of them are cultural and structural.
But what we want to encourage you as an individual lawyer to think about is like of, even just of those obstacles that we've already mentioned, which are the ones that affect you? Maybe it's none of those. Maybe it's something else. And we'll get through other examples later. But there are ways that you can go about it.
Color. If you have a client walk in your door, the example of the one that you talked about changing and experimenting, but let's just imagine for a moment that client perhaps isn't the leader. They're an individual contributor, an individual lawyer in the team. They get assigned matters by their partner.
They have to do the work. There's you know, high billing targets. For example, they might have a billing target of six and a half or I saw a LinkedIn post this morning that showed that some of the law firms even have seven and a half or eight hour targets for their first year lawyers. So what do you say to that lawyer?
There is definitely a lot there, right? The lack of control, the sense of being out, not being able to control the challenge and the very belief that many lawyers hold about how they should be managing their work. The billable hours, yes, that, the pressure. But then there is one thing, like all those pressures and challenges, our core belief that we have about our own work and how we set boundaries, quite often you hear, the professionals and lawyers specifically internalize the belief that success means You know, endless hours, never saying no, what is it, the thinking, the automatic and sometimes unexamined beliefs that reinforce the lack of control and create that deeper sense of stress, right?
Yeah, this is how it is. I have no control and I have to work hard. And that's the belief that it's feeding. You're already dealing with all of that. So sometimes, obviously there's from different cases and with, different conversations that we are having. First we need to gain awareness, like to break the cycle.
It's really important to take a step back and evaluate these beliefs, the automatic thoughts and beliefs that we have. Sometimes this requires the support of a coach, a mentor, leadership, feedback, like to learn, to even be able to notice. how we are handling that day to day, and learn how to prioritize the tasks, to work more effectively, to evaluate how you're spending the time.
And sometimes it's like challenging the way that we deal with things. Look, I worked this way when I was a junior at this firm, and now I am like a middle manager here. What am I letting go of and what systems am I creating to this new reality? It requires some sort of evaluation. Open conversations with leadership sometimes is required as well about creating sustainable workflows that can help you, create a more, a healthier, work life integration.
And experiment, like we've been saying, like with a few strategies, to help with that.
Yeah. There's so much there in the way that you go about the workday, a simple example as you were talking about, how you go about it was how do you set yourself out to not have distractions?
So that you're not checking the phone on the social media or getting the beeps or the email. I was coming up and beeping and, getting there, but, even stepping back the, just the one piece that I would add to all the great points that you raised there is, very much going back to basics and thinking about what is your own unique vision of you thriving?
What's important to you? All those factors that we talked to in the first two episodes about really understanding what it would mean for you to thrive, your values, clarity, because it's only when you have that clarity, I would think at that high level that you can begin to think about is this, am I operating as I wish to be am I in the right place?
And that's, that shouldn't be frightening to employers because an employer wants a lawyer who's engaged and productive. So thinking about whether you're best suited to the environment that you're in might be a difficult choice that you have to make at some point. But when you have that values clarity, I think it's much easier to then identify and go okay at what level does this problem exist?
Is it just a matter of me prioritizing better or having better discussions? I also just want to add, in my own legal career, the way that I have navigated this over the years has been twofold. Firstly, I very deliberately made the decision to be a public lawyer for the service element of it.
Also understanding that it provided better workplace and life integration. And a few years ago, I improved even that through my new employment arrangements. And that took a lot of decision making and work to be able to make that change. And it wasn't very easy at the time because there was a lot of things going on.
But also on the other hand, in my work, particularly as I gained more experience and I, don't claim to have been perfect at this. There was certainly really hard moments in the career. But. When things did work really well, it was usually because I was having those conversations with the other lawyers, with managers about workload, about what I was doing so that I was able to be more intentional and also trying to implement practices like having.
Deep times for kind of focus, for example, have really helped, but again, we've gone into the very micro kind of detail around being less busy. But with that doing obsession, I want to come back to that hungry ghost that we talked about earlier. There's something a lot deeper there, right?
