Category: CHANGE

DO I LIKE TO GO TO WORK EACH DAY?

As Steve Jobs said: “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been NO for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something”.

This actually sounds like a great idea.  That question should give you a good idea if you are at least contented with your work.  If not, then just answering NO, even if it is only to the mirror, is not a solution.

There are several steps you need to take:

  • Determine exactly what is it about the work that you dislike. This is easier said than done.  Is it the clients? Is it the actual work? Is it your co workers or boss?  Is it the stress? Not enough income?  exactly what is it?
  • Next, determine what you do like about your work.  This is usually easier.
  • Take one of the items you have determined you don’t like about your work.  For instance, maybe it is the long hours and the stress that produces.  Ask yourself if this item could change would I want to go to work?
  • If the answer is still NO, go onto the other items you have identified and ask yourself that same question.
  • What you are trying to do with this exercise is see if small changes could make you happier or if you have to chuck the whole thing and start over again with a complete change.
  • If changing individual items could produce a better environment, then begin to work on those. If you don’t like the long hours and stress, can you re-frame that by making less income? Can you delegate more?  Do you have someone in your organization you can talk this over with?
  • If you come up against a lot of push back or negative feedback with a small item, it may develop into a large item that needs significant change but you won’t know unless you begin.

By doing this exercise you should be able to determine if enough change can be realized to allow you to stay in your present situation.  If not, then you need to start looking for another job.  Face this fact.  Don’t make excuses.

Take the time to plan exactly what will make you want to get up and go to work each morning.  Work with a coach or create a step by step plan to find a way to grow in what you want your life to be.

Most importantly, don’t let yourself get into another job where you will be doing this exercise again in a year!

Keeping up with our June review, next week we’ll look at feeling lonely and how to make a fuller life for yourself.

IF YOU NEED MORE MONEY

After last week’s analysis, you have found you need more money. This is not just money to take a trip to Paris but a real need to up your income so you can lead a reasonable and comfortable life. It’s OK to want money to go to Paris but that’s not what we are talking about here.  This is a necessity task because you are not covering your basic needs.

1. First question:   HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED?

You can answer this quickly by looking at the accounts that you did last week.  How much more a month are you running short? Say it is $1,000.  That means that you have to generate $250 a week more. If it is a much larger amount then you need to allow yourself to know that. No whining here.  This is an important life situation.

2.  LOOK AT THE PLACES THAT YOU SPEND.

Again, you will be doing this from the accounts that you got together last week.  Can you cut out lattes? Can you decrease your spending on food? Can you bring your lunch to work? Can you change child care arrangements? Only you can know what you might be able to do without.  It is very possible that you can get that $1,000 down at least 25% just by decreasing your spending.

3. LOOK AT WHERE MORE INCOME COULD COME FROM.

I know this seem so simple but most people are so stressed by this situation that they fail to see the easy way to determine what steps to take.  Could you raise your fee?  If you presently charge $200 an hour and if you are billing 30 hours a week, raising your fee to $215 an hour will increase your income by $450 a week!

If you are an employee on a fixed salary, you can ask for a raise.  Even a 5% raise can sometimes make the difference.  If you haven’t been getting an annual cost of living increase, now is the time to bring that up.  Hit your boss with figures from reliable sources and give information on any increased work you are performing.

If you are in real trouble, you can find a second job to bring in income.  This may be on the weekend or as an UBER driver but you will need to do whatever is necessary to get back in the black.

Can your partner earn some income? Many stay at home mothers can find ways to increase revenue.  Some who have bachelors degrees  can take the test to become substitute teachers so that their hours are the same as their children. Or how about working at a store on weekends while the partner is home with the kids.

Once you first find out how much more money you need each month, there are infinite ways to make that happen.

SO THIS WEEK YOUR JOB IS TO TAKE THESE FEW BASIC STEPS AND ACKNOWLEDGE IF YOU ARE LIVING IN DENIAL ABOUT MONEY, AND DECIDE HOW YOU CAN TAKE BETTER CONTROL OF YOUR MONEY SITUATION TODAY. Let me know if I can help.

IT’S TIME FOR A JUNE CAREER UPDATE!

