Hey everyone you are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast Episode #1
Today we are jumping right in and talking about uncomfortable dreams and why they are absolutely essential to your long term happiness and success Let's get started!
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Lawyer Life Podcast, a production of the Lawyer Life Collective: Life and Career Coaching for Attorneys. I am your host, Autumn Noble, and you are listening to Episode #1 and we are talking about Uncomfortable Dreams.
As some of you may know The Lawyer Life Collective actually originated a blog called TheUncomfortableDream.com. The name of the blog is intended to capture what I believe is the essential element in our personal, professional and spiritual evolution, and that is this idea of discomfort.
Physical fitness is a huge part of my life and I think the concept of an uncomfortable dream is most easily explained in that context. Going to the gym, lifting weights, trying a new fitness class it's all founded upon this idea of discomfort. Even to this day, I often have to give myself a bit of a pep talk before going to a new workout class or heading to an hour and a half hot yoga session. It feels so much easier just to stay home, to relax, to sit on the couch, to love all my puppies. And we all know how good it actually feels to back out of those plans, say no to the gym and stay home and do all of those things instead. It feels really good to give in to those desires and to just not go and do the thing and get that time back in your life. It feels exciting and sometimes even naughty to back out on those plans and just relax. Our brain gets a little bit of an endorphin rush as well when we kind of shirk those obligations and stay on the couch. And then we add food and wine or a cocktail on top of it and our brain is like, "This is amazing. Why would we ever consider going to the gym instead of doing all of this instead?!"
It's just not exciting and fun to follow through on our commitments most of the time. And what's more, even when we do show up, usually there's some discomfort that's involved even once you get there and then even afterwards as well. So if you think about lifting weights, I often remember when I first started working with my trainer and lifting really heavily. I knew every week we were going to have a leg day and it was going to be terrible and it was going to be miserable. And then for the two days after that, I wasn't going to be able to walk and it just wasn't a fun proposition going into the week knowing that this was coming.
But we do it. A lot of us are able to execute and follow through on those types of physical fitness goals. We show up, we go to the gym. We buy into that discomfort in furtherance of the goal of being healthier or whatever it may be. We do it because we know it's good for us. But our non-physical goals are truly no different. It's really easy to set a goal. It's the follow through and all of the impending discomfort that actually keeps us from following through on our goals.
In coaching, 99% of my clients want to find more enjoyment in their work, and they want to find more time for the things that bring them joy. Maybe it's going to the gym, lounging on the couch with their partner, having lunch with their kids at school, taking the weekends off, etcetera. On some level, they always know that in order to achieve those things, it's going to require them to do things differently. Which is inherently going to bring some discomfort.
In order to attain any of those goals, we have to show up for ourselves in the same way that we show up for ourselves at the gym. This all seems really simplistic and really straightforward, but for me, this actually recently came to a head and I realized that, you know, we all have work to do when it comes to this sort of issue of embracing discomfort in furtherance of our goals.
I have been debating doing a podcast for, honestly what feels like many, many years now. A few weeks ago I sat down to record my first episode and I just felt this resistance and this worry and this judgment and these concerns about, well, what are other people going to think or? You know, our other people in the world doing this and is the space is already full?
And so in that kind of panic and worry, I moved away from actually recording the podcast and I started doing this sort of passive research to see well, What are other people talking about? Are there other lawyer coaches out there? And as many of you can probably know or guess, the answer is absolutely yes. There are certainly people out there doing this exact same thing. In fact, I found many women who are lawyers and coaches, and some of them even have the same training as I do. And so that discomfort that I was initially feeling when I sat down to do the podcast just exploded! And I went into this total panic and thought spiral, you know, What am I doing? and Who am I to think that this is something that's important that that people need to hear? What do I have to offer?
And I just really spun in self-doubt and some self-pity and I just felt completely stuck. I knew what I wanted to do, I knew it was in furtherance of my goal but I was just really feeling uncomfortable with moving forward. That sort of push and pull of wanting and fear was keeping me totally stuck and it felt really terrible. And I realized that that is how a lot of women feel when they come to work with me initially. They feel stuck. They feel like they don't have any options available. They can't do the things that they want that they have to stay in their lane, they have to keep coloring inside the lines. You know, why rock the boat? That feeling, that stuckness, seeing the thing that you're wanting, but feeling like it doesn't make sense to pursue it. That heavy, gross feeling is something that we all bump into from time to time in our lives.
When I was in my own sort of dilemma like that, I got to thinking about this Buddhist parable that I had read many years ago and I'm I'm certain I'm going to butcher it, but bear with me here. There's this parable about a bamboo stalk and an oak tree. And how the oak tree and the bamboo, they just grow and they just provide their own attributes and values to this world without ever envying or judging the other. They just exist. And no one ever says that the bamboo provides so much more value to this world than the oak or that the bamboo is so much more beautiful than the oak and the oak should try and be more like the bamboo. We just own that they're simply different and they're allowed to be different and they each add their own uniqueness to this world. I mean, can you imagine a world where the oak tree is jealous of the bamboos hollow core and tries to be more like that? It just doesn't make sense and the idea just feels totally ridiculous. But we as humans, we do this all of the time. The oak tree and the bamboo are both rooted in the earth they use photosynthesis to live and we allow them to be vastly different without any judgment whatsoever. We are all humans, breathing the same air, living on this earth, but somehow, somewhere we decided that we all must be the same in certain acceptable ways.
