Month: July 2023

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 69. Today, we’re talking all about the labels you assign other people. You ready? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Less Stressed Lawyer, the only podcast that teaches you how to manage your mind so you can live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. If you’re a lawyer who’s over the overwhelm and tired of trying to hustle your way to happiness, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your host, lawyer turned life coach Olivia Vizachero.

Hey, my friends, how are you? Things are good. I’m over in my neck of the woods. I just made it to Nashville. I got in yesterday, and I am here to work with my business coach, because even coaches need coaching. I think everyone could benefit from coaching. So, I get coached myself and every six months I go to a different city, and I get to meet with my business coach.

I get to meet with all of my entrepreneur peers, and I just soak up several days of learning in an immersive environment. It’s one of my favorite things. I am a retreat person, that’s why I host my own in-person events. I just absolutely love the experience of being in community with people and being able to immerse myself in the learning and be fully focused.

I just touched down here yesterday. I’m getting acclimated. It’s pretty warm in Nashville. I’m so excited to meet and mingle with everyone, and I also have the pleasure this time of being one of the instructors for the program that I’m a part of. So, I’m a student and an instructor this time, which is so, so fun. I absolutely love teaching people how to make money, and I get to do that as part of this program.

I teach my own clients how to make money, how to build successful law practices, and how to market, and then I get to do that here with coaches and entrepreneurs. So fun. That’s enough about me. I hope wherever you are in the world listening to this, all is well with you.

I’m super excited to talk to you about today’s topic. It’s actually a special request from one of my clients, who is an avid listener of my podcast. She reached out to me and said, “Hey, can you please do an episode on this?” So, I went back through the archives of my podcast, and I did an episode on this before, but it’s slightly different. Let me explain.

Today’s topic is about the labels you assign other people. Episode 14 of this podcast is all about the labels you assign yourself. Even though the concept is the same, the framework is still the same, I want to give you some specific examples of what this looks like in practice and why it’s problematic, specifically when it comes to other people.

This is what I mean by assigning a label to someone. Labels are just thoughts that we have about other people. The thought is a judgment that we have about them, and it’s a characteristic that we believe that they exhibit. So, examples of this would be thoughts like, he’s irresponsible, he’s aggressive, she’s disrespectful, she’s lazy, he’s immature, she’s unprofessional, he’s non-responsive, she’s rude, he’s flaky, he’s narcissistic, she’s unreliable, she’s bitchy, he’s arrogant, or she’s selfish.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, right? These are just examples of the types of labels that you might be assigning to the people in your life. And you have to remember, our thoughts are not true; facts are true. So, in this instance, there would be behavior that someone exhibits, the factual behavior. The actions that they take, that everyone in the world would agree upon if we all listened to what they say, or we watched what they did, it would be in the most factual way possible.

“She said…” blank, you would insert the direct quote. Or “He did this… He said no to attending…” something. Or “She showed up 30 minutes after the start of the event.” Those are facts. Then, you place a judgment on the facts you observe. We label people, we assign them these characteristics, based on our own belief systems and the facts that we encounter.

We end up taking these labels and use them as a lens, where we view people through the label that we assign them. Our brains are so, so powerful, they’re such incredible tools, and they’re so effective that when we assign these labels to people, our brains essentially say, “Roger that, I’m going to go out and find evidence to prove this belief true.” Even though our thoughts aren’t true, our brain accepts the assignment. It’s like, “I’m going to go confirm this for you. I’m going to close the loop.”

So, when you’re thinking that someone is irresponsible, when you assign them that label, your brain says, “Roger that,” and it goes out and finds all the evidence that this person is irresponsible. So, everything that they do, you view all of their actions through that lens of believing that they’re irresponsible. You’re like on hyper alert, looking for evidence and more proof to support your initial belief, that they’re irresponsible.

You’re going to bypass and ignore anything to the contrary. You’re going to miss seeing the ways in which someone might be responsible. And of course, it’s always a subjective opinion on whether someone’s responsible or irresponsible. But you’re going to miss things that you would perceive to be responsible, and you’re going to hyperfocus and look for proof of someone’s irresponsibility.

Same thing when you’re believing that someone’s aggressive. You’re going to look for all the ways that someone’s aggressive. You’re going to miss the ways where they’re mild in nature, and soft or welcoming or thoughtful or caring. You’re going to look for all the ways that they’re aggressive.

If you think that someone’s disrespectful, you’re going to search for all the ways in which they’re disrespectful, and your brain is so good, it will find things to support this. You’ll make the argument subconsciously or unconsciously, to fit your initial assumption about someone.

Same thing with believing that someone’s lazy. You’re going to look for all the ways that they don’t show up the way that you want them to. You’re going to look for the ways that they dropped the ball, when they don’t put in the extra effort, and when they phone it in.

Again, these are all just your opinions about the person and what they’re doing. None of it is actually true, but we believe our thoughts. Especially when you’re not actively engaged in the process of identifying your thoughts, examining them, and questioning them. Which is something that we do when we coach together. You learn that skill set. You learn how to do that.

Now, I want you to take a few minutes, and basically, we’re going to workshop this, during this episode, because I want you to start to create some awareness around the labels that you’re assigning the people in your life. So, maybe you have a boss. What are the labels that you assign to your boss? Maybe you think they’re demanding. Maybe you think they’re toxic. Maybe you think they’re not respectful of your time or your boundaries.

When you think those thoughts, when you assign those labels to them, do you see how you search for and find more evidence to support that initial belief? I also want you to think about how you feel when you think those thoughts about this person, and when you assign these labels to them? It’s going to cause you to feel a negative emotion. Then, get clear. How do you show up when you’re feeling that way? Probably not in a great way, right? So, think about that.

Or if you have someone who reports to you directly, someone that you supervise, what labels do you assign to that person? Do you think that they’re unreliable? Do you think that they’re not responsive enough?

I see that a lot with some of the higher-level partners that I work with. They typically think the associates that work for them aren’t responsive enough. Then, when they think that, every single time they’re interacting with the associate it reinforces their belief that the person’s not responsive enough. So, they’re searching for that evidence, and they find it.

One of the things that I teach my clients to do, is define what “enough” means in the first place. So, we have to go through and figure out what you mean by responsive enough. Does that mean people respond within 24 hours, eight hours an hour, a half an hour? It doesn’t matter what your standard is, everyone gets to have their own standards. You just want to know what yours are.

When you don’t define what “enough” is and you assign someone the label that they’re not responsive enough, even though you haven’t defined it, you’re measuring them against an unclear standard and you’re always going to think that they should have responded faster than they did. Then, you’re going to be really frustrated and annoyed with them.

Then, think about how you show up with your direct report when you’re feeling frustrated and annoyed. It’s not going to be in a way that supports your collaborative relationship with this person. It’s not going to be in a way that supports them to continue to improve and grow and be an integral part of your team.

Same thing if you have an assistant; maybe it’s a paralegal or a legal assistant, a secretary. If you have negative thoughts about them, if you’re assigning negative labels to them, maybe you think that they’re incompetent, or they aren’t attentive enough to detail, that’s a big one that I see with my clients, you will always look for the ways that they’re not competent, or that they miss those details.