It's not just about being busy, but it's about valuing that. And our value as a professional is linked to. That busyness and that constant busyness. So if we're not experiencing that, we must be a failure. We mustn't be working hard enough. It's a lot more kind of abstract in the way that our identity is constructed.
So I don't think it's a matter of just going, Oh, how can I delegate more or learn how to say no. There is actually, if you are suffering from that, if the doing obsession is something that is affecting you, really. challenging that belief at that high essential level. Do you agree?
Absolutely. Yeah. And re evaluate what success looks like.
Success doesn't have to always mean working very long hours and hitting every single target, right? Sometimes shifting the perspective on What success looks like and to focus on the value and the quality of working and not just the quantity of hours worked as well, right? And in one point that you mentioned as well, like having the clarity around your values and the other one is the regular reflection, right?
Because as, things change, it's almost like a daily check in. How did I manage my time today? What can I do different to feel more in control? Like it's asking those questions, like sometimes we only perceive the consequences, like we are tired and exhausted. But what led there? And being able to be like, and I think Kathleen, like from what you've shared that you've, you deliberately create the environment, by checking in this is too much or this is not enough, let me have the conversation, let me create space in my day to be able to do what makes me feel better. It's not easy by all means, like it does take us asking questions. Sometimes we have the answers, but we don't ask the questions. We just get stuck with the feeling and the consequences of the exhaustion and all the things that we've been talking about. But there was something else that came to mind here as well that I wanted to ask your take on it.
Like on top of the lack of control, there is also the pessimism. There is a strength for lawyers, it can really serve them well in some aspects of their work, but it can also reinforce this cycle of stress and burnout that we are talking about. So I'm just wondering, Kathleen, how do you see pessimism contributing to this?
And could you speak, to how it affects lawyers ability to break free from it? The cycle of all the work.
This is something that I have been talking to a few lawyers in my circle about recently, and I remember I first heard about it years ago when I had to attend as a senior lawyer in government, a session with a performance expert, and he first brought this to my attention, this idea that lawyers are one of the only, if not the only profession where we are trained for our pessimism, we are rewarded for our pessimism and it's seen as a great thing, and it's obvious why. Now Martin Seligman, who is the father of positive psychology in the sense that some of the key ideas have really come from his work. He's a professor, I believe, at the University of Pennsylvania.
He wrote a really famous article from 2005. Entitled something along the lines of why lawyers are unhappy and he made that exact point, lawyers are trained for their pessimism and we want our lawyers to appropriately identify risk. You can just imagine the problems that would emerge if lawyers were a bit more Pollyanna ish.
If we were like, oh, that proposal, yes, go for it. Go for it. There's no risks. Just do it. It wouldn't be a very happy situation for our clients. So lawyers do well when they bring their very well honed, sceptical and pessimistic mindset to legal problems. They analyze the problems, they identify the risks, and then hopefully, and this is where I think there's been a lot of work over recent years to really shift lawyers into working with their clients, to take it beyond that, to then work as partners with their clients, to help facilitate where the clients want to or need to get to to be more solutions focused in that. But nevertheless, it is really quite a fundamental truth that we do need to bring a certain pessimism to our role in order to identify the risks.
That's fine as well as it goes, but the problem begins where we misapply that skill in parts of our life where it has no business. I can think of times in my own life where this has happened. If I think back to the time when I was still in Canberra, I was wanting to move back to Melbourne. I knew with absolute clarity that's where I was.
That's what I wanted to do. The problem was, is that I didn't really have a clear sense of how I would achieve that. At the time I was a Commonwealth public servant. I really had no understanding of the opportunities that existed in the state government and given the conditions that existed in the Commonwealth, there was quite a degree of fear.
I had a very c clear career path. In the Commonwealth, I had a very secure job. It seemed like a massive step to take at the time. And I really felt stuck. This was before I discovered coaching at all. And I really had got to the point where, it was an example of misapplying that pessimism in my personal life.
