Category: Podcast

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 52. Today, we’re talking all about mismatched expectations. 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. How are you this week? Before we dive into today’s topic, we have to celebrate. It is the official one-year anniversary of The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. How exciting is that? I have been coming to you through your speakers for a whole year, teaching you how to live a life with less stress, and far more fulfillment.

Teaching you how to implement thought work into your daily life in order to have a better lived experience. In order to harness the awareness that you get from coaching and implementing the tools that I teach you on the podcast. In order to make meaningful, lasting changes in your life.

Changing how you think, changing how you feel, changing how you show up, and ultimately changing the results that you produce. So, I hope you will join me in celebrating this milestone. I’m super excited about it.

I am not always the best at celebrating my accomplishments and really taking pride in the things that I do; I tend to be pretty future-focused. So, I’m always looking, what’s the next thing on the horizon? What’s coming next? Which is one of the reasons that I spend so much time teaching you about how to define ‘enough’ in order to be able to celebrate the milestones when you achieve them.

But even though I’m not the best at celebrating some of those moments, I am really proud of this accomplishment. This has been quite an undertaking if I’m being honest. Creating a weekly podcast is a tight turnaround time and I have a very full schedule. So, it has truly been an exercise in discipline, and in commitment to produce this for you every week. But I love that I get to come through your speakers and talk to you and teach you all these things. It’s so much fun.

I’m very proud that I’ve been doing it for a year, and I can’t wait to be talking to you this time next year, celebrating two years of the podcast. I was thinking about this, and I knew that I was going to talk about this little tidbit in the beginning of the episode, and I just wanted you to take a second and join me. What is something that you are proud of yourself for accomplishing right now? Take a minute and join me; celebrate yourself, take pride, allow yourself to feel accomplished. It feels so good.

Alright, now that you’ve thought of that, we can shift gears and talk about today’s topic: Mismatched expectations. I see so many people struggle with constantly feeling frustrated and disappointed. Those are probably two of the most common emotions that I see my clients experience, that I see other people in the world experience. And typically, they feel this way because they have expectations that go unmet.

Their expectations don’t match the reality that they experience so there’s a mismatched expectation. Now, most people also don’t realize that this is what’s going on. Most people blame the circumstances that they’re encountering in their lives for how they’re feeling. They think that what’s going on in the world around them or other people’s actions are causing how they feel. But that’s actually not what’s to blame.

Remember, our thinking is what creates every emotion that we experience. And ultimately, our expectations are just thoughts. We have opinions, we have beliefs, we think things should go a certain way or should be a certain way. And that’s just our thinking. So, when we think a thought in the form of an expectation, and then we encounter a reality that doesn’t match it, we end up experiencing frustration and disappointment because we think that it should be different than it is. Right?

You expected one thing and you got another. The point of today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through a couple examples, but I want to give you a framework for what to do when you notice yourself experiencing frustration or disappointment. I want you to be able to take inventory of what’s going on, to identify and articulate your own expectations, and then decide if you want to keep them or not.

You always get to choose to feel negative emotions if you want to. But I want you to become aware of exactly why you feel the way that you feel. Why you feel frustrated or disappointed in any given moment. Provide you with a way to create a lot of awareness for yourself.

And then, if you choose to want to feel differently, how to shift out of that negative emotion into, probably not the rosiest of emotions, but if we can get you to understanding and accepting that would be great. So, I’m going to teach you how to do that today.

Here’s the framework I want you to follow. When you notice yourself experiencing one of these emotions, frustration, or disappointment, I want you to ask yourself these questions. First, ask yourself: What did I expect? And get really clear on what your expectation was. Pretty quickly, you’re going to see that your expectation was different from the reality that you’re experiencing. So, you want to get clear on what that expectation is.

Then, the second question you’re going to answer is: Why was that your expectation? Why did you expect that? Now, this question is important, because what you’ll see, sometimes your expectations are based on something; either a past experience, or something that you’ve been taught over the years, what society gets us to start to expect. So, you’ll see what it’s based on, and then you can question: Does it make sense for me to keep this or not?

Other times, though, you’ll notice that your expectation really isn’t based on anything. It’s like your brain just invented, what it expected, an experience to be like, and it won’t be based on anything at all. So, it’s kind of funny when you start to question this. It’s like, “Well, why was I expecting that? I don’t even know why I was expecting that. My brain just offered this to me.” And I think that’s something that we do to make sense and predict the future because we love certainty.

So, rather than not having an expectation, as human creatures, we’re used to coming up with an expectation in order to create a relatively false sense of security for ourselves. If that’s what’s happening, you just want to notice it. And then it’s really easy to shift your expectation if you notice, “Oh, I just invented that idea. It wasn’t supposed to be like that at all. I didn’t know what to expect. But I was expecting it to be different than it was.” And you can shift out of that.

Now, the next question, the third question that I want you to ask only works if it’s a situation where you’re dealing with someone else’s actions. The question is: Did you communicate your expectation to the person that you’re interacting with? I want you to assume that you didn’t communicate it, at least not clearly enough.

So, I want you to get curious and learn from this incident, and figure out how you could have explained it differently, how you could have communicated your expectation differently, in order to create a situation that’s different from the current one that you’re in. What would you have done differently, in order to get reality to more closely align with your expectation?

Always assume responsibility for this. Take radical ownership; that you could have explained it in a way that would have gotten you closer to the reality that you wanted. Alright?

Question number four: Do you want to adjust your expectation? Once you’ve gotten clear on what you expected and why you expect that, do you want to adjust your expectation? There’s no requirement for you to adjust your expectation. You absolutely get to keep it if you want to, you just have to take the frustration and disappointment that comes with having the expectation when it’s unmet, okay? When there’s a mismatch between reality and the expectation you had for reality.

If you do want to change your expectation, what do you want to change it to? What’s your new expectation? Do you want your expectation to match your current experience? That’s up to you if that’s what you want.

And the last question that I want you to answer, and this is going to help cultivate that sense of understanding, that feeling of acceptance, instead of being at war with reality. I want you to ask and answer: How does the reality you’re currently experiencing make sense? Make it make sense to yourself, don’t allow yourself to indulge in ‘I don’t know’.

Your brain might want to serve up to you that you don’t know why it makes sense or that it doesn’t make sense. I want you to get creative and force yourself to answer this question. How does the current reality make sense?

Alright, now let’s talk about some specific examples. The first one that I wanted to talk about, where I see people commonly experience frustration or disappointment, is with delegating work. I’m getting ready to do a two-part episode on delegating specifically, because it’s been coming up so frequently with my clients.