Humans aren't any different, and we often forget that we're nature too, and we are all meant to be different and make different contributions to this world. When I started thinking about that parable and my sort of stuckness with it with my podcast launch, I was able to really kind of shift my thinking and push through that discomfort obviously and show up for myself and and here we are. But there was some some dis-ease that came from really acknowledging that those fears were there but moving forward anyway. Meaning that sometimes when we move forward in furtherance of a goal, it doesn't always feel good. It doesn't feel like sunshine and margaritas. It feels uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean that we're doing something wrong, and it certainly doesn't mean that we have to stop.
But this happens all of the time in life. We know what we want to do and nine times out of 10 we have a good idea how to start taking action towards that goal. But we get paralyzed by the awareness of the discomfort that waits for us down that path and we stew in those worries and those self-judgments and worst case scenarios and don't take any action in furtherance of the goal. We just stay stuck, intentionally or unintentionally, whether we're aware of it or not. Then we add to that that there is often no shortage of people in our lives who are happy to tell us how we should be and what our lives are supposed to look like and how we're supposed to act and what we're supposed to do in any circumstance. Usually, all of those things that we are not "supposed" to do are precisely those things that will get us closer to the ultimate goal.
For example, you know you are acting out of alignment with your true intentions when the word "should" comes out of your mouth. I should say yes to this project. I don't want to make anyone upset. I should check my e-mail on Friday night while I'm at dinner with my partner. I should be. I shouldn't be looking for jobs outside of law. After all, I spent three years in law school to be here, so I should stay here. I should be grateful for my nice paycheck. It should be enough for me and I shouldn't be looking for anything more fulfilling.
The delightfully irritating word "should." It's such a worthless word, and it really only matters when we're talking about something factual or provable or demonstrable. Like my coffee pot, it should turn on when I plug it in. My e-mail should transmit when I click send. The lights should turn on when I flip the light switch. Should makes sense in all of those scenarios because those things are designed to operate in a certain way. There's a manual that supports that conclusion, and these machines are supposed to act in a certain way. You bought them for a specific purpose, to perform a very clear task. We know what this thing is supposed to do, and that is widely understood and accepted. That word, given that sort of explanation and understanding, has no translation to human beings.
There is no manual. There is no widely understood and accepted understanding of how we are supposed to act. You can argue religious mores and social norms all you like, but they are not universally held or agreed upon. All we have to do is look around and see a million people doing a million different things for reasons that they think makes sense to them, and they're all inconsistent. There are no rules about who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to live this life.
I have never heard a human being use that word "should" in a sentence that that feels good. It always feels like angry. "They shouldn't have done that. How could they have acted that way?" Or it feels really resigned and sad. "I should go to the gym today. I should be thankful for the job that I hate." It feels really heavy and terrible and judgmental and painful. We really have to remove that idea, that word, from our vocabulary and stop with the judging. Because that's really all we get from that word. And when we start buying into those shoulds about how we're supposed to be, we make it a lot easier to stay stuck and not do the things that we know we need to do in furtherance of those goals that actually really resonate with our core values.
You know, as humans, we just constantly like to tell ourselves what we should be doing, and we buy into all these rules about how we're supposed to live and how we're how things are supposed to work out. And a lot of us just wholly, wholeheartedly buy in and it just stagnates us.
So I want to share with you an example of how nefarious that little word can be and how I see that affecting my clients and their long tweekerm goals and happiness. I recently had a client who was really struggling to manage her time and stay afloat in her practice. She was a mid level associate in big law, lots of responsibilities, lots of sophisticated work. Her shoulds sounded something like this.
"I should always keep my office door open in case anybody needs me. I should always answer my office phone or my cell phone when someone calls me from work. I should always stay on top of my emails, and I should always say yes when I'm approached by someone to work on a project."
All of these shoulds, all of these thoughts, they they sound very noble and purposeful, but truly, they're all really rooted in fear. And that fear sounds something like this. "People will think I'm not friendly if I close my door when I'm busy. People will be mad at me if I don't answer my work phone when they call. I might miss something important if I'm not on top of my emails and then I'm going to get into trouble. People will stop giving me work if I say I'm too busy."
All of those fear based, worried thoughts were truly the foundation of all of those shoulds, and when she bought into those, they were completely sabotaging her career. She was constantly behind our projects and distracted because I don't…seriously, how can anyone focus when you're constantly being pulled away by your phone or your e-mail or randos who show up at your office door? She was missing deadlines and she was just completely underwater. The net result of all of that was that people were frustrated with her. She was getting into trouble and people did stop giving her work. Everything that those shoulds were supposed to protect her from, they were actually creating for. Her. She was creating a self fulfilling prophecy and ultimately the firm ended up putting her on a performance improvement plan to try and get her to clean up her act.
