Surviving the Worst Job Ever

As a society, and especially as lawyers, we have trained ourselves to panic and fight when “the worst” happens. If you’re reading this blog, that worst may be that law job you have right now, the law job that is killing your soul hour by hour. You’re desperate and hyperventilating that you may never get out. I get that, seeing as I was there a dozen years ago.

"Barn's burnt down, now I can see the moon."--Masahide, 17th century Japanese poet

We don’t think that fighting a nasty job situation is panicking, but at base that’s what declaring an event or situation “bad” is about. It’s a kind of black-and-white thinking that limits our resiliency, and hampers our creativity in responding to life’s ups and downs.

I’ve been reflecting on how we react when “the worst” happens in our lives. There are lots of “worsts” in modern life: identity theft, bankruptcy, divorce, death, having to clean up someone’s poop, losing your job, illness, abandonment. Sometimes, it’s even stuff like coming home at 11 p.m. from a day of being chewed out, and having to clean up really mucky, nasty trash that your neighbor’s dog strewed across your yard.

A lot of times, our first instinct is to throw ourselves a huge, whopping pity party: Why can’t anything ever go right? Could this happen at a worse time? Why me?

Yes, it does absolutely, totally suck to get kicked in the teeth. It hurts. It makes you vulnerable. I’m not suggesting you should pretend otherwise.

But those Why Me? questions–They’re a form of

Your Body, Your Mind, Your Legal Career

So how’s your mind-body connection these days? If you’re in a job that you can’t stand, I’m willing to bet it’s not too great. And that can lead to health woes big and small. As if you needed yet another reason to leave law, right? Well, maybe you do. Even though I have a job I love, I need occasional reminders about paying attention to my body and my whole self.

What is your heart saying about your job and your life?

Since before Christmas, I have been longing to do absolutely, 100% nothing. When my hairdresser asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told her I wanted to sit in front of the TV for 3 days and watch only what I wanted, which would basically be Law & Order SVU, Midsomer Murders, and House. Along with all those forensic crime shows, and of course Psychic Detectives. I kind of have a thing about what makes people tick, and especially what makes them tick in a really warped way.

But instead of watching TV, my version of doing nothing, I got ready for Christmas. In my house that means decorating and crafts, making yummy treats, vain attempts at tidying and decluttering, choir rehearsals, and of course, shopping for gifts and food. Oh, and the work thing doesn’t exactly go away. Then there’s the midnight service on Christmas Eve, which means I don’t finish with the Christmas Day prep until about 2 am. (Naturally, little man is up at 5:40 on Christmas Day.) This year, rather than journey to my in-laws in Florida the day after Christmas (yipee!!), we went to Kentucky for a few days. In other words, the usual holiday madness that most of us participate in.

Then there’s THE NEW YEAR. Time of new beginnings, reconnecting, new connections, plans for the year, blah blah blah. Yeah, summoning start-up energy during hibernation season. So even though I really wanted to do nothing but sleep once little man was back in school, I went to networking stuff. I squeezed in new clients. It was all good, mind you. I enjoyed myself and made some great new connections.

Then, it finally happened: My body said

The Story of Your Alternative Legal Career

What stories do you tell yourself about an alternative legal career? I don’t mean the official, upbeat networking version, or even the realistically optimistic one you might tell a career coach or a therapist. No, I’m talking about the ones your inner lizard croons into your ear, sabotaging you.

It’s the story we attach to events that cause us the most pain, as Martha Beck reminded me in her new book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature To Create the Life You Want. Yes, there is some pain when you aren’t getting any interviews in that new field you want to be in. It doesn’t feel great to not make the progress you want. But it’s the story you’re attaching to those lack of interviews and progress that makes you miserable and sure you are stuck in law forever.

Actually, “I’m going to be stuck in something I hate” is one of those stories you tell yourself. It’s that thought

Edit Perfect Out of Your Alternative Legal Career Search–and Your Life

My torts professor was terribly fond of saying that you only remember something after you’ve heard it at least 5 times. He would then intone, 5 times, “Negligence is not a defense to an intentional tort.” And whaddya know, after 20-plus years, I DO remember that! And, unfortunately, quite a bit about Mrs. Palsgraf and her trouble with crashing objects that got repeated endlessly. (If only there had been YouTube when I was in law school, we could have just watched this and moved right on.)

Perfect and its cousins may fill a dictionary page, but it won't fulfill you in work or life.

The same principal works on what we say to ourselves, too. That’s why I’ve been working to eliminate one word from my vocabulary: perfect. I use it way too much, and I don’t like the way it makes my brain tilt.

It’s a little odd, this obsession I have about ridding myself of that word. Mostly, I use it to describe something that works really well, or that fits the circumstances quite nicely. What’s so damaging about that?