It’s one of the things we work on a ton together; managing expectations with delegating, how to do it effectively. People make so many mistakes when it comes to delegating, so I’m going to do a two-part episode on that really soon.

But here, I want to talk about the mismatched expectations that we experience and encounter with delegating. So, you assign something to someone, and then you get work product back and you’re disappointed by it. Or maybe, it’s not work product that you get back, but they did something and the result of whatever they did isn’t what you expected.

Now, people mistakenly believe that the work product itself is what causes their feelings of frustration and disappointment. But that’s not true. Remember, your thoughts cause your feelings. So, it’s how you think about the work product that you received, that causes you to experience those emotions. And like I said earlier, our expectations are just thoughts.

So, you expected something different than what you’ve got. And it’s the mismatched expectation here that your expectation did not match reality that is actually the problem. When this happens, I want you to ask yourself: What did you expect? Get really clear on what the expectation was.

One of my favorite examples of this… I worked with a transactional attorney, and he was really frustrated that the associate, he was a partner, the associate that he was working with, she wasn’t responsive enough. That was his opinion of her. I asked him, “Well, what does ‘responsive enough’ mean to you?”

They were working on a deal. I generally had a sense he was from big law. He had worked at an Am Law 20 firm for a really long time. He’s still at an Am Law firm. I generally had a pretty good idea of what I thought his expectation was, but I asked him what the expectation was, and he really wasn’t clear on it.

I finally offered him my best guess, and I said, “My guess is that you would like the associate to respond to your email within 30 minutes, if it’s between the hours of 6am and 11pm.” Now, you might hear that, and you might think that that expectation is unreasonable. That’s not what this episode is about. You are entitled to expect whatever you want. Whether or not your expectation serves you, is a completely different story.

For this attorney, when he’s working on a deal closing and it’s close to the closing date, that was actually was his expectation. So, when I communicated it to him, he was like, “Yep, that actually is what I’m expecting.”

And then I got to ask the next question, which is, “Why are you expecting that?” We got clear on his reasons. That, in part, that’s how he was trained when he was coming up as a new associate. Also, based on the type of work that they were doing, it made sense for him and the associate to be in frequent communication.

Then I asked the next question, “Did you communicate this expectation to the associate?” And, of course, he said no. Because oftentimes people don’t communicate that specific of instructions or expectations to the people that they’re working with. Right? So, he wasn’t getting that in response.

Now, this isn’t to say, just because you communicate an expectation that people have to comply with it. You can communicate an expectation, and the associate here would have free will and agency to make a decision; am I going to comply and meet the expectation? Am I going to not meet the expectation? Do I want to set a boundary instead? It’s totally up to her, she gets to make that decision.

Once we discovered that he hadn’t communicated the expectation, you get to decide, do I want to adjust the expectation? Or do I want to keep it and probably communicate it, to at least empower someone to make a more informed decision?

One of the things that I explained to him was, the associate probably doesn’t know she’s not meeting your expectations because there is a lack of clarity around what the expectation is. She might think she’s being perfectly responsive, and you aren’t satisfied with her level of responsiveness. So, communicating the expectation empowers everyone in that situation.

Now, turns out, he didn’t want to communicate it because he actually thought that the expectation sounded a little ridiculous. Again, this isn’t a judgment on the expectation. But if you realize that you aren’t comfortable communicating your expectation, I highly suggest that you change what your expectation is.

Because if you’re not going to change the expectation, but you’re unwilling to communicate it, chances are your expectation’s going to continue to go unmet. You’re just going to ensure future frustration and disappointment for yourself if you don’t change the expectation. So, check in with yourself: Do you want to change the expectation?

Now, you could do it to where you get to an expectation that you actually feel comfortable communicating. Maybe you want the person to respond every hour, and within a different timeframe, if you’re delegating work and you’re not getting it as fast as you want it. Ask yourself: What did you expect? Actually, get clear on when you expect to receive the work product. And then: Why was that your expectation? Was it based on anything or is that just the amount of time that sounded really reasonable to you?

And then: Did you communicate that expectation to the person you delegated the work to? Do you want to keep that expectation? If you don’t, what do you want to change it to instead, going forward?

I also had a client, he was also a transactional attorney, and he assigned someone to put together deal binders. There was a specific way he wanted them done. When the associate that he delegated the assignment to returned the binders, they weren’t what he wanted. So again, he was frustrated and disappointed with the work product that he received.

You want to go through these steps. What did you expect? Why did you expect that? Did you communicate the expectation? And here, he said he did communicate the expectation. But like I said a moment ago, I want you to go through that question and assume that the answer is no, that you didn’t clearly communicate the expectation. Because that pushes you into curiosity, to problem solve for why you didn’t get back work product that you were satisfied with.

What could you have explained differently? Did you need to give an example, a template, for someone to go off of? How could you have been more clear? What didn’t you explain? That’s where you want to bring your focus and attention to. And then, do you want to keep your expectation here? You probably do want to keep your expectation that you get binders back the exact way that you want them done.

Now, that last question is also so important. Why does it make sense? Why does the current reality make sense? That’s going to help shift you into understanding and accepting, feeling those feelings, instead of frustrated and disappointed.

Similar to the delegating arena, another place where I see people experience a ton of frustration and disappointment, is when it comes to encountering other people’s actions, most specifically, when you expect yourself from other people.

So, I would classify this as unreciprocated behavior; when you expect someone to act in a situation, how you would act in that situation. Or at least, how you think you would act. When the person does something differently, you feel frustrated and disappointed as a result. Because you had an expectation that someone behave differently than the way that they ended up behaving.

Maybe you are known for dropping everything and helping someone when someone asks for your help, whether it’s a colleague, a client, or a friend or a family member, okay? Then when you ask for help, they say no instead. And you feel really frustrated and disappointed being on the receiving end of their ‘no.’

It’s not because they said no, that’s not why you feel these feelings. You feel these feelings because you expected them to not say no; your expectation doesn’t match the reality that you’re experiencing. So, check in with yourself. What specifically did you expect from them? You expected their behavior to be different.

But how different did you expect it to be? What did you expect their behavior to be instead? I want you to get really clear on that. Don’t just say you expected it to be different than what it was. How, exactly, did you expect it to be? What did you expect to happen?

You want to get clear on that because it’s going to help you answer the second question: Why did you expect that? And again, your reason’s probably going to be, “Because that’s what I would have done.” This is going to be a situation where you’re probably going to want to adjust your expectation.

When we expect ourselves from other people, we really set ourselves up to experience so much frustration and disappointment. Now, ask yourself, you’ve got to check in here again: Did you communicate your expectation? If the answer’s no: Do you want to communicate it?