I would just saw risks everywhere. And it really clouded my judgment about what options were available and prevented me from really dreaming and visioning about what it is that I wanted to create, which I needed to do before I could then take the steps to make it happen. And it's interesting because I eventually did it was with working with a coach who helped me.
Really go back to those fundamentals about what it is that was important to me that I was then able to apply for those jobs. But it's interesting that as I've talked to other lawyers about this, cause I wanted to test what they thought of Martin Sullivan's thesis and the few that I, that are in my circle that I've mentioned this to, I can think of one in particular who just said, wow, Kathleen, like the penny dropped.
This is so true. He said, I can absolutely see how I have done that in my own life. The difficult thing is as though is because it's such an ingrained part of the way that we think. We don't often recognize it because it just seems to us normal. It's the way that we, it's the glasses the binoculars, or, the frame that we use to view the world, the lens, that's a better word.
That's the lens that we use. And if we start applying that lens to everything, we can start being really risk averse and we can let it, really affect the way that we view our life overall, the possibilities that are available to us. And all of that can have really significant impacts on our wellbeing.
This is spot on. It can really become a liability in other areas of a lawyer's life. Yeah. And the pessimism serves really well in assessing risk, but it's really critical to notice. When that mindset is leaking to other areas of our lives, and as you mentioned sometimes we're not even aware so being able to recognize that, even like the old, Martin Seligman did all the research around the positivity and the positive psychology, right?
And linking that if you're not having those aspects, the positive emotions, It, how do you create a thriving life? So we're bringing the awareness around the pessimism, right? And the idea is you're like, it's not just don't be pessimistic. It's watch it when it's misapplied. It can limit how you see the world.
It can prevent to embrace possibilities, can prevent from dreaming, like you gave your own example. And sometimes they impact our well being as well.
So that kind of is a nice little segue into what I want to talk about next, which is related. So the, the skepticism and the pessimism is one aspect, but with us high achievers, it's that old thorny issue of perfectionism.
It just won't go away. And it's so prevalent, lawyers, generally high achievers, we're trained for that as well. We're also rewarded for that and it can be inculcated to us from very junior levels of the profession. Attention to detail is really important in the law. And to some degree, that focus and that high performance is really crucial to the work that we do.
The problem is when that leads to this perfectionism where no matter what we do, it's never enough. We just get stuck in that circle of always just that little bit extra. We'll spend extra hours, you might've done the bulk of illegal advice, but you'll spend the whole evening just finessing it and getting that extra few percent better.
And, I used to work for a manager who used to try and encourage us not to be like that. She would say, you're not giving them the Rolls Royce advice. Just give them the, and I can't remember the car brand, something like a Toyota. Let's just say not meaning to demean a Toyota. They're a great car.
They do the job. And in fact, that, that's the point, right? That we needed to give really practical advice that would assist the client. And really. In reality, spending those many extra hours wasn't actually going to give them the extra value that they needed. Obviously that depends on the circumstances in what you're doing.
If you're regularly finessing in advice or doing extra work and spending those extra hours and not going home on time, might be worth checking is this an issue for you? Are you wearing that perfectionism as effectively a badge? Now, Carla, I am sure in your coaching that this is something you see all the
time.
Absolutely. It's very common, right? For high achievers to have that perfectionism tendency, yeah, as you say especially wearing as a badge of honor. Like I I like things perfect, I really like the work of Brenner Brown on perfectionism and linking to shame and vulnerability, right?
And we don't always realize, but it keeps us stuck in a cycle of fear of being judged, fear of failing, fear of not doing enough. Perfectionism doesn't allow for mistakes. It doesn't leave room for growth either, creativity or like really true connection. Like it's the belief that can earn our worth through flawless performance.
But that idea, it's flawed itself. And I can deeply relate it, like early in my career, perfectionism somewhat served me well, like I was able to push myself to achieve high standards and deliver, what I believe to be excellent work and perfect work, but it's when I realized that it hindered in other areas of my life.
