Lawyers face burnout on a daily weekly, monthly or annual basis. How can they find a survival kit.

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Pamela DeNeuve

Lawyer & Law Firm Peak Performance Strategist

Lawyers: How to Find Your Secret Survival Kit from Burnout

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Mark’s Secret

Burnout is top-secret among lawyers. Every lawyer knows how to keep a secret. Their profession is based around hush-hush of their client’s information. So it is easy to hide personal problems.

Mark confessed his secret to me, “Pamela, I have been doing the same thing for so long, I don’t even notice when I engage in destructive behaviors.”

We All Struggle With Self-Sabotage

Psychology Today defines self-sabotage this way: “Behavior that creates problems that interfere with long-standing goals.” Each of us has an internal thermostat that regulates how much love, happiness, and success we will allow.  

You might indulge in behaviors that cause you emotional, physical, or financial distress. After repeating these same behaviors over and over again, you ask yourself, “How did this happen?” It is depressing to find yourself fitting the clinical definition of neurosis, “to repeat behaviors over and over again while expecting a different result.”

Awareness and Admission Are Essential (Your Survival Kit)

Practicing law is outward focused, so most attorneys won’t take the time to self-examine themselves until it is too late. They have ground themselves into a hole they can’t get out of. To get help after the fact is dangerous. 

Mark survives his burnout by using alcohol and food to stuff down his discomfort. “Please, I need some kind of survival kit. Does such a thing even exist? My productivity suffers. I am not as sharp as I’d like to be, and sometimes I feel stuck in a fog.”

Awareness and admission was Mark’s way of picking up his survival kit. Awareness of any problem can help you to change.

Why Solicitors Don’t Pick up Their Survival Kit

It is obvious that there was a blind spot, something hidden from Mark that caused him to jeopardize his health, his career, and his family.

Here are a few reasons we won’t pick up our survival kit:

No. 1: The Speed of our Subconscious Thoughts

Our subconscious mind’s speed and strength will always overpower your conscious desire to change. When you are frustrated because you cannot change something in your life, know that your inability is usually caused by the subconscious mind.

No. 2:  Your Thoughts and Motives Are Hidden from You

This hidden giant, your subconscious mind can sabotage relationships, careers, and success.

  • Researchers point out that 95% of our thoughts are subconscious. 
  • Also, our subconscious mind operates with one million times more power than our conscious mind. 
  • Further, the subconscious mind transfers information much faster.

No. 3: Your Conscious Thought are Like a Bike vs. a Lear Jet

It is like comparing a bike, our conscious mind, with a Learjet, our subconscious mind. The subconscious mind, the Learjet processes forty million bits of information per second. The conscious mind, the bicycle transfers forty bits of information per second.

Our Subconscious is Stronger Than We Are

Our conscious mind cannot compete. The bike cannot compete with the power of the Learjet on any level. If we don’t identify our true motives and agendas hidden in our subconscious mind, these blind spots will direct our behaviors.

Think of all of the things your subconscious mind controls that you have no control over:

a.  Breathing

b.  Heartbeat

c.  Thinking

d.  Sleeping

e. Blinking your eyes

f. Saliva production

g. Swallowing

h. The Blood flowing through your veins

i.  Driving your car

j.  Routine tasks

k. Anger & frustration

l.  Who you love and who you hate

m.  Why you do the things, you do

The list can go on and on.

Solicitors are so good at keeping confidences that they easily manage to hide even from themselves the fact that they are sleep-deprived, exhausted and maybe even depressed.

However, you can’t solve a problem you don’t admit to having.

Most lawyers spend their energy is spent trying to change their client’s lives for the better. Unfortunately, many try to manage other’s behaviors while staying too busy to take responsibility for their own problems. 

In fact, Paula Davis-Laack, an attorney and burnout expert, believes:

“ We live in a culture of disconnection, distraction, and overload that is a perfect breeding ground for burnout. And the law, with its unforgiving culture, long hours, and billable time, presents especially acute risks for burnout.” 

Time to Pick Up Your Survival Kit

What is this survival kit? It is simply awareness and admission. You cannot get help or solve a problem that you refuse to admit.

I Help Lawyers Get in the 

Drivers Seat:

Take charge of each morning. You will suddenly take actions will not only increase your profit financially but will help to lift you up to enjoy happiness, can profoundly enhance your marriage, your relationships with your children and in your community.    

Pamela DeNeuve     

Helping Lawyers & Law Firms to Improve Profitability & Productivity     

Email or Call Pamela to schedule an easy 20-minute consult to get you on your way to health, happiness and increased productivity  

pamela@pameladeneuve.com

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