HEY, it’s June, that’s Mid-Year. For all of you it is time to review your work situation and make decisions about how you might want to change your practice in the coming year. Take a minute and do a quite survey about your present career situation by answering the following questions:

1. Am I making enough money to cover my business and personal expenses?
2. Am I making enough money to fund my retirement/savings account each month?
3. Do I like to go to work each day?
4. Do I like the people I work with?
5. Do I like most all of my clients?
6. Can I get my work done in 40-50 hours a week?
7. Do I have enough time for my family each day?
8. Do I exercise enough?
9. Am I eating a healthy diet?
10.Am I taking enough classes to keep up to date in my practice areas?
11.Do I often feel lonely?
12.Do I have mentors?
13.Do I play and have fun on a regular basis?

OK, ok, you get the idea. If you answered NO to a lot of these questions, then let’s get started right now on making those changes that will get you to the next level in your career. Think of change ( which is scary) as MORPHING. Morph yourself into a more fulfilling career.

How do you do this? Look at the “nos” above. Now decide one thing you could do today to start changing that answer to a “yes”. Some people call that shifting your outlook. Yes, it takes work and focus but its certainly better than being whiny ( you know I hate that) and depressed.

Now look at your calendar for this week and put a simple task that you are going to do to change that negative to a positive. Put aside at least 30 minutes to do it. Because these areas are so important to be a happier lawyer, I will be blogging about each one starting next week with #1. SO STAY TUNED!

MORE ABOUT PROCRASTINATION

Onward we go with our discussion of PROCRASTINATION. Now you have all listed 5 areas of your life and at least one task you are procrastinating doing in that area. If you recall, that was your homework from the last article that I wrote and you read. If you haven’t done it because…….Oh yeah, you were procrastinating, do it now.

Next review the 7 possible reasons for procrastination. They are 1. we’re scared of doing it 2. we don’t like the task, 3. we feel overwhelmed 4. we like waiting until the last minute to feel the “rush” 5. unrealistic view of the time involved, 6. having psychological or physical problems which make the task difficult and last,7. striving for perfection,

Most of us can knock out number 6. That would be a really bad excuse unless it is true. Anyway, put the number or numbers of the reason for your procrastination beside each task. Now take a look. Are a lot of the numbers the same? Is it always feeling overwhelmed or do you not like any of the tasks? This will give you a road map for where we are going.

Next, prioritize the 5 tasks you have chosen to work on in order of most repulsive to least repulsive. Now take the most repulsive task and ask yourself. How important is this? Will my health be affected if it doesn’t get done? Will my income be affected? Will my happiness be affected? Will someone else’s happiness be affected? If you can’t answer yes to any of these questions, consider whether you should do the task at all or if you should delegate it to another to do.

However, if you answered yes, then you must do it. The task won’t go away , it will be exactly the same tomorrow or even bigger. Now, can you break it down in smaller parts ( Such as getting materials together to complete the task)? If you can answer yes to this, then take out your calendar and make an appointment with your calendar to do this first step. The trick is to not calendar it for longer than 7 days ahead, preferably no more than 5 days.(caveat: if it is a time sensitive task, then you need to calendar accordingly, as we lawyers say). Be sure to give yourself enough time to do it. Now forget it and get onto the next most repulsive task you have to do and do this procedure until you have completed all five. Aren’t you proud of yourself?

Now review the reason that you didn’t want to do the most repulsive task. Let’s take an example. You didn’t want to do an Opposition to a Summary Judgment Motion because you are afraid you don’t know how. Or are you overwhelmed because it is a really big task and will take several hours? Or are you basically bored with doing research and legal writing? Can you hear the little kid screaming inside you that doesn’t want to do it period and really only wants to play.

What’s the first thing you can do to break it up in parts? Read the S J motion and mark all the fatal errors and areas that you are going to dispute. Next calendar all of your dates of service, etc. You can probably do that in less than two hours, before starting any research, so calendar just that. Next, calendar time to decide what research you have to do by looking at the areas of dispute and noting the issues. This may take a bit more time but you should come out with specific areas to research. Then calendar for that, not too far in the distant future. The actual writing will have to be calendared within sufficient time to do the proper service, so that needs to be done at some point. And then its all done and you can play.

There is one reason that needs to be address more in depth here. That is feeling overwhelmed. If you can step away and decide that you really just have too much going on in your life and can’t get anything done even by prioritizing, maybe you need to give serious thought to getting help. You could hire a law student or another attorney to do the Opposition. You can hire an organizer to clean out your closets. You can hire a housekeeper to clean your house. You can entice your children with some goodie into feeding the dog and cleaning their rooms.