Especially when I started a family and I became a mother, as well as a professional. So I wanted to be the best and the perfect in all areas. And anyone that is a mom and knows that it's no perfectionism, it's impossible to be perfect, right? And the pressure of trying to balance everything with that perfectionism mindset was impossible.
The constant striving for perfection, it really took a toll on my health and my relationships, and most importantly, my sense of peace. It wasn't until I started challenging the mindset and realizing that perfectionism was actually holding me back rather than helping me achieve greater things.
And I started breaking free from that process. But the process of learning that pressure has been really transformative to me. And it's a lot, it's about, a lot of it is about noticing, right? And I practice a lot of my clients, the 80 20 rule. It means like identifying the 20 percent of your work that yields the 80 percent of your results.
And it's a way of prioritizing what really matters, right? And letting go of the obsessive focus on every single tiny detail. In the legal work, it is, you have to pay attention to details. I'm not saying don't pay attention to detail, but where are you bringing that same mindset where it's not necessary?
Yeah. So it's real discernment and judgment, isn't it? Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah. And it's probably not one and done. Like I, I just want to challenge you a little bit by asking a question, like with that perfectionism, I know, and you've just spoken so beautifully about how you've made a lot of changes, challenged your own thinking with that.
But I imagine it's something that you never completely deal with. Like it's something that. You, that constant noticing has to be there, but with the tools and the things that you've learned over the years from coaching, you're able to catch yourself. Am I onto something here?
Absolutely.
And sometimes I forget like sometimes I'm not aware, like it's one aspect of it that I think it's really important. It's it's being able to be present enough to pay attention to what's happening. Sometimes. I'm caught up, there is other things, life gets a bit full and I lose my ability to pay attention, especially if there is multitasking.
I just shared an example with you before we got started. I was walking and trying to, reply to messages. Yeah, you lose the presence. I don't even remember where I walked. In instances like that yeah, I can see myself trying to be perfect in many different areas, right?
I think it's being able to catch ourselves. And I think what changes, it's that the, it's shorter, the time that we spend in perfectionism tendance, like we can today with what I've been doing a lot of work around that I can catch myself, quicker, but I also create a lot of space to be able to be in the mindset where my attention, where I can notice where my attention is going.
Transcribed And not allowing to be so reactive and triggered, sometimes we have emotions at the time emotions have us. So being able to discern and okay, so the emotion is having me now. Okay. So how do I step back?
Yeah. So what I really love about that is, You really harnessing your own power to step back, have that kind of metacognition.
We'll talk about that another time, but effectively you're thinking about your thinking to catch you in that moment. To think about what is in your power to affect how you're bringing that mindset to your work or your life more generally. And I think it's really important for lawyers because I think it's a little too easy sometimes for us to say a lot of us still work in really high achieving competitive work cultures.
There, there work cultures for some people in some places, there is a lot of change. So I'm by no means tarring the legal profession with the same brush. It is really diverse overall, but there are pockets where it's highly competitive. I believe there might not be much diversity.
Might have, a lot of, let's face it men in leadership positions still, there might not be that much diversity in some workplaces. And it might be easy in that kind of circumstance to say that culture of competitiveness where I have to be perfect is just part of the profession.
But what we want to encourage you to go is you, there is agency and power to think about, is that something I'm going to participate in? How can I bring my own thinking in terms of that perfectionism? How can I challenge my own pattern? of working. And that's where it's so important to really have that understanding of your values.
So we've covered a lot of ground there, and I'd really like to pause, step back. Firstly, acknowledge that by no means are we saying these are the only obstacles, but there's a good few there that should provide some food for thought for you to consider whether these barriers affect you. Because certainly lawyers will be affected in different ways.
Some of us might be more prone to pessimism in our thinking or perfectionism will really depend on the individual. But the first step is to really pause and reflect. Really think about what are the challenges that are the key ones that affect me. Once you've identified that, it's then that you are able to begin to observe how they show up.