This is really good when it comes to gift-giving. I learned this from a marriage coach friend of mine; her name is Maggie Reyes. She always teaches the concept “would you rather be surprised or satisfied?” It’s awesome if you could be both, but that doesn’t always happen. Reality doesn’t always provide us with the opportunity to be both surprised and satisfied.

So, if you have to choose between the two, which would you prefer? Some people might choose to be surprised and that’s totally fine. Chances of you being unsatisfied if you allow yourself to be surprised? Much more likely. If you’re like me and you’d rather be satisfied, you probably want to communicate the gift that you want, prior to the gift-giving event, right? Whether it’s your birthday or another holiday.

Did you communicate it? Do you want to communicate it, in order to increase the likelihood, not guarantee, but at least increase the likelihood that your expectations are met?

Alright. When it comes to another person’s behavior, you ask yourself: What did I expect specifically? Why did I expect that? And then: Did you communicate it or not? Do you want to communicate it? Or, do you want to adjust your expectation? And chances are, especially when you’re expecting yourself from other people, you probably will want to adjust your expectation.

Because you are going to experience so much more frustration and disappointment in your life, when you have that expectation, and other people invariably don’t meet it. So, get clear: What do you want to expect instead?

One of the things that I’ve come to expect instead, is for people to just show up as themselves. I expect people to just be who they are. And I am going to accept them for who they are, in their most authentic version. And then, in order to get myself to that place of understanding and acceptance, I’m going to answer the question: How does the reality that I’m currently experiencing make sense?

One of the things that I have done for myself, is that I notice when people are acting in conformity with the way that they typically act. That always allows me to get to that understanding and place of acceptance. So, if someone’s acting “on brand”, it will make a lot of sense to me that they’re acting in conformity with the way that they always act. So, of course, this is how they’re acting. Of course, they’re not behaving differently than the way that they typically behave.

I also will think about why someone is acting the way that they’re acting. And normally, I can figure out what their motive is, and that it makes sense to me. I may not like it, but I can at least get myself to the place where it makes sense. And when I get myself to the place where it makes sense, I feel very accepting and understanding.

I also remind myself that people get to do whatever they want to do, and that people have free will. That really opens me up to those two emotions, as well. You can walk yourself through that same exercise in order to get to those emotions for yourself.

The third big area that I see people really struggle with feeling disappointed or dissatisfied or frustrated, is their satisfaction with the current results they have in their life. I’m going to use the example of a career, but it could really be anything. It could be your relationship status, it could be where you live, all of these things.

But specifically, when it comes to your career, do you feel frustrated and disappointed with what you have right now, with what your current experience is like right now? If you are experiencing those feelings, I want you to ask yourself: What did you expect? What did you expect your day-to-day experience to be like? How is it currently different from the reality that you’re experiencing? How did you expect your career, on a whole, to be different than what you’re currently experiencing?

The area where I see a ton of frustration, very commonly, is with compensation. What did you expect? A lot of people have mismatched expectations; their expectations, the compensation that they’re currently receiving. What did you expect? That’s where we want to start. Get really clear on what you expected your life to look like instead.

Then from there, ask yourself: Why did you expect that? Why did you expect your day-to-day to be different than it is? Why did you expect to maybe be further along than you are? Why did you expect your compensation to be different than it is?

This is really one of those areas where your brain just creates an expectation for you sort of based on nothing. It came up with an idea. The reality would be different than it currently is. It doesn’t really come from anywhere, it’s just what you thought it was going to be like. Your brain just serves you up some idea, and then we’re constantly measuring reality against that idea that we formulated based on nothing, right?

A lot of people I work with expect to be making a lot more money than what they’re making. And when I dig into this, what did you expect instead, a lot of times, they can’t articulate what they expected. They just want to be making more. But I’m like, “Okay, how much more?”

And then when we finally put a number on it, I’m like, “Why do you expect to be making that? You accepted this job offer. You were making X amount, and the compensation structure is a specific way,” right? That you’re going to get raises in this increment. Or you can expect to receive salary increases in this amount based on what you’ve received in the past. Or you expected to receive a much bigger bonus.

When I ask about that, “What’s the bonus structure like? What’s it based on? How do they calculate that amount?” When we do this, what we start to see is that they expected something that’s really detached from reality. It doesn’t make sense how they would ever get to that number, based on the current compensation model that they’re operating within.

So, this brings us to that next question: Do you want to change your expectation? If you’re unwilling to change your job and you’re unwilling to develop business or do the things that would allow you to increase your compensation in the way that you want, then you should adjust your expectation. Otherwise, you’re just going to constantly be operating in a state of frustration, disappointment, and dissatisfaction.

If you can get to the number where you’re at without changing jobs, amazing. Do the work that you need to do in order to get and qualify for that compensation that you’d like to have.

Your other option is to change the circumstance. So, you can keep your expectation that you make a certain amount, but you would change where you work in order to make it more likely that you’re operating within a compensation framework that allows you to meet your expectations.

You would want to switch to someplace where you are compensated for the business you develop, and the origination credit you get aligns with your income expectations, or the salary is just higher, right? Those are your options there.

Same thing with your expectations about your day-to-day: What do you expect it to be like? How is the current expectation not meeting your current reality? What did you expect instead? What did you expect your day-to-day life to be like? Get really clear on that.

For me, I’ve had to do a ton of work on allowing myself to experience boredom. Because what I have learned, is that life on a day-to-day basis is a little bit more boring than I expected life to be. I used to think that that was such a problem, and I would solve for it by buffering and engaging in instant gratification activities that allowed me to feel more entertained, than dealing with the boredom that I was experiencing.

If that’s you and you’re not great at experiencing boredom, what I want you to do is get really clear on what are you expecting instead. For me, what I realized was that I was expecting to feel really exhilarated on a day-to-day basis. And ultimately, I decided to change that expectation, because the pace of a very exhilarating life is actually pretty exhausting.

So, as I’ve shifted my expectation, I’ve come to expect life to be a little bit boring. One of the things that I teach my clients, is that life is 50/50. I talked about this on a recent podcast episode. And not only is it 50% good, 50% bad, we’re going to think 50% of things are good and 50% of things are bad, on average, I also like to split it into the specific emotion.

So, 50% of life is not boring, and 50% of life is boring; I’ve just come to terms with that. And when I came to terms with that and I adjusted my expectations, now my expectations aren’t mismatched, they are much more closely aligned with reality.

