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Pamela DeNeuve

Lawyer & Law Firm Peak Performance Strategist

Lawyers: Is Impatience Ruining Your Law Practice?

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Many lawyers are impatient and this intolerance as a way of life. This impatience can ruin their lives.

Attorneys, especially in BigLaw live, breathe, wake up and then eventually go to bed thinking about their billable hours. These lawyers live to rush.  It is easy for a lawyer to become a slave to impatience.

Recently I have had the honor and challenge of helping care for a dear friend whose doctors have given less than a year to live. Obviously, it is an incredibly sad time to see someone who has been my friend for over 29 years fighting for her life.

It is also a time of reflection and assessing my own values. My friend’s loss of health and vitality made me think of others who died at a young age.

As long as I have known my friend, she was in a hurry. Her frenetic pace in life, walking fast, talking fast, impatient in traffic, impatient in business. I’ve noticed that when people spend time with these anxious and impatient people, it can be very stressful.

8 Questions to Ask Yourself About Impatience

Here are questions you must ask to discover whether impatience might be ruining your law practice:

  1. Because you feel as if you are running out of time, do you regularly move about as quickly as possible?
  2. Is it impossible for you to sit still, wait in line or traffic without extreme frustration or even outbursts?
  3. Instead of listening to what others are saying, are you are always thinking about your reply?
  4. Do you move about so fast, usually multitasking, that you rarely give full attention to your current task?
  5. Does your stress, anxiety, and worry about meeting deadlines keep you treating everything you do with a sense of urgency?
  6. Are you often rude, sharp or unkind to those around you due to your impatience?
  7. Are you on edge and unable to relax, when you should sit down and enjoy a meal?
  8. Do you believe that sitting down to rest means you are lazy and worthless?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions you want to consider that you might be in danger of ruining not only your law practice, your personal physical and emotional health but also relationships at work and home. There are consequences to these behaviors.

Consequences of Impatience for Managing Partners, Law Firm Management:

  • Your office is a miserable place to work because it is a stressful environment.
  • You have problems retaining associates, secretaries, paralegals and other support staff.
  • There is a low morale among workers which results in less productivity. This decreases profits.
  • Your office is a sinkhole of anxiety and stress among staff, which causes more mistakes and errors.

Consequences for of impatience for Associates 

  • You make yourself miserable at your firm and each day you dread going to work.
  • You always complain because your company has not advanced you quickly enough.
  • Colleagues and support staff will try to avoid you as much as possible.
  • You blame the firm for your misery only to move to another job only to experience the same difficulties.

Do You Know Anyone Like this?

I heard a story about a business executive on his way to an important merger meeting that involved millions of dollars.

The airport shuttle transporting the passengers to the plane suddenly stopped because it had blocked by another vehicle.

A middle-aged passenger jumped up and began to scream at the shuttle driver. “You have to get going here! I am on my way to a multi-million dollar deal. If I miss my plane, you could cost my corporation millions of dollars!”

The shuttle driver replied, “Sir, I am unable to move right now. Please take your seat.”

This reply made the executive angrier. He walked over to the driver. “Young lady you had better go around, I don’t care what you do but get this shuttle moving right now!”

About that time, a breathless airline desk attendant ran up and bammed on the door of the shuttle. The attendant stepped into the stalled vehicle. Once the attendant saw the red-faced executive who had been standing and screaming, she walked over to him, smiled and handed him his briefcase.

“Sir I’m so glad I caught you. You left your briefcase. I know you mentioned you had a very important meeting, so I got permission to bring your briefcase to you.”

The executive smiled sheepishly and took his briefcase and with his head down walked back to his seat.

The Choice is Up To You

We all have deadlines, responsibilities and must accomplish tasks. Whether you complete these things with impatience, intolerance and needless stress is up to you.

Here are seven easy tips to begin your learning how to lighten up. Continued stress can be dangerous and impede your success.

  1. Make time to go for a walk daily, breathe slowly in and out and enjoy just being alive.
  2. Learn meditation; practice Yoga, Tai Chi Gung, or other martial arts that help you slow down your pace.
  3. Slow down to appreciate your staff and colleagues. Look them in the eye, use their names and find reasons to acknowledge them.
  4. Make time to go out in nature with family and friends.
  5. Find an enjoyable hobby that is relaxing and don’t rush in any way during this activity.
  6. Find time to read books that are entertaining, listen to music you love.
  7. Slow down.

Enjoy Your Precious Life and Learn Patience

You will enjoy your work, your colleagues, your staff, family, and friends if you can teach yourself to be patient. It will take time.  Becoming patient will allow you to improve your physical and mental health, can increase your longevity, enhance your enjoyment each day and save your law practice from ruin.

Don’t be a slave to hurry and rushing.

It has been an amazing experience to observe my friend slow down. She has begun to meditate, enjoy relationships, and love to go for walks in nature.

It is time for you to slow down and enjoy your life each day before it passes you by.

The choice is up to you.

If your law firm is trapped in procedures that cause your associates to leave too soon, email me at pamela@pameladeneuve.com or call 904-607-1211. We can set up a time to chat.

 

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