For starters, it awakens my dozing inner lizard, Guido, who first gets excited about something finally being perfect; it’s about damn time! Then, Guido starts picking out all the flaws with whatever I’ve just described as perfect. Since that only takes a second or two, and since he’s up and about anyway, Guido then looks for other things whose flaws need pointing out. At this point we often veer into topics like money, my dowdy shoes, my singing, the amount of carbs I’m consuming, the exercise I’m not doing, or other fulfilling subjects.

Also, the stickler in me tends to pipe up annoyingly about how nothing on this amazing, gorgeous, wonderful earth is perfect, and so essentially I’m lying to myself and maybe others

Claim Your Potential, Quit Your Law Job Like David Johnson

In case you haven’t already spend a boatload of billables reading, analyzing and gossiping about Sidley partner David B. Johnson’s superb departure/retirement email, here’s the link from Above the Law.

It might be a good idea to seek your potential outside of a legal document, if you want that alternative legal career.

Of course, my hat is off to Mr. Johnson. Welcome to the ranks of lawyer-writers, sir.

For the rest of you who want to leave law, let’s talk amongst ourselves about that “untapped potential” Johnson references in his email. I have no way of knowing what he means by that, nor do I need to (it’s damn funny regardless). What I’m wondering is why you are deciding to live with your untapped potential, instead of taking steps to realize it.

The reality is, if you’re reading a blog about leaving law, law is not doing it for you. Your soul longs for its potential to be realized, and it isn’t going to be realized while being a lawyer. That’s what your unhappiness is all about.

Here’s what wanting to leave law isn’t about:

Questioning Your New Year’s Career Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are the fall leaves of career coaching: You know they’re coming, and you sigh because you know you will shortly be helping rake them up and put them in the compost pile where they belong.

Asking the right question can lead to the best answers, in your alternative legal career search and your life.

It’s not that I have anything against resolving to find a new career that makes you happy; far from it. (I kind of have a WHOLE FREAKING BLOG and coaching practice about that.)

But too often, New Year’s resolutions focus you on the wrong thing, on only the goal. So yes, you might use all that fresh-start energy of the new year to find a new job. But if you haven’t figured out the reasons behind where you are now, and more importantly what your purpose in life is, the chances are good you’ll find yourself a lipstick-on-a-pig new job. I would hate that for you.

So instead of a grand list of New Year’s resolutions that are almost guaranteed to make you feel like a failure by Feb. 14 (when most resolutions have become history), I would suggest something different. Something that can focus your attention where it will cause wonderful, sustainable, long-term change. The kind of change that makes your life more fulfilled and happy. Instead of a resolution, spend your year answering a deep question.

I found my question this year when a client sent me a fantastic quote from Pulitzer-winning poet Mary Oliver (thank you!):

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

This question resonates deeply for me. It reminds me that when we get in touch with our wild sides, the sides we want to organize and plan away, we get in touch with our power. And that power will lead us where we need to go, if we just let it.

Plus, there’s the reminder that each life is precious, unique and sacred. And that we need to take action, to do something, rather than sit and ruminate about life’s mysteries or inequities.

So rather than spending time making a long list of your faults you think need remedying, spend time instead on creating or finding your own question. Let it be deep, probing, and without an easy or known answer.

Using Your Question

Your question should remind you of what’s important to your life, and remind you of your purpose. Poetry is always a good place for questions. I like sites like Brainy Quote for online quote searching. You could meditate on the essence of something important to you, like “purpose of creativity,” “path to happiness,” “wisdom” or something similar. Or use a search engine. Inspiration has come from stranger places.

When you discover your question, post it in a couple places. I’d suggest places where you tend to feel stressed and overwhelmed (your desk, your screensaver, the bathroom mirror), and also where you spend time recharging.

In times of stress, focus on your question, and try to connect to its wisdom to lead you through turbulence. Make time at least weekly to reflect on your question, and how you can better incorporate its teaching into your life in ways small and large. Indeed, the more “small” ways you can find, the better. Looking for “big” ways to change your life too often triggers that inner perfectionist most lawyers harbor.

You might even spend time regularly journaling, drawing, or walking and contemplating your question.

I’d love to know what questions surface. If you’re feeling brave, post them in the comments, or email me.

Here’s to a year filled with surprising and enlightening answers.

Jennifer Alvey is a recovering lawyer who helps unhappy attorneys find their questions, and answers, to create a better career and life. She offers discounted sample career coaching sessions so you can find out how coaching can help you. Email jalvey@jenniferalvey.com to schedule your life-altering appointment today!

Why You Don’t Have Time to Find a New Legal Career, Part 3

It’s true, there are only a certain number of hours in a day. And, for every hour lawyers have, there are probably have 3 things vying for it. (Or maybe 30.) So you overbooked and overcommitted lawyers have decisions to make about how to allot that time. I’m gonna to make a wild guess here that you haven’t gotten any peace yet about what to leave in and what to leave out. Particularly, I’m guessing you haven’t figured out how to fit a soul-searching career switch into your schedule.