For you, if you feel dissatisfied, frustrated, or disappointed with your current life, with the results that you currently have, go through this process. What did you expect? Why did you expect that? Do you want to change or keep your expectation? Do you want to make an adjustment? If you do, what do you want your expectation to be instead? And then, this question is so powerful here: How does the reality you’re currently encountering make sense?

It makes sense that you’re making the amount of money that you’re currently making, based on where you’re working, what you agreed to, and what you’re currently doing. It makes sense that your day-to-day experience is the way that it is, because of the choices that you’re making. Same thing with where you live or your relationship status or your weight, any of those things, how you spend your time.

If you’re dissatisfied with that, if you’re really underwhelmed by different aspects of your life, get clear. What did you expect? Why did you expect it? How does your current reality make sense?

You’re going to see that you should be exactly where you are. Your current experience should be exactly what it is, based on what you’re doing and what you’re not doing, based on the choices that you’re making. When you take radical ownership over those decisions that you make day in and day out, you’re going to a feel way more understanding and accepting of your current reality.

It’s going to really dial down that frustration and that disappointment. It’s also going to empower you to make changes. So, if you realize that you’re the one creating your current results and you want different results, you’re going to start making different decisions. You’re going to start choosing different actions. You’re going to show up differently than the way that you have been showing up, in order to create a different result for yourself.

Alright, that’s what I have for you this week, my friends. I want you to go through and identify, really take inventory of your life. Where are you experiencing frustration? Where are you experiencing disappointment?

And walk through this framework. Get very clear on what your expectation is. What did you expect? Understand why that is your expectation, why did you expect that. Did you communicate it? If it makes sense for you to have communicated an expectation here. Because the expectation is involving someone else’s behavior.

And then from there, do you want to adjust your expectation? Or do you want to keep it? Why or why not? If you want to adjust it, what do you want to adjust it to? You want to be very specific, and then create understanding and acceptance for yourself. How does the current reality make sense?

That’s going to make a huge difference in how you feel on a daily basis. How you feel in conjunction with the results that you have in your life. It’s really going to free up and eliminate so much of the heavy emotional weight that you encounter because of your mismatched expectations. Alright? Have fun taking inventory and going through that exercise. I think it will really help you feel better.

Alright, my friends. That’s what I have for you this 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 51. Today, we’re talking all about deprivation. 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, how are you? I am recently back from Miami, and all is well here. I was actually pretty excited to get back to Detroit and get back to the Panthers, even though I love Miami. But I was down in Miami for a coaching event with my coach Brooke Castillo.

I went down there for Work Hard Play Hard. I spent six days having fun in the sun with some of my best friends and closest colleagues. We just spent almost a week brainstorming, learning about how to market our businesses at the next level. And the thing that I love about being in an immersive event and being in person at a conference, just like the mastermind that I host, is all of the side conversations. All of the learning that you do when you put yourself in rooms with powerful people.

So, we went to all my favorite restaurants in Miami. I love The Surf Club Restaurant at the Four Seasons, and Casa Tua is my favorite Italian spot there; we went to both of those. I got to eat some Cuban food. And over all these amazing meals, I got to have the most incredible conversations. We really got every drop of value out of being there together, just brainstorming with one another or putting our heads together, coming up with all of these incredible ideas.

I can’t wait to introduce some of what I decided while I was in Miami with some of my peers. I have some really exciting news that I can’t wait to announce to some of my current students. And it’s going to be something that I continue to do in my mastermind each round to come.

So, if you haven’t joined yet, you want to make sure you join the next round. Enrollment opens up on May 12^th. You want to make sure you get in there, so you get access to these changes that are going to be coming in the future. They’re super exciting, and I don’t want you to miss out. That’s a quick little life update from me over here.

It is nice to be back home. It is still chilly, and I did enjoy the sunshine and the beach, but I’m ready to get to work. I’ve got a couple really exciting, action-packed months up ahead. I have a lot of speaking engagements in March, in April, and in early May. So, a lot going on there.

I’ll be at the Women in Trial Travel Summit in Punta Mita, Mexico, in April. If you’re going to that reach out to me and let me know, so I can look forward to meeting you. All right, that’s the life update. I always like to fill you guys in. Sometimes I feel like Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego? Where in the world is Olivia Vizachero? I tend to hop around quite a bit. I like to bring y’all with me and take you on my adventures.

But without further ado, I want to dive into today’s topic. It’s actually something that was a little bit inspired by some of the conversations I had with my coach friends down in Miami. We were talking a lot about deprivation and feeling deprived.

So, a few of the women that I was with in Miami, they’re weight loss coaches, we talked a lot about deprivation. And some of us have different takes on deprivation. But if you’ve been listening to my podcast, you know that a core tenet of what I teach is that you have to be willing to feel uncomfortable feelings and take action in spite of and despite them.

I always simplify this and teach it by saying you have to gag-and-go through the discomfort. It’s going to be uncomfortable to do the intentional actions that get you the results that you want. But in order to get those results, you’ve got to take that intentional action anyways. You’ve got to be willing to feel those negative feelings that correlate with taking those actions. Feel that discomfort and move forward in spite of it.

Because I was with weight loss coaches, they deal with deprivation a lot, right? A lot of their clients come to them feeling very deprived and they have an unwillingness to feel that negative feeling. And instead of feeling it, they avoid it and they eat whatever they want to, which ultimately doesn’t support their weight loss goals.

So, as we were brainstorming in Miami, we were talking a lot about deprivation and how I teach gag-and-go, feeling uncomfortable feelings, and moving forward intentionally in spite of them. And it made me think of the episode that I did a couple of weeks ago, which was all about dread. If you haven’t listened to that yet, I highly recommend it. Go back and check it out.

I talked all about how sometimes, more often times than not actually, you have to feel a sense of dread in taking the intentional action that gets you closer to achieving the results that you want in your life. And that dread isn’t a problem, it doesn’t need to be avoided. You don’t need to run from it and try and escape it. You can embrace it, and just move forward while you feel full of dread. And that the dread quickly passes.

I wanted to talk today about the feeling of deprivation, feeling deprived, because it’s very similar to dread. Just like dread, it’s one of the most common obstacles that I see stand in the way of people accomplishing the goals that they set.

So, what happens is they have an intentional action that they need to take to produce a desired result. And then, when they go to take that action, it requires them to stop doing something else or to not do something else. And it’s that not doing the something else that triggers the deprivation.

Then when the deprivation appears, I want you to think of it like a game of hot potato, that negative emotion comes to you, and you want to escape it immediately. So, you do anything in your power to get out of it, to avoid that emotional experience. And now, whatever you tend to do in the moment provides you with entertainment. It gets you to avoid feeling deprived. You get to feel satiated, really comfortable, and entertained and excited. And all of these positive emotions instead.