You can start noticing. When do they show up? What is the impact that they have? One way you might want to consider looking at this is to actually commit to journaling for a week or two. Notice when that perfectionist tendency comes up. Or when you start applying that pessimism in a context where it doesn't really belong.
You could experiment with how you might address it. Taking one small step to challenge one of the tendencies. So Carla, I'm interested in your thoughts. Say a lawyer identifies that a key issue is that they've been caught up with the, say, the doing obsession, and that's caused them to languish because they're always busy, they're always feeling exhausted.
What would you suggest that they do as a starting point?
Yeah. So I think the first point is what you've just shared, like pause. Try to understand what is happening. What is going on? Why are you caught up in that doing obsession? And then maybe creating some intentional boundaries around your time, your schedule what is missing?
Is it reconnecting with your personal life? Is it taking breaks from the constant cycle of being on all the time? Once you understand, you can then start prioritizing more effectively and that requires you to pay attention in what is important and let go of the tasks that are not critical.
And sometimes we can have to go through them. Do we delegate? Do we stop them altogether? And then another important aspect as well is to, like, how are you recovering, going at a million miles per hour? But once you decided that you wanted to slow down, what is that slow down? How do you make rest and enjoyable activities a non negotiable as part of your routine?
Because they help you recover, they help you be even better. And then you identify, a few, one or two small action steps. That you can manage and allowing these adjustments to gradually become bigger and bigger, but one step at a time. And
so I suppose the way that you need to approach that too is that this is an experiment because you might try a little step and it might not work, right?
Absolutely. Or it could be that you need to adapt, you need to change things up a little bit.
It's useful as well to create some time for yourself to reflect and ask the questions You know, what am I trying to achieve by staying so busy? Is it recognition? Is it security? Is it something else? Trying to understand.
This really helps uncover the deeper motivation behind the doing obsession.
So approaching that analysis and that exploration, actually with a growth mindset and with self compassion there, both concepts that we teach in The Thriving Lawyer because we find that you need to be able to approach that gently.
Okay. Carla, There's an awful lot there that we've covered today, both in identifying some of those typical obstacles that get in the way of lawyers thriving, but then also some real practical steps that you can take to start to identify them. And with self compassion and a growth mindset, really challenge them and experiment with trying to change the thinking, That you have, and then the behaviours.
To sum up, what I'd like to just really emphasise is that if you're a lawyer listening to this and you're feeling overwhelmed by some of the obstacles we've discussed. Know that you are not alone and it's okay to start small. You don't have to tackle everything at once. Just pick one thing. Don't overwhelm yourself.
It could be setting a boundary. It could be letting go of perfection in a single task. Just experiment with what it's like to do that and how you feel. Or maybe carve out 10 minutes a day just for yourself and focus on that. Give yourself permission to take it slow. But reflect. Identify. And just try something different.
It could be really simple and it doesn't have to take a lot of time, but from small things and small changes, big things can grow. So thank you. Thank you, Carla, for sharing this episode with me. We'll certainly. Share the Seligman article that we referred to earlier in the show notes and that's one again we really encourage you to read because we think you will really relate to it and we'll also put sort of other links as relevant in the show notes particularly to our guide to thriving in 2025.
Until next time lawyers, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the thriving lawyer with Kathleen Brenner. And Carla Ferraz, if you like it, please share it with your lawyer friends and colleagues, and tag us on Instagram at @thriving lawyer or on LinkedIn via the links in the show notes. And if you liked what you heard, please drop a review in apple podcasts.
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If you'd like to work with us, check out our free resources and our signature course, the thriving lawyer. Which you will find at www.thrivinglawyer.com.au. You can also download our free guide, the lawyer's guide to thriving in 2025. A sustainable roadmap for success.
It's filled with great tips and ideas so that you can begin to make real change. You'll find the link to that in our show notes.
We hope this podcast has given you massive value. And that you can use it to begin to create your own thriving life. A life where you can thrive as a lawyer. And in the rest of your life.