Again, you’re going to be frustrated and annoyed. So, if you label a person that you work with this way, you’re going to keep searching for evidence to meet and fill in this belief. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. You think it and then you find it and you see it in them, and then you think it some more and then you find it, and you see it in them, and you think at some more.

Think about your clients. What labels do you assign to your clients? A lot of my clients think that their clients are difficult and needy. When they think those thoughts about their clients, they are constantly in search of evidence to prove that true. So, every time that the client messages them after business hours, they’re going to reinforce that belief that the person’s difficult or needy.

Every time they have to explain something to a client a second or third time, they’re going to reinforce their belief that the client is difficult and needy. Because they’re bringing everything that the client does through that lens of the client being difficult, of the client being needy, so it just proves it true. Even though, as I’ve said multiple times already in this episode, your thoughts aren’t true. But they feel true, especially when you are on the hunt, subconsciously, for evidence that supports your initial belief.

Think about the labels that you assign to your parents. I coach a lot of my clients on their relationship with their parents. No one teaches us in life how to have relationships with adult parents, or how parents should have relationships with their adult children. I find there to be a lot of tension and conflict in adult-child parent relationships.

So, take a second and think about how you think about your parents. Do you think that they’re intrusive? Do you think that they’re judgmental? Do you think that they’re unsupportive? Do you think that they’re slow? I actually… My mom, hopefully she’s not listening to this. But this is a label I’ve assigned to her with how she drives.

I notice, I hyper focus, on the speed at which she drives and then how she gets in and out of the car. Kevin Hart has a really funny comedic skit about this, about someone preparing to start driving and someone exiting a car.

It’s a silly label that I’ve assigned to my mom, and then every time I drive with her, I reinforce this belief because I’m hyper focusing on how long it takes her to get her purse together, get in and out of the car, get her seatbelt on, put the car in drive, and do all of that stuff.

If I wasn’t assigning this label to her, none of this would be a problem. But it’s because I’m viewing all of her actions through this lens, through this judgment, that I hyperfocus and I upset myself, right?

So, if I were to get rid of this thought, and choose to think something else instead, I wouldn’t be nearly as annoyed when I drive with her. Because I’m not having this negative thought and viewing everything that she does through that lens of negative belief.

How about the thoughts or the labels you assign to your romantic partner. Do you think that they’re selfish? Do you think that they’re unsupportive? Do you think that they are unhelpful? If you are thinking these things about the person that you’re romantically involved with, notice how you constantly search for evidence that they’re selfish. You’re going to look for all the ways that they’re not holding their own in the relationship.

You’re going to look for all of the ways that they put their needs before you. You’re going to look for all the ways and all the times that they don’t help you versus looking at the times that they do help you.

Now, what’s the problem with assigning these labels? Number one, if you’re assigning a negative label to someone, you’re making yourself feel like shit, okay? I tell my clients all the time, feeling like shit feels like shit. So, you’re causing your own emotional suffering when you do this.

I think a lot of people, the pushback they give me when I invite them to stop assigning labels to the people in their lives, to change the way that they’re thinking about the people in their lives, they’re like, “What am I supposed to do? Just tolerate other people’s behavior and just put up with everything?” It’s not about letting someone else off the hook, it’s about letting yourself off the hook. It’s about not forcing yourself to suffer emotionally when it’s really unnecessary.

So, if you want to feel better, we can’t control what other people do or say. The only thing we can control is how you think about other people. I highly encourage you, and I invite you to entertain the idea of changing the labels that you assign people or just stop assigning labels to them, so you don’t cause yourself emotional suffering that’s completely optional and completely unnecessary.

I also want you to think about, again, how do you show up when you’re feeling these feelings? I want you to get really specific with the emotion that you feel. Remember, it’s a one-word emotion that you feel when you assign these labels to people and when you think these thoughts.

Then, ask yourself, how do I show up in relationship with this person? How do I respond to this person when I’m thinking this thought, when I’m feeling this feeling, if it’s not positive? Then, the label that you’re assigning really doesn’t serve you and you’re doing yourself a disservice by continuing to assign it to someone, because you’re upsetting yourself. You’re not showing up in the way that you want to be showing up.

I want you to be really specific here and get clear when you think that someone is unresponsive or not responsive enough, and you feel that negative feeling, frustrated or annoyed or disrespected. How do you show up when you’re working with them? When you think that your partner is unhelpful, and you feel resentful or disappointed or disrespected or neglected or unsupported? How do you show up?

What do you do? Do you argue with them? Do you withdraw? Do you get passive aggressive? Do you lash out? What do you do? Do you argue more? How does it create more conflict? How does it create more tension? How does it create more of what you don’t want when you’re thinking that your parents are intrusive, and you feel annoyed? What do you do? Do you get combative with them? Do you withdraw? Do you avoid them?

You’re going to start to see how you show up in ways that really don’t create the results that you want, in these different relationships that you have with people. So, what’s the solution here if these thoughts and if these labels don’t serve you?

You’ve got two different options. The first option is that you can just choose to not assign label. You can get rid of the label altogether. One of the ways that you can do this is you can recognize that the way that you’re labeling people assumes that that label is true 100% of the time, right?

It’s not that we’re telling ourselves that they’re sometimes selfish, we’re telling ourselves that they’re selfish 100% of the time. The 100% part is just assumed in the way that we label them. It ends up being really inaccurate because there’s probably plenty of evidence, if you were to look for it intentionally, that you’d be able to find proof to support that someone is selfless. Just like you can find proof to support that they’re selfish.

If you’re thinking that someone’s irresponsible, you can find plenty of proof to support your belief that they’re irresponsible. But if you flip it, you can also find plenty of evidence to support the fact that they’re responsible, or to support the opinion that they’re responsible. So, as an opinion, not a fact.

The truth is, is that people are dynamic, they’re nuanced, and they’re all things. They’re both things, right? We’re a mix. It’s not all or nothing, it’s not black and white, it’s not zero or 100%. So, if you think about that, can you allow yourself to get rid of the label altogether, recognizing that no one is 100% anything? That’s one option, recognizing that your labels are just inaccurate, so can we just get rid of it?

The other option, I call this coaching Mad Libs, that’s just the fun little phrase that I came up with for this, or the way that I think about it in my head. But if you identify the labels that you’re assigning to people… and I like to do this by writing them out. This is one of the times that I do invest the time, and it only takes a few minutes, to just write out what you’re thinking about someone so you can see it in front of you.

When you write it out, I find it so much easier to see it in front of you, written on paper, and to identify all the ways in which that belief is not true. I see it in such a different way when it’s written in front of me, rather than when I do this exercise in my head. So, take the time and write this out.

Pick one person and write out the labels that you’re assigning to them. You’re quickly going to be able to see how the opposite is true, or how something different is true. Again, it’s not actually true, it’s just your opinion. But you’re going to see how you could make an argument in support of a different belief, versus the belief that you’re currently holding.

When you’re doing this, it gives you access to start to try and switch up the way that you’re thinking about this person. What I do, after I’ve written down the labels that I’m assigning to someone, I play the Mad Libs version of this. So, I circle the word. You’re going to circle the term that you’re using to describe the person, you’re going to circle the word that’s the label.

So, “he is arrogant,” arrogant would be the label here that you’re assigning, circle that, and see if you can plug and play different words to change the way that you feel about someone. You’re essentially replacing the label with a label that better serves you.

