The Lawyer Life Podcast

Are You the Cause of Your Problems?

• Autumn Noble • Season 1 • Episode 28

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What if some of the problems in your life and your career were all caused by the same thing -- you? Would you want to know? Today we dig into the three most common ways that we create our own chaos in life and learn the tools to fix it.

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Autumn G Noble (00:00.174)
You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast, Episode Number 28. Are you the cause of your problems?

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Lawyer Life podcast. I am your host, Autumn Noble, founder of the Lawyer Life Collective, life and career coaching for attorneys. This week we are continuing our summer hot takes where we highlight some of the best takeaways from the prior seasons episodes. This week we are unpacking a harsh reality that we often run into in coaching.

And that is the awareness that we really are at the root of a lot of our problems in our lives and in our careers. While that is a topic with many facets that we could dedicate various episodes to, today I'm going to be focusing on the top three ways that we create and contribute to the problems in our lives. But before we dig into this topic, a few announcements.

If you're not a lawyer or have women in your life who could benefit from the type of information we talk about on the podcast and in the collective, send the women in your life over to autumn noble .com and have them sign up for the upcoming series, How to Change Your Life, where we are unveiling the top six life coaching secrets that I have learned over coaching hundreds of women all over the world. And those are the six secrets and tools

that you need to change any aspect of your life. But hurry, the series kicks off tomorrow, July 11th. So head over to AutumnNoble.com to grab your seat or to send the women in your life there to take advantage of this amazing program. Next on July 31st, we are offering another free webinar to help set you up for success. This webinar is focusing on overwhelm. Why do we get overwhelmed in our lives and in our jobs?

Autumn G Noble (02:02.83)
Where does it come from? But most importantly, how do we fix it? We will dive deep into the reasons behind overwhelm and more importantly, how to conquer it for good. In the webinar, you will learn practical strategies to manage stress, boost productivity and reclaim your peace of mind. Whether you're juggling work, family or personal goals, this session is designed to help you thrive. Don't miss out on this free webinar on July 31st.

Details on the webinar and how to sign up and grab your seat are available at thelawyerelifecollective .com or linked in the show notes. And last but certainly not the least, the most exciting news that I have been so excited to tell all of you about. My book is finally ready for purchase. The Lawyer Life Survival Guide is now available on Amazon .com.

This book is the culmination of all of my work, practicing law and coaching hundreds of women all over the world. This book is truly made for any professional who struggles to find their true north. This book chronicles my journey through abuse and toxic relationships, both professionally and personally, and demonstrates the link between how we show up in our professional lives as well as our personal lives and the impact that has on our success overall.

The book explores three critical areas of your career, including your practice, your value, and your future, and gives you actionable and practical tools to change everything about how you are showing up, not only in your professional life, but in your personal life as well. Head over to amazon .com to get your copy of the Lawyer Life Survival Guide today, or check out the link in my bio or in the show notes to get your copy.

All right, everybody, that is enough of the business. We just have so much going on in the collective these days, so I appreciate you listening to all of these announcements and your continued support. But now let's get over to the topic at hand and dig into an exploration of how we often create the problems in our lives that are driving us nuts. The first stop we are going to make on this journey is a big one, and it's something that we all often struggle with.

Autumn G Noble (04:19.31)
and that is simply the failure to set and maintain healthy boundaries. If you have a boss that continually disregards your protests against additional work, or you telling them that you don't have capacity for more, or if there's someone in your personal life that continually invades your personal and emotional space, this one is for you. The big takeaway is that when we fail to set good, healthy boundaries,

we end up teaching the people in our lives that they can treat us poorly in order to get what they want at our own expense. See what we had to say about boundaries in episode 11 on boundaries and how to stick to them. Jumping right in, brutal honesty dose number one. We are the reason people don't respect our boundaries. It's not their fault.

and they will never change if we don't. In everything that we do, we are expressing our values, not only to ourselves, but to everyone around us. In that expression, others will learn to anticipate where they fall on your hierarchy of values. If your choices communicate to them that they will always be number one, no matter what, they will come to expect that treatment every time.

Why wouldn't they? When you get that phone call late at night, you are choosing to value it more than the time at home that you may be spending with your family. Or you might be choosing to place greater value on that call and greater value on not upsetting people at work than you place on getting a full night's sleep. So instead you answer that phone call or you step away from your family and you take the call. You are always making choices.

where to spend your energy and how to direct your attention. When we fail to set boundaries, we are communicating to others that we will always choose them first. Your job is not robbing you of the balance that you seek. You are opening the doors and burning down all of your guard towers. We hate getting those last minute projects dropped onto our plates when we're already drowning. Everybody does.