You also, normally, get a hit of dopamine with whatever you’re doing. So, you get that instant gratification, you get that instant reward. But ultimately, when you’re avoiding that feeling of deprivation, you’re setting yourself up for failure in the long term. Because you’re not taking the intentional action that creates the result that you ultimately want in your life.

Today, I want to go through and give you several examples of what this looks like, what it looks like to avoid feeling deprived, how it sets you up for failure, how you self-sabotage when you’re avoiding feeling deprived, and what it looks like to allow yourself to feel deprived and move forward intentionally in spite of and despite it. To gag-and-go through feeling deprived, and to take the intentional action to produce the results that you want.

I’m going to start with the most common example, which is in sticking to your schedule. So, you make a plan for the day. And if you aren’t making a plan for your day, go back and listen to my Time Management Series. You want to be making a plan for your day.

You create a plan for the day. And when it comes time to implement the plan, let’s say you plan at 10am to start doing legal research, and it’s 9:59am. So, 10 o’clock is right around the corner. And instead of starting research and logging into Westlaw and getting going, you’re still on Instagram, and you’re like, “Just one more scroll. I’m just going to read one more post. I’m just going to slide my finger across the screen just for one more minute.

And then it’s 10:04am, and you’re like, “Ack, I already blew my 10 o’clock start time. I’m just going to keep staying on Instagram until 10:15,” or 10:30 or 11 o’clock, if you’d like to start things at the top of the hour. Which is just your perfectionist brain trying to control the narrative and control the action that you take.

But what’s happening when you’re on Instagram at 9:59, and you know you’re supposed to start working on that legal research at 10am, you start to worry that you’re going to feel deprived at 10am when it comes time to stop scrolling on Instagram.

And instead of allowing yourself to feel deprived and putting your phone away, you don’t. You avoid feeling deprived by continuing to scroll, by continuing to read more posts. By continuing to, like I said, slide your finger across the screen and just keep going through that feed.

Your unwillingness to allow yourself to feel deprived, and what that would look like in practice is you put your phone down. You feel deprived, which is just a vibration in your body. Which is all our emotions ever are, just vibrations in our body. And you’ll feel deprived for a second. You start researching and then you give yourself a moment to allow that feeling to pass.

When you start researching, slowly but surely, that deprivation fades away. It doesn’t even happen all that slowly, to be completely honest with you. Deprivation passes pretty quick quickly. But our brains scream the loudest when we’re about to transition. Right when we’re about to experience the most discomfort, which is when we stop the thing that’s bringing us temporary pleasure and instant gratification, like being on social media, to move to the thing that you’re dreading, right?

This is how dread and deprivation really work in tandem with one another; you’re dreading doing the legal research, and you have to feel deprived over the thing that’s much more entertaining, much more exciting. Instead of avoiding it by continuing to scroll on Instagram, you want to just allow yourself to feel deprived, and to transition to the thing that you’re supposed to be doing.

Now, maybe Instagram isn’t the thing that you struggle with or LinkedIn, or social media in general. Maybe it’s time to start working on that legal research. Or maybe you do transactional work, so you need to review a contract or draft a contract or anything like that, you need to send an email to a client, and you plan to do it. And instead of doing it right when it comes time to start at 10am, you’re like, “You know what? I could really use a snack, I’m kind of hungry.”

And instead of allowing yourself to just feel deprived, and not get up and get a snack and start the task that you planned, you get up and get the snack because you’re unwilling to feel deprived. You avoid that deprivation by getting up and indulging in the snack.

Now, maybe you don’t even do this with snacks, you just do it with a glass of water. But I want you to watch your brain. It’s going to come up with an excuse factory that pushes you, that urges you, to not do whatever you planned for the day. And instead, to avoid what you planned and to do something else that’s much more satisfying. That provides you with that instant pleasure, that instant gratification, that instant reward.

Whenever you are choosing not to reward yourself, it’s going to trigger that sense of deprivation. If this sounds familiar, if you struggle to stick to your schedule, I want you to be on the lookout for how often you avoid feeling deprived. I want you to pay attention to this throughout your day. And be really honest with yourself.

If you’re doing a time audit, which I’ve talked about on the podcast before, and you’re keeping track of everything you’re doing and you’re not sticking to what you have planned and you’re not getting through the tasks that you wanted or planned to get through in a given day, I want you to look really closely and examine; where was I unwilling to feel deprived?

Where did I anticipate that I was going to have to experience deprivation? Or, where did I start to experience the sense of deprivation? And then, what did I do to avoid it? How did I avoid it? How did I run for the hills to escape that emotional experience? What would it look like for you to allow yourself to experience that deprivation?

Spoiler alert, it’s always going to involve you taking the intentional action that produces the intentional desired result that you want. So, when it comes to sticking to your schedule, allowing yourself to feel deprived is going to be you feeling that feeling in your body, and then taking the action that you plan to take at the time you plan to take it.

Now this doesn’t just happen with our schedules. This happens with so many different aspects of our lives. Think about eating healthy, right? You make the plan, whether it’s to lose weight or you just want to be in better health, you’re only going to eat certain things, you’re going to constrain, and you’re going to make decisions ahead of time about what you’re going to eat and about what you’re not going to eat.

And then instead of sticking to it, you get a craving for something. And when you get that craving, which is generated by you thinking the thought “I want that,” then you feel that desire. When you think about not having what you want, it triggers that sense of deprivation. So, you start to feel deprived. And then you escape feeling deprived by indulging in eating whatever it is that you didn’t plan to eat; the thing that is misaligned with your weight loss goals or with your health goals.

For me, it’s Girl Scout Cookie season right now. And this is a perfect example; Girl Scout cookies are everywhere. And I don’t know if you’re like me, I love Thin Mints. But when I think about eating Thin Mints, it doesn’t align with the goals I have for maintaining the weight that I’m currently at or losing a little bit more weight.

So, I decided ahead of time not to eat the Thin Mints. And yet I still like them, so I think the thought “I want to eat Thin Mints.” It triggers that desire and when I think about not eating them, then I feel deprived. You can avoid feeling deprived by indulging in the Thin Mints, right?

And what’s really true is that there’s deprivation, both ways. There’s deprivation in not having the Thin mints and then there’s deprivation in not having the physique that I want to have. So, I get to pick my discomfort; there’s always discomfort both ways. The choice is up to me.