I recently did this with a client of mine. She was getting ready to do an in-court appearance, she was arguing a motion, and it had been the first time that she was going to be in front of a judge, arguing this type of motion, in a really long time. Because of the pandemic, it had been a while, and she had had a negative experience in front of this judge before. So, she felt particularly anxious about preparing for this motion hearing, going into court in front of this judge.

As we talked about it, I realized that she was assigning certain labels to this judge. One of the labels that she was assigning to this judge was that he was “very aggressive.” So, we circle very aggressive, right? That’s the phrase that we want to swap out. We played with different word choices here, and we ultimately came to, instead of thinking he’s very aggressive, what if you thought he’s very emotional.

It totally changed the way that she felt about the motion hearing and about being in front of this judge. It actually made her giggle, because arguably, you can make the same argument that the person who’s being very aggressive is also being very emotional, right?

There are different ways to think of emotional. I think there’s a feminine connotation often associated with the word “emotional,” with that kind of label. There’s the masculine interpretation of thinking that someone’s very aggressive, but flipping it to something more feminine… This isn’t a knock on feminine attributes, but just the play on words here and replacing “aggressive” with “emotional” made it so much less intimidating for her to appear before the judge.

Rather than being scared or nervous, it’s like almost mildly amused. “Oh, look at this judge not being able to get a handle on their emotions, and not being able to control themselves.” Rather than being something that she needed to be intimidated about, it was something that she almost felt sympathetic about. “Oh, poor judge, not being able to control themselves, and not being able to keep their response controlled or at bay.”

It really empowered her to show up, and prep for that hearing, in a way that felt so much better to her. She ended up killing it. She knocked it out of the park. And part of that is because she chose to assign a different label to this judge in advance of this hearing.

Think about doing the exact same thing with your romantic partner. If you’re thinking that they’re really unhelpful, you’re going to look for all the evidence that supports that belief. But try and swap out a different word, other than “unhelpful.”

For me, one of the ways that I can often get to a different label, get to a different word in the thought Mad Libs, the coaching Mad Libs game, would be to ask myself why I think that they’re that way. Why I think they’re unhelpful. I might be able, in this instance, to get to a thought like, “Oh, well, they don’t know what I need help with.”

So instead of thinking that they’re unhelpful, I might choose to swap that out with “they’re unaware.” They’re unclear on the help that I need or would like. From there, it just puts the onus on me to be better at explaining and asking for the help that I would like. Then, they have more clarity and they’re better informed as to what I’m asking for.

Because no one’s a mind reader. No matter how long you’ve been with someone, they still don’t know what you’re thinking. It’s so much easier if we just tell them and we just ask for what we want, rather than expecting them to read our minds. So, I would just choose to think that they’re unaware or they’re uninformed, and that I can solve that by informing them, just being more clear, and asking for what I want.

Same thing with someone that I might supervise. I might think that they’re incompetent, and that’s not going to make me feel good. I’m going to show up in a pretty negative way when I’m feeling whatever feeling comes from that; frustrated, annoyed, disappointed, discouraged.

Instead of thinking that they’re incompetent, I might think that they’re confused or they’re inexperienced. Then that would make me feel more patient or more curious about how I could approach this situation differently, in order to create a different result.

Okay, so again, try this coaching Mad Libs. Where you identify the sentence, you circle the word that causes the negative emotion, causes you to experience that negative emotion that is your subjective opinion, and see if you can replace it. Try and assign a different label, a more useful, helpful label, to that person.

I promise you, doing this work, identifying the thoughts that you’re thinking about other people, the labels that you’re assigning them, is life changing, and it is simple to do. It has such a massive impact. Just creating awareness around this, alone, will really transform your relationships. How you show up in them, and how you feel about the people in your life on a day-to-day basis.

It is some of the most important work you can do. Okay, from there, just creating that awareness is powerful enough, but you can also choose to stop assigning the label altogether or assign a different one, one that’s more useful, one that’s more helpful, one that’s more positive. Those are your options here. Okay?

So, go out, take some time, and start to identify the labels that you’re assigning to the people in your life. I highly encourage you to knock it off. Stop doing what you’ve been doing, and your relationships will really improve.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got for you this week, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week. I will talk to you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. If you want more info about Olivia Vizachero or the show’s notes and resources from today’s episode, visit www.TheLessStressedLawyer.com.

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 68. Today, we’re talking all about the most important question you can ask yourself. You ready? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Less Stressed Lawyer, the only podcast that teaches you how to manage your mind so you can live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. If you’re a lawyer who’s over the overwhelm and tired of trying to hustle your way to happiness, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your host, lawyer turned life coach Olivia Vizachero.

Well, hello there. Man, I am so excited to record this episode. This is one of my absolute favorite things to talk about. I mentioned in the last episode, in the episode that I talked about setting money goals, when I gave you all my little life update… which I love to do at the start of each podcast episode, like I said, just to bring you along with me, and give you a little behind the scenes look at what’s going on in my life… I talked about how I recently spent some time in northern Michigan.

I got away. I really listened to myself. I knew that I needed a little bit of a breather. I needed some downtime. I just wanted to be with people that I loved. I wanted to catch my breath. I just wanted to chill and enjoy my life for a second. Have some fun, relax, get out of my routine, get away, and just be. Just be with people that I care about. Just be with myself. Just be. I did that. I listened to myself, and I created that opportunity for myself.

I rented a place up north. I took friends up on an invitation to go stay with them for a few days. I made the drive. I took time off of work. I rescheduled some client sessions. I made myself available for those opportunities. I created that opportunity actually, by giving myself the time and the bandwidth and the availability to go spend my time that way.

One thing that was truly not lost on me, and I guess it’s a little coincidental, because all of this was going on around the Fourth of July, which is all about freedom, I realized that I have truly created a life where I’m free to do what I want with my time. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have obligations, that I don’t work, and that I don’t have to work in order to make money. All of those things are still true.

I choose to have those obligations in my life. I’m happy to have them. I’m proud to have them. I love the business that I’ve built for myself. But I also love the freedom that I’ve created for myself. To be able to not have to answer to someone, and to be able to reschedule something when I need to.

To be able to get away. The financial freedom to rent a cottage on a lake at the last minute, and to be able to impulsively drive up north, and do all of that stuff to be able to get away. I’ve created a life that affords me the freedom to spend my time how I want to spend my time.

Because this all coincided with the Fourth of July, and the whole let freedom ring theme, I was thinking about this concept. It made me think of my favorite question, which is what this episode is all about. I’m going to ask you my favorite question.

But I want to give you some background as to where this question came from, how it came to me, how I came to know it, why I ask it of myself, why I think it’s so powerful.

So, to give you a little backstory, y’all know I love a good backstory. But every year I pick a word of the year. One year I picked “Intentional.” I think another year I picked “Sufficient,” and I meant that in a couple of different ways. I meant self-sufficient, as in I can take care of myself and be very reliant on myself. I also meant sufficient as in feeling sufficient. Like, feeling like I had enough of the things that I had, enjoying what I had, rather than feeling like I needed or wanted more.

So intentional, sufficient. I’ve picked different words, but those are the two that really come to mind when I think of the words of the year that I’ve chosen. Then, in 2020, I read a book. It’s a sobriety memoir called We Are the Luckiest.