Autumn G Noble (06:43.982)
Sometimes we even work up the nerve to protest and tell them that we just don't have capacity. But what do we do time and time again? We just do it. We figure out a way to make it happen. We make sacrifices that we don't feel good about, but we get it done. And when it happens the next time, we do the same thing. Why then are we so surprised when they keep doing it? They're getting exactly what they want.

Why would they ever stop asking you or believe when you say you don't have time? You've said that before, but you always get it done anyway. So we have to first really recognize that we are part of the problem. Our inability or unwillingness to set those boundaries is why people keep treating us that way. They're never going to change. And we've given them no reason to change because they get what they want every single time. You set the precedent.

by communicating where those types of interactions fall on your list of priorities. And your answer historically has been right at the top above everything else, my family, my friends, my sanity. The only person that you need to be mad at for constantly pushing your boundaries is you. Other people will not naturally violate our boundaries. They're taught what is acceptable. We teach them.

what is acceptable by our actions. When they continually do so, it is only because they have become the monsters that we created through our own actions. Consider this. We have all seen those attorneys who just don't give a fuck about not responding immediately to calls or emails. Everybody knows it and everyone gossips and gripes about it, but

Everyone is secretly jealous that they don't have the guts to do the same thing. Not only do those attorneys still have a job, but they also have the balance we've been craving. People learn not to call them after hours, and they've deduced that they won't respond to late night quasi -emergency emails unless it's really an emergency. Those types of people, those types of attorneys, they made a choice.

Autumn G Noble (09:07.566)
about what they valued more, not being gossiped about or having work -life balance. For them, having more balance is worth so much more than being gossiped about for not being responsive all of the time. They made conscious decisions about where the demands of the job fell with respect to their values, and they clearly communicated their values and they stuck to their guns. It can be as simple as that.

You do not have to respond to every email just because you saw it. And just because someone else decided to tack on that little red emergency sign to the email. We can develop the art of cultivating our email and only responding to true emergencies after hours. We're not your doctors. There's rarely those kinds of emergencies.

but people get used to you treating them and honoring them in that way. Because after all, humans are creatures of habit. If we allow others to call on us at all hours of the night, they will continue to do so if it yields the results that they want. And they will stop if it doesn't get them the results that they want. You are not a victim to others. You're only a victim to your own choices.

And luckily for all of us, we can start making better choices, choices that are more in tune with our values. Thus we can choose instead to set some boundaries. And here's how we do this. All right. That was a heavy topic to start with, but this is something that is so important. If you struggle with boundaries, be sure to head over to episode number 11 and listen to all of the details.

in that episode on how to set boundaries and stick to them. As you think about your own boundaries or lack thereof, you may be wondering to yourself, why is it so hard to set boundaries and stick to them when we know that they are so good for us? Why do we set ourselves up for that kind of chaos? What I have often found is that boundaries go hand in hand with our desire to please people.

Autumn G Noble (11:28.91)
Our tendency to people please is certainly multifaceted and related to a number of things, including imposter syndrome. But certainly people pleasing is characterized by a general unwillingness to live authentically and honestly in order to protect others and their emotions in hopes that they will think about us in a certain kind of positive way. Whenever we're people pleasing, we are not living authentically.

and honoring what we really want to say or really want to do in any given situation. And that often creates this kind of boiling frustration just below the surface, fueling our anger at the people around us as if they are the reason that we're forced to show up in this way. Here's a tidbit of what we unpacked in episode 10 on people pleasing and how to stop.

My own lady lawyer coach recently just blew my mind. We were talking about a scenario where I was feeling really frustrated. And she looked at me and she said, you know, frustration is often a sign of an unfulfilled intention. And I just sat there in silence because I realized that the reason I was feeling so frustrated with respect to that scenario was because

I wasn't showing up the way that I wanted to. I wasn't being honest and I wasn't speaking my truth. And that was making me even more frustrated with what was happening. My frustration was out of proportion from the trigger because I was so much more frustrated ultimately with myself for not acting in alignment with what I knew to be authentic for me. Whenever we're feeling frustrated,

It's usually because we have stifled our own truths and we aren't showing up authentically or in the ways that we truly want to show up. We're frustrated because for whatever reason, we feel like we are being inhibited in our ability to be honest. Certainly we might be frustrated by whatever external trigger it is, but the real frustration comes from our feeling like we can't be honest.