You'll spend less time splashing about in your alternative legal career search if you aim toward the big rocks. Photo courtesy Cheryl Bowes via Stockvault.net.

Here’s the thing: Don’t squeeze it in. Make it one of your top priorities. Give it the energy it deserves.

Now I know that some of you are looking at your Blackberries and your triple-booked calendars and are having heart palpitations. You already don’t have enough time! How can you add in yet another thing?

Here’s how: By letting things go–the unimportant things.

Make Your Life Rocky 

Franklin-Covey makes a lot of money using this bedrock principle in its planners and time-management classes. I don’t much care for the their calendars and time management system—it’s way too tedious and checkbox-oriented for a go-with-the-flow-and-improvise P like me (P of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator persuasion). But I did take away one really important concept from the Franklin-Covey class I once took: Put the important things, the “big rocks” of your life, first. They are the things that if you look back on your week, you will be deeply satisfied that you spent time on them.

Another way to look at Big Rocks is as the stones you need to have in the stream that is your life. If you have them, you can

Why You Don’t Have Time To Find a New Legal Career, Pt. 2

Are you ready to strike out and regain some of your lost personal power? To find the career of your heart and soul? To ditch the soulless legal profession, or at least the soulless part of it you’re currently inhabiting?

Line up your power from your heart, not other people's heads. Photo courtesy stockvault.net.

You might be nodding your head. But then you look at your calendar and your brain freezes up. When are you going to have time to fit in a career search when you aren’t even getting enough sleep? You’ve got a brief due, a meeting to prepare for, Christmas is coming and you aren’t done shopping or cleaning or traveling–and on and on it goes. You don’t have the time! You feel powerless and not in control of your fate, let alone your career search.

Most of our education and life experiences teach us to bow down to others’ power. Whether it’s society’s rules, school rules, family or cultural expectations, or actual laws, we’re taught that being the cog in the wheel is necessary, indeed required for a successful life in modern post-industrial society. We’re talking rules like:

• Doing work you love is a luxury you can’t afford in this economy;

Why You Don’t Have Time To Find a New Legal Career, Part 1

It’s one of those hallowed excuses in American culture and especially among lawyers: I just don’t have time. Occasionally it’s even true. But not nearly as often as it’s used as an excuse for staying stuck in a legal career you loathe.

How is all that busy working for you? Got that brilliant new alternative legal career lined up?

For example, I once had a client who was working at a BigLaw firm on a deal that was in the papers. Naturally (well really it’s insane, but not in BigLaw-think), he was working frequent 20-hour days. Yet in the midst of that madness and sleep deprivation, he managed to find the time to get some coaching, send in a resume and interview for a clerkship. Which, incidentally, is working out as a wonderful bridge job for him. So really, you do have the time.

What Are You Afraid Of?

The reason you think you don’t have the time is fairly simple: You’re not making your job search your priority.

Sometimes the truth sounds a little harsh, but truly I’m not saying that to judge. I know it’s not exactly easy to solve this little time conundrum. If it were, you would already have that alternative legal career and perfect life, right?

Rather than give you time management tips that likely won’t work, I’m going to talk about why you’re not making the job search a priority.

The number one reason

Recovering Lawyer: Writing a Novel

When I started exploring leaving law, I realized that what had drawn me to law was the power of the words that lawyers could harness. I was drawn to the eloquence and justice of many of the Warren court decisions. So with the realization that it was all about the words, I began exploring writing.

Once upon a time, you wanted to be a writer. Do it now and energize your life.

Despite the fact that I wrote on, rather than graded on, to Duke Law Journal (you could still do that back in the Jurassic), I really didn’t think I could write terribly well. Particularly, I didn’t think I could write what I really longed to write: fiction.

But I started working through The Artist’s Way, and then The Right to Write, both by Julia Cameron, creativity midwife extraordinaire. I started writing short stories. I stumbled upon an excellent writing group. (Good writing groups are really hard to find—they often are filled with blocked artists or other toxic personalities who get their jollies from tearing down fledgling work.) Even as I found a writing job, as a legal editor and reporter, I kept working on fiction.

But the fatigue of being a new parent knocked me out, and for 7 years I’ve written non-fiction, mostly job-related. Mind you, I loved a lot of that writing, and have learned so much about the craft of writing day in and day out. But non-fiction for me is the safe choice–it doesn’t scare me the way fiction does.

Inspired this fall by working through Walking in This World, another Cameron gem, and also by some of my brilliant, wondrous clients (thank you! thank you!), I decided to heed the call of an idea that’s been hounding me for more than a decade. This work feels huge and, honestly, intimidating as all hell.

Spiritual Exhilaration

Cameron talks about how many of the neuroses and psychoses of blocked artists disappear when