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Pamela DeNeuve

Lawyer & Law Firm Peak Performance Strategist

Is Your Law Practice on AutoPilot?

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Most of us are on autopilot.

Each day, we take part in familiar, automatic, habitual thoughts and behaviors. There are few surprises. Everyone has ingrained feelings about things. What are some of these ingrained feelings?

  • Anger
  • Fear
  • Suspicious
  • Judgmental
  • Victimized
  • Overwhelmed
  • Confused
  • Feeling Inadequate or Superior

What Is Being On AutoPilot?

Ray is a perfect example. Ray admits, “I react angrily in most situations whenever things happen that I don’t like. When things don’t go my way, I get furious.”

Ray was unpleasant to be around at the office and home.

“I don’t want to get so angry, but I can’t help myself.”

When we explained to Ray that he was operating on autopilot, he felt confused.

Autopilot Explained

The best way I can explain AutoPilot is when you drive your car home. You get into your vehicle and turn on the ignition. Your mind wanders. Before you realize it, you have arrived home, pulling into your driveway. Yet, you have “no idea” how you made it back home.

The fact is, you thought about everything except what you were doing: DRIVING.  You drove home on AutoPilot.

Ray believed that he had no say-so in his anger.  We showed him how he was on autopilot.

“Ray, your anger is a subconscious autopilot, knee-jerk response that you learned as a kid.”

When we had him draw the first house he lived in, we discovered that everyone in his household used anger as a weapon.  That is how Ray learned to communicate.

Ray discovered he could be in charge of his feelings.  Ray decided that he didn’t want to keep damaging his relationships at work and especially at home.

Ray learned new techniques to rewire his brain.  He began to react in the way he chose instead of allowing his automatic reactions to rule him.  His marriage and work relationships improved significantly.

Action Steps For You

  1. Set the timer on your device for ten minutes.
  2. Get a sheet of paper and pen. (yes those outdated tools)
  3. Write down your biggest dissatisfaction in your law practice.
  4. List the TOP TWO emotions that you feel each day at the office around this dissatisfaction.
  5. Circle the one emotion you feel MOST of the time.
  6. Write down one sentence about WHY you feel this emotion. What are you telling yourself that perpetuates this feeling?
  7. Would you like to change these feelings? (Yes/No?)
  8. Think back to the FIRST TIME that you remember feeling these emotions or unhappiness as far back as you can remember. (even as a child)
  9. Write down ONE ACTION STEP you will take each day to be in charge of that emotion. (That does not mean stuffing it down) It means dealing with your emotions head-on.
  10. For the next 7 days REVIEW your day (daily) and RATE how well you executed the action. (10 you were most successful down to 1 you failed) After the 7 days average your success.

You will have some great information about how ingrained your autopilot is and how it controls your law practice. Now you can slowly begin to become aware of your progress.

I’d be happy to hear how successful you were in these action steps.  Let me know how the exercise worked for you.
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