I read it, actually, while I was detoxing from taking Adderall. For those of you who don’t know, I used to struggle with Adderall addiction. I will do a whole episode all about my struggles with that, and how I overcame it, because I know that a lot of people in the legal industry struggle with that as well. I want to be a resource and an open book about my own struggles with it.

But as I was going through detoxing from Adderall, I read this book called We Are the Luckiest. I’ve also talked, I think, a bit on the podcast about my relationship with alcohol. I’ll do a whole episode on that, as well. But that is something that I’ve also struggled with.

Those two things really went in tandem with one another. I would take Adderall to stay awake, and then I would drink in order to be able to fall asleep. A very ineffective way to cope with my stress. So, those two things really went in tandem with one another.

I’d been sober curious, for a while. I’ve really done a lot of work on my relationship with alcohol. I still do consume alcohol. I don’t like to glamorize drinking alcohol. Again, it is something that I’ve done a lot of conscious, intentional work in addressing my relationship, getting it in a place that feels more maintainable, feels more within my control, feels safer, and sustainable.

As part of that, with my sober curiosity, I chose to read I follow this woman on Instagram. The author’s name is Laura McKowen. She came out with a book called We Are the Luckiest. I forget who else read it, maybe it was Glennon Doyle; who I also love; the author of Love Warrior and Untamed. Love Warrior absolutely changed my life. It was the first time I was ever introduced to the concept that discomfort is something that you need to embrace rather than avoid.

So, I believe Glennon reviewed, We Are the Luckiest. She said that the book was going to save lives, because Glennon’s also sober. Again, there was just a lot that resonated with me, coming from Glennon reviewing this book. So, I decided to order it, and I was reading it as I was detoxing from Adderall.

And I frequently refer to We Are the Luckiest as probably my second favorite book of all time. It’s one of the rawest, most honest, candid, beautiful things that I’ve ever read. I also love a memoir, so it falls right in line with kind of my preference, as far as it comes to literary categories and whatnot.

So, I read, We Are the Luckiest, and as I worked through and addressed my own relationship with alcohol, one of the things that Laura talks about in her book is this fixation with throwing a label on your drinking. So many people struggle with addressing their relationship with alcohol, because they don’t want to label themselves to be an alcoholic. Because that word has a lot of negative connotations with it. It tends to have a lot of judgment with it.

She explains that the proper thing to focus on really isn’t whether or not you consider yourself an alcoholic, that there’s a better question to ask yourself. The question that she poses is the question: But are you free? Regardless of what you want to call yourself, do you have a problem, do you not have a problem, are you an alcoholic, are you not an alcoholic. That really doesn’t matter.

The question is: But are you free? Do you feel like you’re free from alcohol, it’s hold that it has on you? Does it feel like it controls you sometimes? Do you feel out of control with it? Or do you feel free? And for me, because I’ve struggled with that word, it doesn’t feel like it’s the right fit for me, alcoholism, or being an alcoholic, that never felt like it aligned for me.

The question, but are you free, was so powerful. Because for me, especially at the time where I was reading this book, my answer was no. That also, especially, rang true with my relationship with Adderall as well. Although, I do use the word addiction when it comes to my use of Adderall in the past. I don’t take it anymore.

I didn’t mean to make that sound like I take it now, and that I’ve fixed my relationship with it. I have fixed my relationship with it by abstaining, completely, from taking it. Because I do consider myself to have an addiction with it. That’s not something that I can take sustainably, or that I would even want to take sustainably, because my life is so much better now that I no longer take it.

But anyways, I’m reading this book, We Are the Luckiest, and the author Laura McKowen poses this question: But are you free? Honestly, when I read it, I knew in that moment that that question is probably the most important question any of us can ever ask ourselves. It doesn’t just need to come to the topic of substance abuse or drinking alcohol or anything else that you take.

It’s such a beautiful question for, really, each and every area of your life. So, after I read this book, I decided that “Free” was going to be my word for the year. I want to say it was my word of the year in 2021, although I can’t remember if that’s true or not. I know it was my word in 2022, and I know it was my word this year, for 2023.

Honestly, I think it will be the word of the year for the rest of my life. It really is like the word of my life. It’s the pursuit of my lifetime; to become freer and freer. To ask that question of myself, but are you free, in whatever area of my life I’m examining at that time. The reason that I love this word and this question so much, is that I think it really articulates and captures the goals that I’ve set for myself.

So, one of my goals is to be financially free. This year, my goal is to make a million dollars. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for the financial goals that I have for myself over the course of my lifetime. But I’m striving to become financially free.

I also want to be geographically free. I’ve done a lot of work this year, especially since December of 2022, to become more geographically free. I now move every six months. I am in furnished condos. It makes it a lot easier for me to travel from place to place, because I have the goal of being geographically free. I want to move closer and closer towards a more nomadic lifestyle.

It doesn’t just stop there. Those are two of the main goals, that I’ve set for myself within the past 12 months, that I’m actively working towards and making extreme progress on. But it doesn’t stop there. For me, to be truly free includes being free from the weight of other people’s opinions. Being free from the excuses that people make for why they aren’t where they want to be.

Being free from crutches and coping mechanisms like alcohol, Adderall, or other things like that, that people use to tolerate the parts of their lives that they don’t love. Being free from judgment and ridicule and doubt. Or from being free of my own self-judgement, self-ridicule, and self-doubt. Being free from regret and worry and fear.

Or free from society’s expectations. Those external pressures that we put on ourselves, that we take on, when we think that we need to do things because it’s how we’re “supposed” to do them, how we should do them. Being free from traditional norms that might not serve me anymore, or ever, for that matter.

Being free in my body is a huge goal of mine. I’ve spent a lot of my life, more than I care to admit, criticizing and going to war with my body instead of being grateful, loving and at peace with it. That’s something that I’m really working to change, and to become free of, that self-criticism. That unnecessary judgment. That meanness that we can all direct at ourselves. I want that to end. I want to be free of that. That’s one of my goals.

Being free to love, boldly, passionately, uninhibitedly. Free of embarrassment or of making a fool of yourself. Free of worrying about that, is what I mean. Being free to explore this world, every part of it that I want to explore; nature, hobbies, adventures, myself, all of it. Being free to be unapologetically myself, to really know myself, to love myself, to enjoy being myself.

To become more me, and more free to be me, every single day. That is what I’m pursuing in my lifetime, this year, last year, next year, in all the years to come. I am pursuing free. That’s my goal from this point forward for my life.

The way that I’m going to get there is really quite simple. It’s by asking myself this question over and over and over again. You know I always say this, if you want better answers, you’ve got to ask better questions. So, the question that’s going to guide me is very simple. I got it from Laura. It’s the question: But are you free?

So, whatever area of my life I’m working on, whether it’s free of other people’s judgments or free in my body or free in relationships, free to love, free to travel, financially free, free of other people’s expectations. No matter what it is, my question is, but am I free? But are you free?

If the answer in any particular area of my life is no, then I know exactly where my work is. My work is to focus on addressing my mindset, and changing my mindset, to feel freer, to change the way that I think, to change the way that I feel. Ultimately, to change what I do. Right? To take the action that enables me to become more free.