None of this is easy but identifying and writing down a place in your calendar for each task is the best method for starting to overcome your hesitation. Also you can resort to little tricks, like giving yourself a gift when you complete a task on time This may work for you, or you may have to identify all the negatives things that will happen if you don’t do it…..

OK, now it says in my calendar that its time to go to the Gym…..I’m thinking about hitting DELETE …..

PROCRASTINATION: A REALLY HOT TOPIC

I was giving a seminar on GRIT at the Littler law firm in San Jose, CA last week and one of the lawyers mentioned that procrastination was one of her areas that she needed more grit in.  I didn’t have time to go into too much detail, so here’s the definitive blog on that.  Hope it helps a lot of you.

I’ve now found a hot topic that I would like to spend at least two blogs on. It’s that dirty word…..PROCRASTINATION. I am becoming an expert or perhaps I have always been an expert at doing it.

So, here goes. Procrastination is the single most important time waster we have. Guess what is the number one area of procrastination? EXERCISE. Yes, we all know it is the “fountain of youth”, etc. etc. but how easy it is to drive right by the Gym on the way home. Now, there are some people out there that really like to exercise. We see them jogging along in the mornings and know that they are happy, healthy and skinny. We long to be there, happily running along side but can never quite get ourselves worked up enough to “just do it”.

Why, you ask, do humans put off even serious stuff that they know should be done? This even goes to things like not taking medication or going to the doctor for really serious stuff. A study showed that people who are on the edge of glaucoma and need to put drops in their eyes every night to keep it at bay, are only 80% compliant. Without the medication, glaucoma will develop. With the medication, it won’t. How bad is that?

The experts tell us we procrastinate for several reasons. First, we can be scared of what we might get into by doing it. Second, we really don’t like the task at hand. Third, we feel overwhelmed. Fourth, some people get a rush from waiting until the last minute. Fifth, having an unrealistic view of the time it takes to do a task. Sixth, having psychological or physical problems that makes it difficult to get things done. And last, striving for perfectionism which is unrealistic.

As attorneys, we know that procrastination can cause untold misery and regret. How about the attorney who blows statutes or always has to clean up messes that arise because motions or other work doesn’t get done on time. Most of us aren’t that bad, but procrastination does intrude in our lives and most of us could live without it or at least minimize it.

How about people in your life that drive you crazy because they procrastinate? How do you handle them? Also, some people only procrastinate in certain areas. Their home may be immaculate and the bills paid on time, but they can’t commit ( or decide not to commit) to anything really important, like marriage, having children, buying a new car, starting a practice, or changing a job.

Now comes the homework. Before my next week article which is going to contain some ways to start overcoming procrastination, write down the areas of your life. This will be things like

  • Health,
  • Home,
  • Career Planning,
  • Personal,
  • Family,
  • School,
  • Social,
  • Work
  • and anything else you can think of
  • Then write one thing in each of those areas that you are now procrastinating on doing. For instance, my very first one is “going to the gym three times a week, every week not just when I feel like it (which might be never)”. Then look at the seven things that might be holding you back from doing the task. Mine is number two . I don’t like to exercise. I have never felt any endorphins rushing and I get sweaty.

Try to find at least 5 of these specific procrastinations that you would like to tackle. Next blog we’ll get down to the nitty gritty and offer some solutions. The first one, of course, is something you’ve already done. You have recognized and identified TASKS that need doing and have written that down. Congratulations, you are on the road to procrastination free bliss……stay tune next week!

SHAME CAN BE REALLY ANNOYING!

So, there I was in front of the ATM.  I put my card in as instructed and then it asked me how much cash I wanted.  I punched the button for $50.00 (a modest sum) and the MACHINE told me that there was no money in the account!!!

Now, I know that I have bank  underdrafts, overdrafts and between drafts and that I had made a healthy deposit early in the week, so I knew this MACHINE was LYING.  I thought about trying again but I was so debilitated by the experience, I slunk away hoping that the people in line behind me didn’t see the transaction.