The wildest thing about this, when she came to me, and she's telling about her struggles and she's telling me about these challenges, the craziest thing is that she actually knew how to resolve the problems. She just didn't want to experience all the discomfort that was gonna go with it. She knew she needed to set boundaries. She knew she needed to manage her calendar better. She knew she needed to start telling people no and protecting her energy and her space to focus. She just didn't want to experience all the discomforts that are going to come with that. Furthermore, doing so would fly in the face of all of those shoulds that she had completely invested in about how she was supposed to show up and act as an attorney. All of that was going to challenge her to reconsider who she wanted to be instead of who she thought everyone else wanted her to be.
This is such a common challenge. None of us wanna rock the boat. We wanna fit in. We wanna be liked. It's like we're bamboo, but we wanna be in oak tree. It's painful and it's hard to realize and accept that we have to do things in a way that feels authentic and right for us as we are who we are. And to show up any other way Is also going to be incredibly painful but it's going to be painful in a different and less rewarding kind of a way. It doesn't feel good to show up in-authentically, to pretend that we're an oak tree when we're bamboo, right? It also doesn't feel good. So the paths before you are both equally uncomfortable, but in different kinds of ways. In different kinds of payoffs.
And therein lies the rub. Taking action that feels right and authentic to us often requires us to go against the grain and experience those discomforts. To challenge our closely held thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions about what kind of human we are supposed to be. What a good lawyer, spouse, mom, sister, daughter is supposed to look like. What they're supposed to act like. It requires us to invest in the discomfort that comes with the creating a life that we actually want, a life that we feel drawn to. An uncomfortable dream.
That is the core of my work and that is why that is the title of our blog and I'm so excited to share more with you about this. Just like the bamboo and the oak tree, we all have different contributions and paths to explore. So my message to you is this. When you feel that tug, when you feel that pull to do something different, to be different, to say no, to set boundaries, to shake things up, or even to wipe the whole slate clean. I truly urge you to listen. I urge you to have faith in those nudges, to believe that there's a higher purpose and a higher lesson that you are being called to, to walk in faith and to be brave and to trust your own inner knowing without regard to everything else you're being told without regard to all of those shoulds that come from outside of ourselves.
Be the bamboo plant. Be the oak tree. I don't really care as long as you are whichever one more truly resonates with you and allows you to be wholly you. I see so many women tempted to give up on their lawyering dreams because they feel like they don't fit in or they don't feel like they can make it work for them. They don't fit the mold and they don't want to be somebody that they're not. They don't want to sacrifice as much as they see others doing, and so they typically walk away without trying to make their own space and without fighting through that discomfort to see if it just might work for them.
I have seen my clients make partner early based upon their own skill sets and contributions in big law. I have seen successful partners and business owners stop working weekends and go to lunch at their kids schools when they want to. And yet, even doing so find the ways to bring in even more revenue. I've seen attorneys collaborate with their firms to find a solution, to find a way to make their practice fit for them in their life. It's possible. It's not easy and it's not going to be there waiting for you. But all it asks of you is that you show up and have the courage to start doing things differently. If you want a different life, you have to start doing life differently, and that may mean going against the grain and living a little bit more uncomfortably, uncomfortably, but potentially more authentically.
So often we spend a lot of our energy looking outwardly, trying to anticipate the thoughts and feelings and actions of others, we overlook the fact that none of them are living our lives for us. Yet we give them so much power and control over how we show up and the choices that we make. In doing that, we really become shadows of ourselves, kind of floating along the winds and the whims of everyone around us. But oftentimes, in order to listen to the urges, to listen to those nudges and follow the path that we know is right for us, we have to stop looking outwards and start looking inwards. And let and stop letting others craft that path for us. And that can be an uncomfortable exploration to really sit and ask yourself, who do I want to be? What do I want, without regard to all of the noise around me?
So that's it in a nutshell. That's why the Lawyer Life Collective blog is entitled TheUncomfortableDream.com. I truly believe that if you were living the life that you're meant to it's gonna be uncomfortable but I also believe that every dream worth fighting for is meant to put you into discomfort to challenge you to make you grow in new in different ways and evolve. I truly believe that if you were living the life that you're meant to, it's gonna be uncomfortable. But I also believe that every dream worth fighting for is meant to put you into discomfort, to challenge you, to make you grow in new and different ways and evolve. So today, I'm standing in that truth for myself. I'm owning my discomfort as I sit here and talk into the ether. But yet I'm here and I can't wait to take you on this journey with me and to share with you all of the tools and learnings that my clients have been able to leverage to push through that discomfort and really start creating a legal practice that resonates with who they are and who they want to be. I look forward to having you join me on this journey. Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Lawyer Life Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for additional information and resources to take this topic a little bit deeper or to explore options for working with us and seeing what we've got going on at the Collective this month. Next week, we dive into one of my favorite topics, the Drama Triangle and how this manifests in our careers to keep us stuck.
I hope to see you then. Until next time, thanks for listening and thanks for sharing with your friends.