What do I need to do to become more free? To create the result of being freer? So, I’ll use this question to guide me. I currently use it, and I’ll continue to use it. It is so, so impactful. This is going to be a short episode because this question is so powerful, I don’t need to overcomplicate it. But now I want to ask you this question: Are you free?

Really be honest with yourself. I want you to take a second, if you don’t want to be… I almost get choked up when I ask this question. It’s such a powerful question. It’s the secret. It’s like the key to unlocking the life that you’re meant to live. It’s so, so powerful.

When I got the idea to record this episode, I was just so excited to record it and to ask you this question. So, you can have this question, and you can bring it into your own life. The same way I’ve brought it into mine once I borrowed it from Laura. I hope you borrow it from Laura. I hope you borrow it from me.

Are you free? Are you free to do what you love? Are you free to work when you want to work? Are you financially free? Are you free from the weight of other people’s opinions? Or do you still care what they think? Are you still letting their opinions, their judgments control you? Are you free from making excuses for why you aren’t where you want to be?

Or are you taking radical ownership of why you are where you are? Why you have what you have? Why you don’t have what you don’t have? Are you owning that? Are you being radically honest with yourself? Are you free from the crutches and the coping mechanisms that people use to tolerate the parts of their lives that they don’t love?

Or are you buffering with the booze, with the food, with that social media addiction of yours, with the Netflix, with sleeping? Are you buffering, are you escaping the parts of your life that you don’t love? Are you tolerating aspects that you don’t enjoy? That you don’t prefer? Are you free from judgment, ridicule, and doubt?

Are you free from your own self judgement, self-ridicule, and self-doubt? Are you free from regret? Are you free from worry? Are you free from fear? Or are you beholden to those things? Are you letting them control you? Are you free from society’s expectations? Or are you living under the “should?” Is the “should” just suffocating you? Are you free from the traditional norms that don’t serve you?

The expectations, the rules that you no longer want to subscribe to, are you still subscribing to them? Are you still living your life in accordance with them, even though they don’t align with the life that you want? Are you free in your body? Or are you like I have been in the past, criticizing it endlessly, going to war with it? Or are you grateful for it, loving of it, and at peace with it?

Are you free to love who you want to love, the way you want to love? Free of embarrassment? Free to love boldly, passionately, uninhibitedly? Are you free to explore this world, nature, hobbies, adventures, yourself, all of it? Are you free to be unapologetically you?

Are you free to be yourself, the version of you that you like the most? The version of yourself that feels the most authentic? The version of yourself that you prefer? The one that you want to be the most? The version of you that you’ve been longing to step into? Are you free to be that you?

Being free is the pursuit of a lifetime. It is the thing that I want most for my life, and every day, I become more of it. Because I work at it. I ask myself this question, and then I pursue it relentlessly. Being free is also the thing that I want most for your life, too.

I want you to take a second and answer this question: But are you free? If you don’t like your answer, you know where your work is. Let me be clear, it’s time for you to get to work. If you don’t like your answer, the time is now. It’s time to get to work.

I promise you; nothing changes in your life if you don’t change it. If you don’t decide right this minute to do something differently, to pursue free the same way I pursue it; intentionally, every single day, with this relentless passion to become more of the most beautiful thing that you can become; freer each and every day.

Make the decision to pursue the life where you get to be free. The life where you are free. In all of the ways that I mentioned in this episode. That’s what I want for you, to be free in each and every one of those ways, and in more. I’m sure you can think of your own ways, the areas of your life where you currently don’t feel free right now.

I want you to think what would be different about your life, what would your life be like, if you were free in those ways? If you were free in those areas? freedom is available to you, in every single one of those areas. I promise you.

You do have to work for it, though. I do not want to be unclear about that. I want to be as direct as I possibly can be. It is available to you. Freedom is available to you, but you have to work for it. It is waiting for you, but you have to claim it. That is what’s true.

If you want to get started, if you answered your question, and you don’t like your answer, and you want to do something about it, and you want to take me up on the invitation to do something about it right now, right this minute, I want you to join me inside the August class of The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind.

That is the place where you are going to learn how to relentlessly pursue free. The place where you’re going to learn how to live a life on your own terms. How to stop caring about what other people think. How to work when you want, how to do what you love, how to accept yourself and be more of yourself, and get rid of all of the “shoulds” that have been holding you back and limiting you.

To get over the buffering, all of the ways that you self-sabotage, and the ways that you cope and tolerate the parts of your life that you don’t love. I’m going to teach you how to be free from all of that. To be more authentically and unapologetically you; the you that you want to be.

If you are ready to get to work, and I know you are, I know you’re ready to make this change; you’re sick of doing it the other way. You’ve got to join me inside the August class of The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. I cannot wait for the next time I ask you this question, but are you free for you to have a different answer. An answer that you love.

Alright, my friends. That’s what I have for you this week. I hope you have a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. If you want more info about Olivia Vizachero or the show’s notes and resources from today’s episode, visit www.TheLessStressedLawyer.com.

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 67. Today, we’re talking all about setting money goals. You ready? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Less Stressed Lawyer, the only podcast that teaches you how to manage your mind so you can live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. If you’re a lawyer who’s over the overwhelm and tired of trying to hustle your way to happiness, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your host, lawyer turned life coach Olivia Vizachero.

Hello, hello, hello. How are you? I hope you are doing well. I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve talked to you. I’m so excited to continue the Money Mindset series that I started. This is the last episode in that series. Before I dive into that, I just want to give you a little life update and talk about what’s been going on in my summer because I love to just take you with me along with my travels.

I’ve actually been traveling a decent amount for pleasure, not for work. Most of the travel that I do is for work. I decided to just take a chance to catch my breath, and take some time off, both before, during and after the Fourth of July holiday. So, I went up north to Lake Huron, on the east side of the state of Michigan, and rented the cutest Airbnb right on the water. It was absolutely amazing. I did that before the Fourth of July.

Then, I just got back from going up to visit friends of mine at their cottage in Baldwin, Michigan. If you’ve never been to Northern Michigan during the summer, or just Michigan in summer, really, I can’t rave about it enough. You’re absolutely missing out if you’ve never experienced the Great Lakes. Put it on your bucket list, your travel to-do list. It is really, really incredible here.

Every time that I get to one of the great lakes, or even the lake that we go to in Baldwin, which is called Big Star lake, it always blows my mind how magnificent Michigan is. I know that there’s been an influx of people from the West Coast, buying up property in Michigan because it’s pretty inexpensive comparatively speaking. They’re seeing what all of the magic is about. It is really incredible here.

Y’all know I don’t like being cold, and I don’t love Michigan winters, but summer in Michigan is truly magical. So, if you’ve never experienced it, put it on your list. Make sure that you make it a point to get here. If you want recommendations reach out, I love talking travel tips. That’s what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve really just been giving myself a chance to catch my breath.

I have had a really full 12 months since I kicked off The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. My first round of that was the end of June last year. So, it’s been a full year, and a little bit extra, that I’ve been creating them, putting them together, hosting them, selling them, marketing them, all of that stuff. So, it feels like it’s been a really full year in that respect because I added that component to my business.

I’ve also just had a little, I don’t know, emotional turmoil is probably the best way to phrase it, having lost one of my pets. So, I just gave myself a chance to decompress, catch my breath, and spend time with people that I really, really, really love. I’m wishing you the same if your summer hasn’t included enough of that yet. I hope you make time for it.