Autumn G Noble (13:52.046)
we can't speak our truth or judging ourselves for not being honest and speaking our truth. All of that creates this sort of internal frustration and turmoil. For instance, when we're frustrated that we have more work than we want, at its core is frustration with ourselves for not protecting our capacity and being honest because we really wanted to say, absolutely not, I cannot do this project. I have more work than I need right now. Please go away.

whatever it is, like all those things that we really wanted to say and we didn't, we ignored those genuine intentions of standing up for ourselves and being honest. And that's really what's driving that frustration when we feel overloaded and overextended. When we are frustrated with the people in our lives, the reason that frustration flourishes is because we aren't taking authentic action to overcome.

instead of having a real conversation with the source of our frustration, we just rant and rave and we ignore our intention to have open, honest relationships with the people in our lives. We stifle that true intention and it really just fuels the fires of frustration. Consider situations where you're even frustrated with conversations with your supervisors or other members of your team. Usually those frustrations

are rooted in some judgment of ourselves because there are things that we wanted to say that we didn't, truths that we left hidden because we are afraid to bear them. And so not only are we frustrated with the situation and the conversation, but we're now we're frustrated and disappointed with ourselves. So again, when you start feeling that real frustration in your belly, there's a sign that you're not being honest and you're not being authentic in your life. That frustration,

is a sign that we're people pleasing, that we aren't living in alignment with our intentions. It is uncomfortable to be open and honest and air our truth, but it's also really uncomfortable to live in authentically and to live in frustration. So if you're feeling frustrated, I urge you to recognize it as a sign that you're potentially living in authentically and engaging in some people pleasing of your own.

Autumn G Noble (16:13.134)
when we start catching on to our own patterns and catching on to those signs like frustration that were people pleasing, that is how we start to really deconstruct it at a deeper level. We start to see all these different areas of our lives where we aren't being completely honest with people and we are potentially engaging in people pleasing and that's why we're frustrated. And so being really mindful of how you're feeling in any relationship or situation is gonna help

clue you into aspects of your life where you might be people pleasing more than you realize. When we people please, we ultimately trade our truth for immediate but temporary gratification. That frustrated, unlived intention, it will fester below the surface and eventually it makes itself known. Except usually by that point, the frustration has evolved from like a rumble to more cataclysmic.

rage quit meltdown epic battle type of situation. That's when all of those past hurts, frustrations and unspoken intentions come tumbling out because we have been stifling those truths for so long. By now, it's pretty evident that two of the ways that we commonly create our own strife

is failing to set boundaries and living inauthentically through people pleasing. With that in mind, again, it's so easy to find ourselves asking, why do we do this to ourselves? We know that people pleasing and failing to set boundaries is destroying us, but why can't we do better? This brings us to reason number three that we often create our own problems. And that is the fact that many of us are carrying some pretty crappy beliefs

about who we are, what we're capable of, and where we come from. And those beliefs are inhibiting our ability to show up the way that we really want to. And that is the final topic for today. Often our own garbage thinking is the cause of our struggles in life and our careers. See what we had to say about this topic in episode number five, why we are unhappy in law, partly because we are believing our own BS.

Autumn G Noble (18:34.506)
Ugly beliefs. We've all got them. As we start this episode, I want you to think about something that you're wanting to be different. Maybe you want to go to another firm. Maybe you want to work less. Maybe you want more balance or maybe you just don't want to be a lawyer anymore. But I want you to think about that one missing piece. And as you do, see if you can pause long enough to start hearing your thoughts about it.

And specifically seeing if you can hear your brain explain to yourself why you simply cannot do that thing. It would be worse at a different firm. They'll fire you if you work less. Balance doesn't exist in the legal industry. This is just the way that it is. You can't quit lawyering. How will you pay off your student loans and what will people think about you? All of those thoughts are what I want you to keep on the forefront of your mind as we work through today's topic.

The majority of the women that I work with want things to be a freckle different. They want to change firms, or they want to make more space in their lives, and they want to believe that is possible. They want to live and act from that space of curiosity and exploration and trying to find a way to make it work. The problem is that they're not facing the reality that parts of themselves are still persuaded by all of those ugly stories.

telling them why what they want is an impossibility. There's a part of them that is still wondering if what they want for themselves is not available to them or that the person that they want to be is simply too far from the reality of their shortcomings. It's this push and pull, this desire, this dreaming that's bogged down by our own negative thinking and these negative stories we're telling ourselves.

That is the third most common reason that we're simply not happier at law. We all have those stories that we tell ourselves. They're lurking beneath the surface. They're keeping us from doing what we ultimately want to do. Those beliefs often drive us to procrastinate, to avoid work, to avoid difficult conversations that are for our own betterment, but they ultimately keep us in a place

