What do you need?

Take honest stock of your needs professional. What is most important to you? Status, autonomy, structure and direction, mentorship, flexible hours? As you think about this list of job criteria (and others), is there something you want, but you feel guilty about it? For example, is status important, but you feel you shouldn’t value this criterion? Ask yourself why. If it is a need, why do you feel you should repress this need?

What can you learn from the people in your office?

If you have decided this is where you want to be, and there is not much you can change at present to make it a better fit, then think about what you can learn from the people around you.

Exercise and therapy:

​I am a supporter of exercise in any form (running, walking, swimming, yoga, the list goes on!) Let’s think about when exercise not be enough. If you find relief from the stress, pressure, or emotional load you are carrying during the period of exercise, but then moments later it comes back, psychotherapy may be a good choice. In addition to exercise and psychotherapy, you may want to consider meditation.

Response: One attorney stated they wanted to know more about “New/better/different methods of dealing with growing caseloads and difficult client/opposing counsel.” Doesn’t this just say so much!

So again, I’m going to break my response down to three points.

The first: Logistics. Is your job a good fit for who you are?

There are many ways to be a lawyer. We can conceptualize two distinct parts: content/substance and structure/ process. The content/substance of the job is what you think about, the intellectual material of the job; the structure/process is the location or type of organization (firm, in-house, federal or state, private, etc.). I think it is important to ask yourself, “Is this job a good fit for me?” The content/substance may be something you are passionate about, but does the structure work? For example, if you find yourself in public defense with a very limited amount of time for each case, but you naturally are a person who prefers to ponder or reflect on ideas, the mounting caseloads will continually push against your intrinsic way of operating.  You, of course, are welcome to work with this internal conflict, but know this is your choice. Being aware of this logistic piece and knowing yourself will allow you to make more conscious decisions about how you want to move forward. Other factors to consider within this structure/process piece are physical office space, interpersonal office dynamics, time/deadlines, autonomy and control, and status.

Additionally, research does show increasing job satisfaction is correlated with autonomy. New lawyers don’t usually have a lot, if any, autonomy in many of these job structures. So ask yourself, “Logistically, where do I stand with my job and how does that fit (or not) with my intrinsic way of being? Will these situational conflicts improve over time or am I asking myself to work in a way that will continue to be a difficult fit?” The answer may illuminate whether endurance and self-care will get you to the desired place or whether you are Sisyphus rolling the rock uphill; this situation will never become a good fit!

Second piece: Emotional regulation: I have included here an example of what not to do. One of my favorite characters, Unikitty, demonstrates what not to do when it comes to emotional regulation, click at second 26: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNnRovCQj9k

Emotional regulation is the ability to express or suppress emotional reactions. We still experience the emotion. Therefore, emotional regulation is about the ability to choose your expression (or not) of that emotion. Likely, you are all good at this process or you wouldn’t have made it this far in your careers. However, being successful in a highly competitive field means you are likely very good specifically at emotional suppression. For example, it is important not to “blow up” at a client or boss. But emotional suppression takes a toll. We see decreases in cognitive ability overtime and increases in emotionality outside of the work environment. This may leave you feeling confused about your emotional reactions outside of work.

What does this information about emotional regulation mean for you? I suggest looking for a balance. Your job requires that you suppress your emotions on a regular basis. Can you find a place (support group, therapist, partner/spouse) where you can talk freely about and experience your emotional load? To be able to talk about these emotional experiences, even after the fact, is very helpful from a cognitive perspective and an experiential process.

The third point: Personal Dynamics

Plato’s famous phrase “Know thyself” is key here. Our prefrontal cortex (PFC) in our brain is forming until we are about 25 years old (possibly older). The PFC is largely involved with our personality, as well. So, we can conclude, it takes a while for us to create a foundation for a more stable personality. It will change over time, of course, but from 30ish-50ish we usually find the most stability in our sense of self. Why should you care about this?

It is important to understand that jobs are a part of your identity, and how much depends on your relationship with your career. It is important to understand what this job means to you on a very personal level. What can you learn from it, and what can you bring to it? How do you want to think about being a lawyer?

Our experiences and relationships shape our thinking, behaviors, and emotional responses. The better we can understand ourselves, the better we are able to move forward in a way that will meet our needs- intellectually, emotionally, financially, and so on.

Response: I’m going to address this question at large and speak to negative talk as a particularly important situation that undermines confidence, a specific point of interest identified by respondents in the participant survey. Please do ask questions if what I am saying does not make sense and we can make this blog post interactive. (Feel free to email me at kwdennett@hotmail.com or call (802) 363-4131 if you have questions or comments).

Coming back to the question at hand. The way I would think about or approach this question, from my clinical background of depth psychology or psychodynamic orientation, is three-fold. (I was told to say there are always three reasons… a moot court joke I believe.)

The first point to consideration: Identifying patterns or themes internally.

When you think about the situations that are particularly difficult for you, is there a theme or several themes? Is there a certain type of scenario that you individually find particularly difficult? If you can identify this, then start to explore this idea. Has this type of situation always been difficult? Does it remind you of anything, perhaps another time in your life?

Also identify or think about the negative talk. Does this voice or voices remind you of anyone in your life—an ex, sibling, caregiver or parent for example? If yes, you now have a relationship that you can explore in your mind that you are carrying around with you and may be repeating in new situations.

Identifying your specific, unique, and idiosyncratic ways of interacting with these situations and your internal experiences that come up during these situations is the first step. This will allow you to start bringing into your awareness the elements you are carrying every day. These elements are internal and we often don’t notice them because they have been a part of our internal structure our entire lives. Our experiences and relationships shape who we are—thoughts, behaviors, emotions.

The second way to think about this question/issue: Behaviors and ways of being.

As you explore the way you approach things (think about behaviors or ways of being such as having anxiety or negative self-talk) think about how these behavior(s) may have been beneficial or adaptive at one point in your life. I believe that all our behaviors were at one time beneficial in one way or another. And these behaviors, while now not helpful or maladaptive, may still provide some benefits that we are holding on to... Anxiety is stressful and keeps you working too hard, but give it up and now there is the stress and anxiety associated with new worries that you might not be prepared to deal with. Sometimes we stick with the familiar (even if it’s not really working) because the new is unknown (and this is inherently anxiety provoking or overwhelming).

So, the first two points are about understanding yourself—behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. This is a very brief rundown but a way to start thinking about these complex ideas and how they tie into your unique sense of self. 

The third point: What can you do in addition to understanding yourself in more depth?
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Most of you have heard about affirmations, so let’s explore this in a bit more depth. There are two sides to this concept and skill. Some researchers from Carnegie Mellon (Creswell, Dutcher, Klein, Harris & Levine, 2013) have found affirmations will mitigate the effects of stress on problem solving. Interestingly, these affirmations were not self-affirmations. Instead participants wrote about why they valued some aspect or interest in their lives. Researchers found participants’ problem-solving skills increased compared to a control group.  Why does this work? Possibly these individuals are reconnecting with their intrinsic interests and sense of self, which allows them to feel more confident and clear minded moving forward.

But we need to take affirmations, especially self-affirmations with a grain of salt. Researchers in Canada (Wood, Perunovic & Lee, 2009) found self-affirmations were somewhat helpful in increasing self-esteem in people who already had good self-esteem. So, what about those with low self-esteem? They, in fact, suffered from the self-affirmation technique. What’s the thought here? Perhaps the distance between the affirmation and self-perception was too big and the pervious self-perception was instead reinforced. Paradoxically, it can be very helpful to have your negative thoughts validated.