If you want help making time for it, then you’ve got to binge this podcast because I talk a ton about how to make time for yourself and what’s important to you. You can also take this work to the next level by working with me inside The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. But I highly encourage you, if you don’t feel like you have the freedom to spend your time the way that you want to spend your time.

That’s a skill that you can learn to develop. It’s a skill that I teach you inside my program. So, I want to make sure that you give yourself that gift, and have that opportunity. I’ve been taking advantage of it. It’s a skill I had to learn how to develop, and I’ve been able to do that.

Now that I’ve had a little bit of time off to catch my breath, we’re back. We’re in full swing recording this podcast episode for you, and getting ready to really dive in deep to the last two weeks of open enrollment for the mastermind. So, I’m ready to kick it into full gear again.

But it’s really good to have that ebb and flow, and to be able to tune in and check in with yourself and pay attention. What do I need in this moment? How can I give that to myself? Taking advantage of the freedom that you have to give yourself. Whatever it is that you need to meet the moment.

So, for me, it was a little fresh air, getting out in nature, getting up north, and now we’re back at it. Without further ado, let’s dive in to today’s episode. Like I said, we are continuing the Money Mindset series that I started.

We’ve talked about money habits that you have, overspending, underearning, your money mindset, and the thoughts that you have about money. Shame around spending money was what we talked about in the last episode, and I’m concluding the series with setting money goals, okay?

I’m really a huge advocate of setting money goals. I watch a lot of people have drama about setting money goals. People avoid it. They don’t do it. I wanted to make sure I address this head on because it’s really hard to go somewhere quickly… And when I say go somewhere, I mean, achieve a specific goal. It’s hard to do that intentionally if you’re not intentional about setting the goal in the first place.

It’s much harder to arrive at a desired destination if you don’t decide where you want to end up on the front end, right? Think about driving somewhere. If you don’t know where you’re going, it’s going to be really hard for you to end up at a particular location. So, we don’t want you setting out and embarking on money goals haphazardly.

We want you to be really intentional. The reason that we want you to be intentional is because it’s going to help you arrive at your desired destination when it comes to your money goals, so much faster than if you just fly by the seat of your pants and wing it.

This is not an area in life that we want to wing, we do want to be intentional when it comes to setting and achieving the goals that you set for yourself when it comes to money. Now, a big reason people don’t like to set money goals is because they’re afraid to fail at achieving them. This is where your perfectionism really pops up and makes an appearance here.

So, if you’re resistant to setting money goals, if you think about setting it, and then you avoid actually picking a goal and working towards it, it is likely because you have a fear of failure. You’re afraid to set a goal and not hit it. I was recently working, in person, with my business coach; we have breakout instructors. The coach that is in charge of my breakout room, her name’s Lindsay Dotzlaf.

One of the things that she said, which was really jarring to me… Because I tend to not use the word “failure.” I truly believe that you can always only be winning or learning, and that you have to quit in order to fail, because failure requires an endpoint from which to measure. That’s my philosophy on failure.

Her philosophy on failure was a little bit different. She said that she loves to fail. That was such a different way than I think most people think about failing. It really struck me and opened my eyes that you could actually fall in love with failing.

The reason she said that is because she learns so much when she fails, that she really does see failure as the path forward to achieving what she wants to achieve. She just wants to fail as quickly as possible, to learn from it, and then leverage that learning in order to improve and get to her goal more quickly.

Now, most people don’t adopt that mindset, they don’t have that mindset. Then, when they think about setting a goal, they freak themselves out. They worry about not hitting it, instead of not using it as a weapon against yourself, but using it as a way to learn, evaluate, audit, adapt, and continue to improve until you get where you want to go.

People also like to say that having a money goal doesn’t make a difference, that they will make the same amount whether or not they set a money goal. Or they’ll save the same amount, whether or not they set a money goal. I want to encourage you to explore the truth behind that. My guess is that is likely not true. Actually, I’ll go so far as to say that’s just not true. I don’t even need to guess. That’s not true, and that’s really just your brain protecting you from that failure that becomes possible when you set a goal.

So, you want to make sure that you’re not letting your perfectionism drive the bus here. All right? Allow yourself to get out of your own way and focus on setting a specific goal that’s measurable, objective, and attainable.

Now, the reason that it’s important to set a goal, one that’s specific, measurable, objective, and attainable, is because you get so much more intentional when you know what you’re working towards. When it comes to money, money is a math problem. I like to say that with money and time, there are two different categories.

There’s the math, and then there’s the mind drama. The mind drama is the thought work, the mindset, the thinking, and the feeling, that drives action that you take and produces the results that you have. So, that mindset is one category, and that’s where coaching comes in.

But with the math, numbers don’t lie. So, you want to get clear on the math. When you’re not clear on the math, because you haven’t set a goal, it’s so much easier to lose sight of the progress that you’re making, to get discouraged, to get frustrated, to get confused about how to get where you want to go.

You really want to make sure that you will eliminate all of that, as much as you possibly can, by just setting an intentional goal. So, I’m going to give you some examples of goals that you can set, and how to set them specifically enough to where you get really clear on the math.

Okay, so the biggest goal that I think people make when it comes to money is making a certain amount of it. You want to be clear on the math here, all right? There are multiple reasons why you can’t just say, “I want to make more money,” and leave it at that.

Number one, as you make progress, and as you make more, your brain is going to get in the way and it’s going to discount the progress that you make. So, you will end up being underwhelmed or feeling unaccomplished. Like you haven’t made enough, that you haven’t made enough progress, that you haven’t gotten where you want to go, because you were never clear on where you wanted to go in the first place.

In order to keep track of your progress and to feel accomplished, to just even enable yourself to feel accomplished, you want to make sure that you set a specific money goal. How much more do you want to make this year?

Then, once you’ve got that number in mind, you’ve got to make the math work. So, you have to get clear on how exactly will you make that amount. What do you sell? How much of it do you need to sell? What’s the price that you sell it at? You need to come up with all of those specifics.

How frequently do you need to sell the thing that you’re selling? How much of it do you need to sell? It’s a specific math equation that ultimately adds up to whatever your money goal is. So, you have to make sure that the math works.

If you’re like me, at least in part of my business where I do one-on-one coaching, I have a finite amount of time that I can sell. I am still in the space where I’m exchanging time for money. That’s very true with most of the lawyers that I work with, as well.

There’s a specific number of hours that they’re likely to bill, or they have a goal for the number of hours that they want to bill, and they have a billable hour rate. That’s a mathematical equation that comes out to a certain number of dollars that you’re going to make each year. At least when it comes to the gross amount that you’re going to create from the bills that you send out to clients.

Same thing if you do flat rate work. You’re still essentially exchanging time for money. Because the flat-fee work takes a certain amount of your time, and then you’re maxing out what you’re charging for that flat-fee arrangement.

What you’re making, with the time that you spend, it’s essentially still a billable hour model, even if it doesn’t feel like it. You’re going to be capped on the number of hours that you can work to deliver that flat-fee service.

So, when you set a specific goal, you can get clear on whether or not your math works. Now, if you’re also like me, which this is the second part of my business, you have a scalable business model. So, my group coaching program, The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind is a scalable program, which means I don’t exchange time for money.