Autumn G Noble (20:59.626)
that is inconsistent with who we are and where we want to be. So unless and until we unpack that circus that's going on up there, we'll never be able to act from a genuine place of confidence and belief in our value in order to find more peace at work. And let's be real for a minute here. We've all been there. So many of us feel stuck

and hopeless, carrying around thoughts that are very heavy and in black and white thinking. I can't do that. I have to stay in this practice. I can't set boundaries. I don't have any other options available to me. All of those thoughts, they feel so oppressive and heavy. And then we carry them with us day in and day out. And we wonder why we're so exhausted at the end of the day. When you carry that kind of heavy and hopeless energy with you, but you

push it down and you bury it and you don't look at it, it will eventually wear you out. We don't have enough gas in our tanks to do our jobs and continue to hold off those types of emotions. It's like holding an energetic beach ball underwater while we're trying to run a marathon. It always blows up in your face. It always comes back. That energy has to go somewhere. And we all know with that burnout feeling,

is like an often that's because we've been kind of engaged in this push and pull energetically for so long that eventually the wheels just fall off. If you're listening to this and this resonates with you and you think that gosh at the end of every day i just feel completely exhausted more exhausted than the day actually warranted odds are pretty good that you're carrying around and ignoring and burying some pretty heavy

and painful emotions because there's some negative story that you're telling yourself and it's playing in the background like elevator music. Just because you don't look at it, just because you don't take it out to play with it, it doesn't mean it's not creating that energy, those negative feelings within you. And that's part of the problem that we're going to deconstruct today. So how do we rip those up and get to a place where we believe that what we want to change, what we want to be different,

Autumn G Noble (23:22.41)
is actually possible for ourselves. First, we have to get to a place where we can recognize and acknowledge that these thoughts and these stories that we carry around in our heads, they're just opinions. They're not facts. They have not come to fruition. We can't tell the future. They're just words in our heads that we have given a tremendous amount of power and energy to.

We have to look at those existing beliefs and get to a place where we can see them as just that. Their choices that we make and things that we're choosing to believe. Opinions that we're selecting from the universe of options available to us. We limit ourselves because we carry around those small voices inside of us saying that we're not good enough, that we're going to fail, that we can't have the life that we want.

We are not coming to our experience with openness to the possibility for progress. Instead, we start out really expecting to fail because we treat all those stories and all those narratives as if they're just the whole truth and there is nothing else that we could possibly choose to believe. We cannot create the life that we want, a life with more happiness, a life with more peace if we're showing up every day, buying into those lines.

of negative thinking. Those beliefs are always going to be in the background sucking some of our energy away from our true intended goal of building a practice that you're happy with. Those beliefs and those stories, they kind of creep in and reinvest your energy in that hopelessness. I know for me, when I'm in that space, it happens at the end of the day when I'm just totally beat in my ability to push those thoughts and push those emotions down and away.

It's just not possible anymore because I'm exhausted. That's when they come in like a tidal wave and I can just feel them second guessing everything I'm trying to do, diminishing all of these beliefs that I'm trying to invest in. But that is our work. We have to recognize that constant tug of war within us, that tug of war where we're torn between believing in something more or throwing up our hands in resignation to this cruel universe that we're living in.

Autumn G Noble (25:41.45)
If we give those thoughts an inch, they will take a mile and they will bury us. So first we have to recognize that they're there and we have to recognize that they're choices that we're making and stories that we're choosing to give energy to. All right, my friends, that concludes the hot takes for this episode. To recap, the most common ways that we create our own problems is failing to set boundaries.

and showing up inauthentically by people pleasing and ignoring our own truest intentions. And finally, believing some of the garbage stories that we have created for ourselves over the course of our lives. If any of this sounds like you, please feel free to dig deeper into each of the related episodes that are linked in the show notes, or sign up for that free coaching consultation where we can talk one -on -one.

about how these issues are impacting your life and give you some practical tools to start making changes today. You have nothing to lose and so much to gain. I promise you, I wish I had started coaching years before I did. Do not make the same mistake that I did. Reach out and take advantage of that free coaching consultation and let's get to work on these issues today. And remember my friends, while you are resting, relaxing and getting rejuvenated this summer,

The summer is also available for so much more. It's an opportunity to strategize your final chapter of the year. What do you want to be different as you wind down 2024? Because it's coming, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, July kicks off the second half of the year. What do you want to be different? What do you want to change? What didn't go well for you last year? And do you have the tools and support to make it happen?

If you're not sure or if you know that you want something to be different, but you're not sure how to make it happen, reach out and schedule a free coaching consultation and see if we can craft a strategy for you together. I truly believe that there is a reason that you're listening to this podcast, that there's a reason you're following The Collective. Take that extra step and dive in and see if this is the thing you've been looking for to change your career and change your life.

Autumn G Noble (27:57.962)
If that doesn't sound like something you're interested in, then go ahead and take advantage of all the free resources I make available to you on thelawyerelifecollective .com, including those free webinars. And lastly, if you're more of a self -guided kind of gal, I totally get it. Check out my book, The Lawyer Life Survival Guide, and get everything I can pack in to 260 pages on this topic and how to really create the success that you're wanting in your career.

I so look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Until then, I hope that you are enjoying your summer and getting some of that much needed rest and relaxation.