What’s fascinating is when you watch yourself experience this deprivation. It’s just momentary, it passes so quickly. You think the thought “I want Thin Mints,” or whatever your snack of pleasure is, and you experience that deprivation in your body. I want you to place it in your body, where is that vibration? What does it feel like?

You can breathe it in and then you can just allow it to be there. And you don’t eat what you didn’t plan to eat. You just allow yourself to feel deprived, and when the moment passes, it always does, that deprivation will leave you and you get to go about your day. All right?

I was just talking to someone about this; this happened to me one night. I was walking to my bed, at the end of the night, and I really wanted a snack. I got the craving for something sweet. I was at the bottom of my stairs, and I was equidistant to my bed and to my kitchen. I so clearly saw what I was doing, I was craving something and I thought that I wanted it.

I could have walked towards the kitchen and indulged. And instead, I just took a deep breath, and I found the feeling of deprivation in my body. For me, I tend to feel it like a pressure pushing me forward, from my back through my chest. It’s just a little nudge forward; is what deprivation feels like in my body.

Other people experience it differently. I have one client, she always says she experiences deprivation, she feels it, in her throat. It’s like a tightness in her throat. For me, it’s that forward, little nudge from my back to through my chest. I just felt that vibration in my body, I took a deep breath, and I allowed it to be there. And then, I walked up the stairs and went to bed.

By the time I got to the top of my stairs, the deprivation had passed. I no longer wanted the snack. I was fine. I went to bed, and I had a wonderful night. And I didn’t self-sabotage by eating something that I didn’t plan to eat. You can do the exact same thing.

So, notice if you’re also trying to eat healthy. Are you unwilling to feel deprived? Do you sabotage your success by eating stuff that you didn’t plan to eat because you’re unwilling to allow yourself to experience that deprivation? What would it look like for you to allow yourself to experience it instead?

Another really common example of an unwillingness to feel deprived, I see this all the time, with people going to bed on time. Intellectually, they know they would be much better served by going to bed at whatever they defined to be a reasonable hour. And of course, that’s going to be different for everyone.

I have some people in my network, that are clients of mine, are friends of mine, and they go to bed super early, like by eight o’clock at night. That’s not me, that’s not my style. I stay up way later than that. You might be more like me. I tend to go to bed at midnight or 1am, and that works for me based on when I wake up.

You don’t have to have the same answer as me. You can go to bed at 10 or 11 or 9, whatever works for you. But if there’s ever a time where you know it would be in your best interest to go to bed earlier, but then you stay up late indulging in an activity that provides you with that instant gratification, like binging Netflix or being on TikTok, anything like that, watching YouTube videos at all hours of the night, going down different rabbit holes of different methods of entertainment.

If that’s you, it’s because you’re unwilling to feel deprived. When you think about going to bed instead of doing those entertainment activities, it triggers a sense of deprivation in you. And you will avoid feeling that deprivation by continuing to engage in the entertaining activity.

I have actually heard this described, there’s a term for it. It’s called “revenge bedtime procrastination”. Where you put off going to bed to engage in activities that you don’t have time for during the day. Now, you totally set yourself up for a miserable morning, right? Because you sacrifice sleep in order to get that leisure time. Because you feel like you don’t get to do it in the normal course of a day, because you’re overwhelmed and feeling really busy and really behind. So, you do that at the expense of sleep.

Now, the only person that you’re screwing over here, is yourself, right? But we still tend to do this. And in part, it’s normally because people feel cheated. Like, they don’t have time to do the things that they enjoy, and they feel entitled to get to do them. So, they stay up late at their own expense in order to fit them in.

But the other reason that people do this, is because they’re unwilling to feel deprived. When they think of not engaging in these entertaining activities, they have a sense of deprivation, that’s what they experience. And instead of allowing themselves to feel it, and going to bed when they say they’re going to go to bed, when it would serve them to go to bed, they don’t. They stay up late and they indulge, they avoid feeling deprived.

All right, this last example that I want to talk about is not as a call out, but it is a harsh truth. And people tend to not love it when I talk about this. But I really think that I do people a disservice if they’re indulging in the way that I’m about to explain. If I don’t highlight it for them, and I don’t call them out on it, they keep doing it, and they lack awareness of what’s going on.

So, one of the ways that I see people avoid feeling deprived is when they’re very overwhelmed, and they’re underperforming at work. Or very early on in growing a business, I also see this happen. What people do is they jam-pack their schedule. There are a bunch of activities that they would need to do in order to set themselves up for professional success.

You’ve got that mile-long to-do list and you keep procrastinating on it. You’re not doing the things that would set you up for success at work. You’re not entering your time on time. You’re behind on assignments, and then your weekends are filled with fun activities.

I’m not suggesting that you work 24/7, alright? I’m not supporting hustle culture here. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is a failure to practice constraint in order to get a handle on your workload. Alright? This isn’t suggesting that you need to be overworking or working all the time.

But what people do, is they underperform at work. They’re not taking enough action. They’re not being consistent; they’re not following through. And then, they distract themselves from their underperformance by going out and having fun.

They do this because they feel entitled to do these things outside of work. But also, because they’re unwilling to feel deprived. Here’s one example of this. You’re behind on a brief. You promise to get it to someone. Whether it’s a draft copy to the client, or a draft copy to the partner that you’re working for, you promised to get it to them by Friday. And it’s Saturday, and it’s still not done.

Instead of working on it, you go to brunch with your friends, because FOMO is real. And you don’t want to feel deprived in the fun that they’re about to have. Right? Or you go to dinner on Saturday night, or you go watch the football game on Sunday, even though you’ve over promised and under-delivered when it comes to work.

I see people consistently not hit their hours, and then they’ll go on vacation. Now, I’m all for vacation. But when you’re underperforming, and you’ve agreed to hold up your end of the bargain in an employment relationship, you want to eliminate anything that’s a distraction until you solve your underperformance problem.

Rather than distracting yourself from the problem by being busy, by packing your social schedule with a bunch of things that distract you from what’s going on, from really contending with the issues at hand.

I absolutely want you to take a vacation. I just want you to solve the underlying issues first, instead of using a vacation as an escape mechanism, or using brunch as an escape mechanism, or dinner with your boyfriend or girlfriend or whomever. Doing that as a distraction from your underperformance.

And we do these things because we don’t want to feel deprived. We think that we should be able to do them. That we work hard and that we’ve earned it. We’re feeling very entitled and deserving. It triggers that sense of deprivation of going without, that activity of not engaging or attending the thing that we want to attend.

I see this happen with new business owners all the time, as well. If you’re starting your own law firm, branching out on your own, and you are now your own boss, you really want to have this luxurious lifestyle where you get to work from wherever you want, and play however often you want.