That group can just get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, without me needing to devote more and more and more time at that same exchange rate. Okay? That is a scalable offer.

Most attorneys that I work with don’t have scalable offers unless they have a legal subscription service. Which is more of a newer type business model that is becoming more popular in the industry as of late, because it is scalable, and it doesn’t require you to exchange time for money.

So, if you have that, you still need to make the math work because you need to be clear on what can you expect to make, how many people can you expect to sign into whatever program it is that you’re offering. Are you just picking numbers out of thin air?

I see that happen a lot, especially with newer business owners. They just pick numbers that sound good rather than basing it off of what they can expect; past data, their experience, what it’s taken them to sell thus far, how much they’ve sold in the past, whether they’re likely to repeat that in the future, whether it’s likely to increase, by how much is it likely to increase.

Those are all data driven decisions that you’ve got to conduct some experiments in order to gather the data in the first place. But then, once you’ve got that data, you can use it to inform the projections you make and the goals that you set moving forward. You want to make sure that you’re being realistic. Otherwise, you’re going to set goals, not hit them, and it’s going to feel terrible.

This could have all been avoided, but you set a bad goal to begin with. So, you want to make sure they’re specific, measurable, objective, and attainable. I recently had a conversation with someone, and they were just getting ready to start a new business. I asked them what their goal was for the year. They gave me a number that was in the multiple six figures by the end of the year.

I’m not saying that that’s completely impossible, but I coach a ton of people, both in my own business and in the contract work that I’ve done for several years now, helping brand new entrepreneurs make their first dollars in their business.

What I know to be pretty common, is the ramp up period that it takes when you’re marketing yourself in a new business, marketing a new offer, or selling a new service. It’s going to take time for people to come to know you. For them to come to trust you in order for them to work with you. You have to account for that ramp up time.

You also have to figure out, what am I selling? How much of it am I likely to sell, when I’m being brand new in a business? I just realized that the number that this person had chosen was wholly unrealistic, for where they were at in their entrepreneurial journey.

So, when you’re starting out, if you’re brand new at whatever it is you’re selling, rather than setting a lofty money goal, I suggest that people start with much smaller increments. Because you just need to learn how to create money in the first place. Okay?

I learned something sort of similar from my business coach when I first joined her entry level program. She has a program that’s called 2k for 2k, and she teaches you how to make your first $2,000. I know $2,000 may not sound sexy to someone, but this is what I’ll tell you. If you learn how to make it once, you’ll know how to make it again. That’s the whole concept, you just want to learn how to create those initial dollars.

You want to learn how to make your first sale. You want to learn how to sign your first client. So, if you are doing family law services and you do flat rate divorces, whatever amount that you charge in the very, very beginning, rather than setting $100,000 or a $250,000 monetary goal for the year, I would just focus on making whatever that first flat rate is.

Let’s say it’s $5,000. I would just focus on making your first $5,000, and then I’d see how long it takes you to make it. Then, I would set the goal to make it again in half the time, or to make double that in the same amount of time. Okay? I like to set the goal of never doing more than double what I did previously. It keeps me out of hustle, and it keeps my business feeling very calm.

So, if you made $100,000 one year, the next year, make your goal $200,000. Or make $100,000 in half the time. But either way, you’re learning how to grow at a pace that is sustainable, and it doesn’t break your business model.

When you get into a situation where you can scale, whatever it is that you’re offering, if your business or your practice is set up that way, then you’re in a little bit of a different boat. But if you’re exchanging time for money, you’re either increasing your prices to do double or you’re increasing your workload to do more than double.

So, you don’t want to exceed that. It just gets you into a place where you’re likely to overwork and be at risk of burnout. Now, like I said, when you’re just getting started, start with that smaller monetary amount. You can set that goal, “Oh, I want to make this amount in a month. I want to make this amount in a week. I want to make this amount in this quarter.” But start small, that way you don’t overwhelm yourself and get discouraged.

What I typically see people do, is they’ll embark on a goal, it doesn’t go the way that they want it to, they get frustrated, they get discouraged, they start to feel inadequate and confused about how to get to where they want to go, and then they abandon the goal rather than staying curious and sticking with it.

So, you don’t want to weaponize really lofty goals against yourself. I’m all for dreaming big, but your big dreams need to make sense. You’ve got to be clear on the math. Like I said, you want to make sure that your goal is measurable, that you’ve got a specific monetary amount, that it’s specific, and it’s objective and attainable. Attainable is really important here. You have to make sure the math works.

You’ve got to figure out whatever your equation is, to make sure that you can sell enough of the services that you provide, in order to hit that monetary amount. If you don’t have the time available, you don’t have enough hours in the day, in the week, in the month, in the year, in order to hit your goal at the current rate that you’re selling your time or your services at, something’s got to change.

You either need to increase your prices, you need to reduce your goal, or you need to work more. But obviously, time is finite so you’re going to eventually cap out. You want to make sure that you’re not setting yourself up to fail right off the get go because your goal isn’t attainable, because the math doesn’t work. Make sure you get clear on the math.

Then, from there, once you’ve set the goal, you want to manage your mindset. You’ve got to do a thought download. Get clear. What are all of your thoughts about your ability to reach your goal, to achieve your goal? Are your thoughts positive or are they negative?

If they’re negative, you’ve got to clean up your thinking. You can’t reach a goal with negative thinking; it’s not going to work because our thoughts create our results. So, you want to get clear on what is it that you’re currently thinking, and then, the better question, what do you need to think instead, in order to achieve your desired result? In order to make the money that you decided to make?

Now, this should go without saying, but I will just reiterate it here. When you’ve gotten clear on the math, you should have come up with a plan for how you’re going to achieve your money goal. But if you have not come up with a plan yet, if getting clear on the math didn’t involve any planning, you’ve got to come up with your plan for how you’re going to get across the finish line.

How exactly are you going to create that money? Do you need to market yourself? Is there something that you need to do? Do you need to increase your rates? Do you need to stop underearning in all the ways that I talked about a few episodes ago?

You’ve got to be clear on what it’s going to take for you to achieve your goal. And then, you’ve got to put that plan into action. Remember, whenever we’re setting and achieving goals, we’re really just conducting a big experiment. So, you’re going to try and achieve your goal by implementing your plan. But it’s just a hypothesis.

You’re going to also evaluate. Once you’ve started to implement your plan, figure out, is it working? What’s working? What’s not working? Is there anything that you need to do differently? If you do need to do something differently, rather than getting discouraged and quitting, you want to stick with the same money goal. Don’t change the goal. There’s nothing wrong with your goal.

If your goal is specific, measurable, objective, and attainable, it’s a perfectly fine goal. Don’t change it and move the goalpost, move the horizon. You don’t want to do that. Stick with the same goal so you learn how to create that amount of money. All right?

If you need to audit and adapt and make changes, tweak your hypothesis, and give it another go, do that, stick with it. That’s how you achieve money goals. You’re not going to achieve the goals that you set for yourself if you constantly keep changing them. So, set the goal, set it once, and leave it alone. Then, just get to work on finding new ways to solve for how you cross the finish line with whatever goal you set for yourself.

Okay, so that’s what you need to know when it comes to setting money goals, when it comes to creating money. There are also some other ways that you can set money goals. Let’s talk about those briefly. I think they tend to be easier. Probably the most complicated type of money goal is where you’re in the money creation process.

