When thinking about a subject for my blog this week, I decided to take the plunge and discuss that I really believe that most of the lawyers I meet don’t aim high enough. The goals they start out with are ones they can easily reach. True, many of them never even reach those, but I am now thinking that is because they are dull and boring and don’t excite the spirit enough to be committed to actualizing them.
What about if instead of just wanting more revenue, the lawyer’s umbrella goal (read my book for an explanation) was to become a judge? Certainly if the lawyer were in desperate financial shape that might not be appropriate but there are many attorneys out there who only think they need more income.
Wouldn’t the juices start flowing if it could be shown that a high lofty goal would benefit the attorney in more ways than simply lock stepping into traditional goal setting. Simply overcoming the resistance to thinking BIG will build confidence. This confidence then can be spread down into the attorney’s everyday life.
One of the valuable tools I present to coaching clients is to discuss how many more years of productive work lies ahead for each. A twenty five year old has 45 years if his/her health holds out. The fifty year old still has 20 years in this day and age. That doesn’t mean full time work all those years and there may be some break in time for children, etc. but the law allows us to work will into our “later years”. We are then EXPERIENCED ATTORNEYS.
When lawyers think in terms of years, they can begin to see that they have quite a bit of time to make changes and morph into lots of ways. Thinking of how far one could go in that time, is exciting.
I think I have been guilty of this myself. I often just plan for the next year and I used to plan just to survive. This is no fun. I’ve decided I’m going to reach very high (maybe not president!) but set some realistic but a lot higher goals than I have been working on. Want to take this journey with me? Give me a call at 831 466-9132 and we’ll talk about it.