People will go out on their own and then they book all of this travel. They’re doing all of these leisurely activities because it’s what they want to do. And the thought of not doing it makes them feel deprived. They avoid feeling deprived by doing those activities, even though it doesn’t support their long term success, at least not in the beginning.

And then I’ll watch them complain and they start to stress out about not having the monetary results in their business that they want to have. It’s because they’re too distracted with all this instant gratification, as a result of their unwillingness to feel deprived.

I am really open about my entrepreneurship journey. I put my head down for a year and a half. I didn’t go out to eat. I didn’t do fun things. I didn’t go on vacation. I put my head down and I worked, and I have a very successful business as a result of allowing myself to feel deprived for a relatively short period of time, a year and a half flies by.

And now, I get to travel. Now, I get to have a ton of fun. I get to go to beautiful dinners with friends of mine; both at home and in different cities. As I travel, I get to attend conferences. I get to do all of the fun things. So, my deprivation was temporary. But it was so important for me to allow myself to feel deprived and put my head down and get to work in order to fix the biggest issue that I was dealing with, which was a lack of income when I was starting my business.

Whether you’re starting your own firm or your own business, your biggest problem to solve is a lack of income. You want to allow yourself to feel deprived. Put your head down, get to work, and do the things that you need to do in order to start to generate money in your business.

And if that’s not your issue, if you’re just underperforming at work and you need to solve your procrastination problem, number one, don’t struggle on your own. Reach out to me. Let’s talk, let’s get on a consult. Let’s work through that together.

Make sure you’re getting the support that shortens that timeline, as much as possible. And if it’s not me, find another coach to work with. Make sure you get yourself the support, so you don’t struggle for longer than you need to.

But you want to make sure that you’re addressing that problem. And it’s going to require you to feel deprived in the interim. You want to eliminate distractions and constrain your focus to solving your underperformance problem. Once we get to the bottom of it, then you get to add back in all of the fun activities that you took a temporary break from. The deprivation is temporary, it’s not permanent. It’s not forever, you will survive it.

So, you want to think about if you’re underperforming. If you’ve got some work problems to solve. Where are you unwilling to feel deprived right now? Where is your avoidance of that emotional experience of feeling that deprivation? Where’s it holding you back? Where is it becoming an obstacle for you? Where is it getting in your way?

I really want you to audit your life right now and examine, where are you unwilling to feel deprived? When you audit your life, and you search for the instances where you’re currently unwilling to feel deprived, you get to start to practice allowing yourself to experience deprivation.

And like I described with the snack at the bottom of the stairs example, what that looks like, is finding that emotion in your body. Describing it in the moment when you are experiencing the emotion, when you’re feeling deprived.

Your natural inclination is to avoid that deprivation and indulge in whatever the instant gratification providing activity is. Whether it’s having a snack or watching one more episode or scrolling some more on social media or sleeping in or saying yes.

When it makes sense for you to say no to a leisurely activity, whatever the case is, you want to find that emotion in your body to ascribe that vibration? Where is it at? What does it feel like? Is it light? Is it heavy? Does it move? Does it have a color? There aren’t right or wrong answers to this. I just want you to find the vibration in your body.

I don’t care if you think this is a silly exercise, just indulge me and give this a try. Find that feeling in your body. And then, take a deep breath and decide to allow it. In order to allow that emotion to be there, you’re just going to take that deep breath. And you’re going to go about taking the intentional action that supports you getting the results you want.

The more you do this, the more you find it in your body, describe it, take that deep breath, and then go about your intentional action in spite of and despite that sense of deprivation. The more skilled, the more practiced you’re going to be at allowing yourself to feel deprived and moving forward.

In spite of it, you’re going to be able to overcome feeling deprived. You’re going to get out of your own way. You’re not going to self-sabotage anymore, because you’re going to know how to masterfully allow that emotional experience and to support yourself and set yourself up for success, regardless of that feeling.

I really want you to spend some time this week and brainstorm what would be different about your life if you were willing to feel deprived and take intentional action in spite of and despite it. I promise you, if you allow this emotion to be there, to just exist, and to not twist yourself into a pretzel and do back handsprings in order to escape this emotional experience, your life will be wildly different.

It will change for the better, significantly. And remember, even though it feels super uncomfortable, you want to gag-and-go through that discomfort. The deprivation will pass, it always does.

You can even think back to a time where you felt deprived. Think of that time and remember. You survived it, right? You felt deprived; that feeling didn’t kill you. You felt it in your body. And you were able to move forward regardless, in spite of and despite it. So, gag-and-go through your deprivation.

And keep practicing this. You’ll get better and better and better, and it will get easier and easier and easier, to just allow yourself to feel deprived. To take that deep breath and to move forward on to the action that ultimately serves you and sets you up for achieving the goals you want to achieve.

All right, my friends, I know that sounds super exciting to go out and just feel all sorts of deprived as often as you can. But it really is such a secret key to unlocking your success and really achieving your full potential. So, go out this week and gag-and-go through feeling deprived. You’ve got this. That’s what I’ve got for you this 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 50. Today, we’re talking all about how problems are forever. 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. How are you? I hope your week is off to a fabulous start. My week is kind of a short week. This week, I’m getting ready to head down to sunny Miami, and I cannot wait to escape this Detroit weather. There’s been a lot of snow and ice storms up here lately, and I am so sick of the cold.

So, I’m headed to Miami to meet up with one of my coaches, Brooke Castillo, with a bunch of my other coach friends for an event called Work Hard Play Hard. We’re going to spend two mornings training, learning all these things about marketing our coaching businesses. And then from there, we’re going to spend two afternoons/evenings, playing and spending time with each other, and just celebrating and having so much fun.

I can’t wait to be down there. I checked the weather this morning. It’s in the high 70s, low 80s. I cannot wait. I’m ready to soak up some sunshine. I had a little bit of a reprieve after being in Charleston and coming home, and I tried to rest and recuperate as much as possible. But this trip is the start of a pretty hectic couple of months for me.

I have a lot of speaking engagements all throughout the month of March and April. I’m going to be in Punta Mita, Mexico, for the Women in Trial Travel Summit, which is a really fun conference. Kind of like Work Hard Play Hard, in the sense that the learning takes place in the morning. And then all of the amazing networking takes place in the afternoons.

This is the first time I’m speaking at this conference. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a whole group of people that I think don’t typically attend a lot of the conferences that I go to, whether it’s Clio Con or ABA TECHSHOW, so I’m excited to meet a bunch of people. They’re mostly from the West Coast. I mean, I think they’re from all over, but predominantly from the West Coast. So, I’m excited to get exposed to them.