Now, other ways that you can achieve money goals might be with paying off debt. You want to make sure that your debt payoff goals are also specific, measurable, objective, and attainable. I need to be able to come in and measure the progress that you’re making. So, it can’t just be to have less debt.

Be specific; how much debt do you want to pay off? Do you want to be debt free? When do you want to be debt free by? How much would you like to pay off this year? What type of debt are you paying off? Is it credit card debt? Is it your mortgage? Get specific. When are we going to do it by? Include the time element here so we know we can run that math equation and get clear on the numbers.

How much do you need to pay off each month? You can measure your progress. Are you on track? Are you behind? Are you ahead of schedule? Also, you need to make sure it’s attainable. So often, what I see is that people will want to pay off debt at a rate that is not consistent with the amount that they earn.

Then, they feel discouraged that they still have debt. Well, of course, you’re still going to have debt. You can’t pay off as much as you want to pay off based on your current earning capacity, your earning ability. So, you have to make the math work.

How much money do you need to live off of? You net a certain amount in a paycheck, or in the money that you create in your business and your practice. Your take-home, what comes out of it?

There’s going to be your non-negotiable expenses, the ones that you’re going to incur every month, and they’re not going away. You can’t cut that spending, or if you could you don’t want to, so it’s pretty static. What is that amount of money? What else do you need to live off of? Are there other things that you need to put money towards?

Then, after that, you’re going to have money left over. Based on the money that you have left over, what can you devote to paying off debt? You want to make sure that the amount that you decide to put towards your debt payoff strategy doesn’t exceed the amount of money that you have available. Again, we have to make sure the math works. We have to make sure that the goal you’re setting is attainable.

Sure, it might sound lovely to be debt free by the end of the year, but you have to make sure that you have the financial capability to actually achieve that. Otherwise, you’re going to feel really discouraged and frustrated.

The same thing is true about saving money. So, you want to make sure it’s specific, measurable, objective, and attainable. It can’t just be ‘I want to save more money.’ How much do you want to save? In what time period do you want to save it? What is it going to look like? How will you save it? Where will that money go? Is it possible for you to save at that rate?

Again, it’s a mathematical equation. There’s a certain amount, divided by the time periods. So, per month, per year, per week, whatever that is for you. But you’ve got to make sure that you have that money available to you in order to achieve the goal. Again, get clear on running that mathematical equation so you can set yourself up for success.

Now, another big way that perfectionism pops up here, especially with paying off debt, saving money, or investing. If you want to invest in the stock market, or invest in retirement accounts, or any other type of investing that you want to do. People will often get discouraged that they’re not able to make as much progress as they would like to make.

Instead of proceeding anyways, and just being a little underwhelmed by the progress that you can make and moving forward regardless, people will choose to not move forward at all. They won’t pay off debt. They won’t save money. They won’t invest any of it. Because it’s not sufficient, it’s not “enough,” they don’t get started at all.

That is, as they say, ‘penny wise, pound foolish.’ Don’t do that to yourself. That’s your brain really being committed to all-or-nothing thinking. It’s a very perfectionistic tendency to want to do that. To want to be in that all-or-nothing, black-and-white space. But don’t allow yourself to indulge.

Getting started and making progress is better than not getting started at all. Even if it’s underwhelming, even if it’s not what you want it to be, you will be so glad that you moved forward in spite of your discouragement, or your disappointment or your frustration that it’s not “enough.”

So, be on the lookout for that. Future ‘you’ will thank you for gagging and going through your frustration and disappointment, and just getting started. Even if it doesn’t look like exactly what you want it to look like. You’ll be okay. It is fine for you to be slightly dissatisfied with it not looking exactly like what you want it to look like. All right?

So, check in with yourself now. We’ve gone through why people don’t set money goals. Why you want to make sure that you do set money goals. Then, how to set them. You want to make sure they’re specific, measurable, objective, and attainable. So, now check in with yourself.

What do you want your money goal to be? I don’t want you to leave this episode without one. It doesn’t have to be the “best” money goal ever. Don’t give yourself a lot of time to indulge in this. Also, don’t allow yourself to say, “I don’t know.” You do know.

It doesn’t have to be the “right” answer. There is no right answer to this. It’s just arbitrary. You just get to pick the number that you want to pick. So, pick a number, whether it’s with creating money, paying off debt, saving money, or investing. Pick one of those four. You don’t have to pick all four, just pick one for now, and set a money goal.

Pick the number. Pick the first number that pops into your mind, if that’s what comes up for you, if that’s what’s easiest. Get out of your own way. Let this be easy and just pick the number. Now, once you’ve picked the number, check and make sure that it’s attainable. Check and make sure the math works.

How will you get to that number? Does it work? It’s a quick, easy, little mathematical equation. I think I’ve said this once, but if not, I’ll reiterate it just to be safe and sure; you are not allowed to say that you don’t like math. I hear that all the time from attorneys. We’re not going to repeat that anymore.

What I like to say is, “If you don’t like math, you don’t like money.” My guess is you probably like money or you want to like money, and you want to have more of it. So, if that’s the case, you have to get over that limiting belief that you’re not good at math, that you don’t like math; that’s got to go.

You want to like math, so you can like money. You want to like math, so you can have more of it. Run the mathematical equation. What are you selling? How much of it do you have to sell? In what timeframe? What does that look like? Is it feasible? Is it possible? Can you get there?

If it’s saving money, paying off debt, investing, how much? In what timeframe? At what frequency? What’s that going to look like? Where do you want to be by the end of the year? Where do you want to be by the end of 2024?

These are really fun things to think about. So, take a second and just give yourself permission to decide what is your current money goal. If you need to pause this episode and take a second before I wrap up, go ahead, and do that. But I want to make sure that you’re very clear on what it is that you’re working towards, from this point forward.

Then, once you’ve got the goal in your head, you can figure out exactly, what’s my strategy in order to achieve that goal? What’s my plan? Come up with that plan and put it into place.

Now, I will just say this, if you need help coming up with a plan to get yourself across the finish line that you just identified for yourself… If you want to learn how to be better with money, how to save more money, how to reduce the debt that you have, how to pay off debt, how to earn more money, how to create more money, if you want help with all of that…

If you haven’t been great at hitting your money goals in the past, and you want to learn how to do that effectively, I am the person to help you. This is exactly what I teach people how to do in The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. So, make sure, while enrollment is still open… It closes July 21… Make sure you go to TheLessStressedLawyer.com/mastermind and apply to join the August 2023 class, all right?

We will work on getting you across the finish line when it comes to your own money goals. We’ll identify them together if you need help with that. We’ll formulate the plan that you’re going to implement, in order to achieve it. Then, I’m going to support you every step of the way as you implement those plans, in order to earn more, save more, and have less debt. Really get you to where you want to be when it comes to money.

The time of you not having a money goal is behind you. No more of that. We’re going to get intentional when it comes to making, having, earning, and spending money. That starts now. Like I said, if you want my help, that’s what I’m here for, all right?

That’s what I’ve got for you this week, my friends. I will talk to you in the next episode. In the meantime, have a beautiful week.

Thanks for listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. If you want more info about Olivia Vizachero or the show’s notes and resources from today’s episode, visit www.TheLessStressedLawyer.com.