I felt such SHAME! Of course, when I thought about it, I knew that was silly because it wasn’t true and no human knew about the incident anyway.  So instead of taking the healthy alternative and forgetting about it, I avoided ATM machines for the next few months and got my cash with use of my card at Safeway…

We can all laugh at this now but I bet a lot of you reading this can relate.  I notice that even today I feel shame for the people ahead of me in the checkout line at Safeway who give items back because they can’t pay for them.  I have looked in the faces of these people and not one time could I say they were feeling shame.  Certainly the clerks didn’t say anything and everyone but me acted like it was a very normal occurrence. So I did restrain myself from offering to pay for the items they couldn’t afford but here I was feeling a feeling that they weren’t even feeling.

How dumb is that?  There are probably enough real shame producing actions in the world.  Like really hurting someone on purpose or cheating old people with a Ponze Scheme.  I guess this all starts pretty early on in life when your parents said “You should be ashamed of yourself” or something like that. It comes from a feeling that you have done something wrong.  So I guess in order to fight it, I need to first understand that what I did didn’t rise to the level of the kind of wrongness which should produce SHAME.

So come on…..does this make sense?  Are there a bunch of others out there feeling this useless feeling? If so, let’s admit it and start using our resources to get it out of our life!

DOESN’T A WORRYNOMORE WARRANTY SOUND GOOD?

Again, I had a great revelation while watching television!  The scene was a Swedish detective mystery which I am addicted to.  The detective had pulled his car up to a house where he was going to interrogate a mean gal who might be the murderer.  He parked his car and went inside. She wasn’t home. Then gal came home and parked her truck directly in back of the detective’s car.

That’s when I started to worry.  What if he can’t get his car out? Why didn’t he think of this before he parked? Sure enough the mean gal started to curse and yell that someone was in her parking space.  Well, it all worked out and we found out that she wasn’t the murderer but I also found out that I was a little crazy.  This is a show, right? Then I remembered that I had recently read an article on brain science that said our brain believes that everything we see on TV and Movies, is real.  Of course, my brain should have worried about that stupid parking error…..and made my blood pressure go up.

I then realized that I often get caught up in worrying way too much about situations I see on TV. The fictional ones you understand, not the real live news.  Yes, I feel compassion for real people in trouble but I don’t feel like I can help  them or warn them like I do with fictional characters!

Then I came across this WORRYNOMORE  warranty which guarantees if the manufacturer or store can’t fix defects, the warranty will cover it. I envisioned a WORRYNOMORE LIFE WARRANTY I could get for all things that happen in my life. Unfortunately, I should have stopped there because I went onto read about Macy’s WORRYNOMORE warranty which you can get for an additional fee when you buy mattresses and furniture.  Oh my! Macy’s got only one star and at least ten of the most incredible stories about nightmares of absolutely run around and no customer service let alone compensation for major defects. And these were in 2015….

If you could buy a WORRYNOMORE LIFE WARRANTY for all of your life’s worries, how much would you pay for it? What worries would you like it to cover?  What would the elements of the warranty need to be in order for you to be covered(ie., money compensation, psychological counseling, a worry counseling sent to your home immediately?)

You are a lawyer, what would the language of the warranty look like?

If you did this exercise, you might find out something more about your worries….but I won’t give you a warranty on that!

PAM: PUT IT ALTOGETHER AND IT SPELLS “SUCCESS”

Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery spells  PAM.  We could make a logo of that and carry it around to remind us each day that if those three elements can be attained , then we will be doing much better in our lives.

I’m thinking that this is the right order. That we need to find the Purpose first.  Is the purpose a biggie like: “What is my purpose on earth?” or something small like:”What is the purpose of my work?” or even smaller as: “What is the purpose of my being in school?”.  Some answers will come quickly, other not so quickly.  Probably the ones that take longer to come up with are more important?

After that we need to look at Autonomy.…learning to do things ourselves. If we define the purpose of our work is to “advocate for people who are in trouble” then we have to find out what that means in each of our daily lives.  Yours is probably very different from mine, even though we say we have the same Purpose.

Having strength to know what YOU alone can do is the key.  That doesn’t mean you don’t need others to help but you are the leader and define the path.

