Smart Lawyers, Dumb at Life, Part 2

I stand by my assertion that lawyers are, by and large, a bunch of quitters. Not in the sense that accusation is usually hurled, mind you. At work, lawyers tend to be tenacious and will dig their heels way in when they think they’re right, i.e., every other minute at the very least.

A magnanimous gesture, lawyer-style.

No, what I mean is that lawyers quit when the going gets tough at anything they’re not already pretty good at. Things they tend to suck at, like relationships, compromise, and dreams, for starters. Because they’re so used to being smart and good at the smarty-pants stuff, they’ve set themselves up for motivation by external validation, and haven’t worked much at resilience.

Resilience is, essentially, the ability to bounce back after a failure or set-back. To have hope in the face of disappointment. Looking back, I can count on my hands the number of lawyers I’ve known who are resilient at anything but work.

But if you’re performing well at work, why does that matter? And surely, career coach, you’re not saying we should all go and find a job that we suck at just to learn to be resilient?

Well, no, I’m not. But you need to step out, way out, of a world in which you only do stuff when you’re pretty sure of the outcome.

Big Egos + Surviving Them = Resilience

Sure, resilient people do stuff they’re good at. Smart, resilient people can become excellent and highly successful in their fields. But what separates most lawyers from this career nirvana is that they don’t like what they’re doing, and they’re too afraid of disappointing people to stop doing crap they hate but happen to be good at.

As our Quora friend put it, “When you have a big ego, disappointing people is really painful.” So lawyers stay stuck in careers they hate, because they can’t bear the thought of disappointing Mumsy or Pops or Spousey or Spot, or just generally not living up to the cultural expectation that money + prestige = great life.

Lawyers also stay stuck because getting out of the traditional legal career track takes resilience, by soldiering on in the job search when you don’t get squeals of delight from hiring managers. It takes resilience to keep on slogging when instant, lucrative offers for fascinating work don’t materialize. It takes persistence to keep networking when you don’t see immediate payoff. It takes courage to step into the uncertainty of searching for a job that’s off the well-worn path most lawyers tread.

What’s So Wrong With Playing It Safe?

So why not stay where it’s safe and lucrative? For starters, it’s very hard indeed to be great at something you despise. Of course it can be done, but at what cost to your soul, and the souls of those around you? Your misery affects everyone around you, even your goldfish.

What’s that, you say? Matters of the soul aren’t going to pay the bills? Well, you’d be surprised. Happy people are more productive, which often translates into better job performance and therefore better compensation. And as reams of research demonstrates, happier people are also healthier. It sure is a lot easier to hold down a job if you’re healthy.

It’s the Relationships, Stupid

As a recent article in The Atlantic discusses, the key to happiness lies not in your status, but in your relationships. The more you have a supportive network of family, friends, and colleagues, the more satisfied and happy you feel. It’s not about the money; in fact, happiness studies find that Louisiana, one of the poorest states, boasts the highest level of happiness, while California and New York, with their pots of affluence, rank pretty low.

Lawyers, like most good overachievers, usually value relationships about as much as toe fungus. Plus, with the very strong Thinking predisposition (of the Meyers-Briggs type), most lawyers are usually not so hot at social interaction and relationship-building.

Future lawyer, demonstrating those winning social skills already!

Wounding, hurtful actions, which lawyers often excel at, are a sign of poor social skills. See how devaluing what you’re not good at works? It’s why most legal environments are quite toxic: Most lawyers aren’t naturally good at social skills, and rather than trying to get better at them, they simply ignore (or deny) their value and then allow themselves to give up on improving their relationships.

Good relationship skills take work, and resiliency. Lawyers are brittle, brittle people, socially. They don’t know how to greet people in the hallways and elevators, and so they simply ignore them. That happened to me endlessly as a young associate—partners would rather look at the ground or the wall than look at me and simply smile and say hello. I know from my current clients that this way of (non)interacting is still alive and well in firms.

What’s the Solution?

You will hate this, but I’ll say it again, anyway: Start doing some stuff you like, or are interested in, but may actually suck at. Pick something solely because you find it intriguing, not because you have any innate skills or experience in the area. In other words, substitute curiosity for fear.

Cultivating an attitude of curiosity, rather than one of performance, takes practice. For perfectionistic lawyers, it’s going to take, oh, years. So the best time to start is Right. This. Second.

At this point I probably should confess that I started this post about 6 months ago, and then let it sit because I wanted it to be fantastic, the kind of post that goes viral and helps thousands. (Who knows, it could!) But I had to get over myself and my deeply rooted perfectionism, before I could even finish writing it. I had to let go of the idea that this post had to be something brilliant and wondrous.

And, yes, I’ve been a professional writer for more than a decade. I’m not kidding about it taking years to get a handle on this perfectionism demon. You’ll probably never eradicate it, but you can learn to manage it, not let it control you, and live a much happier life.

One Small Step for Lawyer-kind

My suggestion is to start small. Take a one- or two-session knitting class. Learn how to build a birdhouse before you tackle a table. Learn how to draw a vase before you try sketching a face. Write a short story or two before embarking on the Great American Novel.

Resilience and curiosity are your new best friends, and they will need cultivating and daily tending. You don’t need to spend hours daily on them, but a little bit of attention every day works wonders over time. Keep trying to connect with what excites you, thrills you, maybe even scares you a little. Focus on that, and not the end product, and you will one day look back with gratitude at how far you’ve come in your happier life.

Jennifer Alvey is a recovering lawyer and recovering perfectionist. She helps unhappy lawyers find the things that thrill their souls, and helps them substitute curiosity for fear. If that sounds like something you need, email Jennifer today at jalvey@jenniferalvey.com to schedule a discounted sample coaching session.