Last, we come to Mastery.  Here once you know your Purpose and have decided how you alone will fulfill that purpose, then you have to venture out in the world and teach yourself how to do it.  As we discussed in previous posts, you will find others who have already Mastered your purpose and can learn from them.  You will explore exactly what Mastery means for you .  Mastery involves learning but at a deeper level than most of us have experienced.  To become a “Master” one must fail and learn from each failure.  Think of how many times you screwed up learning something like how to play Chess, but mastering it became fun, especially when you could beat your parent!

Now I’m going to let you onto a little secret.  If you are having trouble figuring out what purpose goals you have or where to start, begin by writing out your Mission Statements.  One is for your personal life and one for your professional life.  Here you will find out where your values are and how to expand them into your everyday life.

And you will have PAM.

PURPOSE: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Purpose is the final trait that brings Autonomy and Mastery together for greater success!  So, exactly what is Purpose? You would think we would all know. And how does it fit into our Success Trio?

Being the glue that binds Autonomy and Mastery, Purpose is a goal that is defined.  It takes determination and is the object for which somethings exists or is done.  The word, Intentionally, is very important.  Meaning that it is a goal that is intended and not something that is thrust upon us out of necessity.

People are often asked, What is the Purpose of Life?  Such a basic question can be answered all kinds of ways.  Did you ever hear the one about the man who spent all his life trying to find the meaning of life until one day he met a peasant who said that the swami who lived up this gigantic mountain knew the meaning of life.  The man climbed the mountain at great peril to himself for 10 days until he reached the top where the swami had a hut. In front of the hut sat the swami.  The man approached him and said “I understand you know the meaning of life,I have searched the world to find out, please tell me”.  The swami eyed him for a awhile and then said in a voice filled with knowledge: “Life is a Fountain”.  Shocked the man replied: “Life is a Fountain?”.  The swami got up from his cross legged position and walked up to the man and said: “Life is not a Fountain?”.

We might say that the man wasted his life looking for someone to define his purpose.  How many other people are doing that in real life? Are you?

To purposefully do a task, it must be planned.  First, however, there has to be a need.  Once that need is  uncovered, then the purpose becomes clear about what the outcome should be.  For instance, if your refrigerator is smelling, then you know something has to be done.  Your purpose is to have a refrigerator which doesn’t smell.  It is not for you to clean out the refrigerator. That only one way of handling it. It’s important to recognize the difference.  One is jumping to one possible solution while the real purpose is overlooked.  Also this kind of thinking can stifle creative thought.

How many other ways can you see to getting the refrigerator not to smell anymore? An obvious, but absurd one, is to buy a new refrigerator….however, absurd thoughts for other situations might prove fruitful… Don’t limit yourself!

Next week we will put all three Success Traits together and see what we get.  DON’T MISS IT!

MASTERY: YOU GOTTA HAVE IT

Last week we discussed Autonomy . This week it is Mastery. That’s the second trait you need to fully succeed.  I’ll keep you guessing what the third and final trait you need until next week.  So what is Mastery?  Again, let’s go to Websters: Mastery is “expert skill or knowledge”.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us which skill or knowledge we have to Master.  So what could that be? Let’s look at some areas that I can think of that would be helpful to have mastered:

  • Creating life/work balance.
  • Creating a fulfilling personal partnership
  • Having a meaningful career
  • Having a healthy body
  • Raising healthy and happy children
  • Giving back to your community.

And many more…….Add your own……

Of course, the next question is how do you obtain the expert skill or knowledge to “master” these goals? 

If you have read my book and or followed my blog, you will guess that the first step is to pick one area goal that you would like to achieve or at least work on improving.  I know some of you will even question at this stage if you know whether or not you have already mastered one or more of these areas. If you can not say you are 100% happy with that area, then work needs to be done.

So, go ahead, pick one of these or create one of your own.  Then ask yourself : “How can I gain more skill or knowledge about the elements that make mastery of this area more successful”.  WRITE DOWN YOUR ANSWER.

Your answer may be to:

  • Take a class
  • Read about what others think mastery of that area entails.
  • Talk to people who have mastered that area
  • Break the area down into smaller parts that can be worked on

Visualize the area as though it is “Mastered” and see what that looks like for you.

This stuff is difficult, so do just a little work on it each day or week.  No rush, the problem or challenge will still be there next week, month, year.

Good luck with this.  Next week we will look a the last trait and then do a round up of all of them to see how they fit into a successful life.  Even if we don’t fully succeed, think of how much better each of us would be to get closer……