If you’re headed to the Women in Trial Travel Summit, reach out to me ahead of time, I’d love to know. And definitely make a plan to meet up while we’re there, and get to know each other. I’d love to meet you in person. All right, all of that probably sounds like a lot of fun, and it’s going to be. I cannot wait to do those trips and do those speaking engagements.

What may not sound like a ton of fun, is today’s topic, problems are forever. But I really love teaching this concept to people, because I think it is really life changing when we internalize it and we come to terms with the truth of this concept.

Now, it may not sound as exciting as the whole Diamonds Are Forever concept from James Bond. But it really is transformative to understand what your expectations are around encountering problems in your life and how to reframe your thinking around them, so you come to expect them. And you really decrease your disappointment and frustration when they occur when you encounter them.

So, I want to start by saying that one of the greatest causes of suffering that I see with my clients is that they hold this belief that something is happening in their lives that shouldn’t be happening. They’re encountering a problem, and they think that problem shouldn’t be something that they’re encountering.

Ultimately, what they’re doing when this happens is they’re arguing with reality. They have this belief that their life should be different than it is. And what’s really going on beneath the surface here, is that there’s an underlying belief that is built on this mistaken premise that there should not be problems, right?

You’re encountering a problem, and the reason that you’re so upset about encountering a problem is that you think you shouldn’t be encountering a problem. I know that sounds pretty circular, but stay with me here, alright? You may not consciously articulate this belief in this way. You may not actively be thinking that there shouldn’t be problems.

In fact, when I talk to most of my clients about this, and I point out to them that they’re really essentially believing this, that there shouldn’t be problems; they’re encountering a problem, they think they shouldn’t be encountering it. So, they think that they shouldn’t be encountering problems. They tend to argue with me.

They always respond, and they’re like, “No, no, I don’t expect that. I understand that there’s always going to be problems.” But when we dig a little deeper, when we “double click” on that belief, on that argument that they’re making in response to what I’ve said to them, they’re taking issue with each problem as it occurs in their life.

So, they may not think this on the 50,000ft. view grand scale of things. But when we zoom in, and we take it problem by problem, every time there’s a problem, they’re thinking that that shouldn’t be a problem that they’re encountering.

What that ultimately means, when you zoom out and you add it all up, they really are saying that there shouldn’t be problems in their lives. That they shouldn’t be encountering the problems that they encounter. Do you see how you’re essentially saying the same things, if every time a problem arises, and you think that problem shouldn’t be happening, you’re essentially saying that there shouldn’t be problems? That you shouldn’t encounter problems in your life?

And the problem with this unconscious or subconscious belief system is that reality doesn’t match that desire. The truth is, we will always have problems; problems are forever, just like diamonds.

Seriously, though, life is 50/50. That’s a concept that I learned from my coach, Brooke, who I’ll be seeing in Miami this week. She taught me that life is 50% good and 50% ass. Fifty percent of the time you’ll feel great, and 50% of the time you won’t feel great. Fifty percent of the time you’ll be winning, and 50% of the time you’ll probably be learning, or encountering some type of problem.

I’ve actually taken this a step further to think that 50% of life will be a specific emotion, and 50% of life won’t be. So, 50% of life will be boring, and 50% won’t be. Fifty percent will be exciting, and 50% won’t be. Fifty percent will be easy, and 50% will be hard. Fifty percent will be chaotic, and 50% will be calm.

Now, when you believe you shouldn’t experience problems or deal with negative emotions, you end up causing your own suffering. Even on top of the suffering that comes from dealing with the problem in the first place. You’ve doubled down on the emotional pain that you experience by thinking that your life should be different than it is, that your experience should be different than it is.

I want to introduce a caveat here. If you’ve been listening to my podcast for a while, you know that problems are created in our mind, with our thinking; nothing is a problem until we think that it’s a problem. They’re just facts, as they occur, as we experience them, and then there’s our judgement about those facts. We decide that those facts amount to a problem.

So, there’s the emotional suffering that happens when we choose to think something’s a problem. We think facts are a problem, and then we feel a negative emotion as a result of that thinking. Then, we double down on our emotional suffering by thinking that we shouldn’t be experiencing that problem; that reality should be different than it is.

We double dose our emotional strife, we double dose our frustration, we double dose our disappointment. Now, you may want to argue with me here, especially if you’re a newer listener. You may not think that problems are just created with our thinking. That there are actual problems that we encounter that are factually problems.

But I promise you, when you take a closer look and go example by example, you can see this play out in real time. Because what’s a problem to one person isn’t a problem to another person.

So, here are a couple examples of that. For instance, a judge rules on a motion that you filed. And the judge rules in your favor. You’re not going to think that’s a problem, but the other side probably is, right? A judge’s ruling on a motion is a problem to one party, and probably a win to another.

If someone gives you feedback on a brief you wrote, someone might find that really helpful. Another person might find the same exact behavior really annoying and micromanagey. It just depends on how they think about it. If you got a flat tire.

If you’re the driver, you’re probably going to be really frustrated. It’s an inconvenience that you weren’t anticipating having to deal with. But if you’re the tow company, or the tire company that you have to go to in order to get it patched or replaced, that’s a benefit for them. That’s an opportunity for them to make money.

If your mom calls you every day, or someone calls you every day, and you think it’s amazing that they want to talk to you and you get to have such an amazing relationship with them, you wouldn’t think it’s a problem. Or, you could choose to think that it’s a problem. That it’s really frustrating and that they’re overbearing and that they don’t respect your time.

Same thing with family staying with you for a month. This actually came up at the mastermind live event in Charleston. One person in the mastermind had family stay with them for several months. Most people in the room agreed that that was a problem. But there were other people in the room that decided that it wasn’t a problem. That they would consider that such an endearing thing, that their family felt comfortable enough and loved them enough to want to spend that much time with them.

So, it truly is all about your perspective. It’s not a problem unless you think it is. With that being said, though, we are going to encounter things in our lives that we are probably going to choose to think are problems.

Can you always work to reframe your thoughts? Yes, you can. But oftentimes, it’s based on our belief systems and our values, and just the way we were raised, how we think about the world. It’s going to be very challenging for us to think about something that we’ve historically always considered a problem, as not being a problem. All right?

Our negative thoughts, considering something a problem, are going to be really sticky. You may want to choose to think certain things are a problem. Now, you can solve the problem, if one arises, but it may just be a bridge too far to think that it’s not a problem.

So, in knowing this, you’re going to encounter situations that you will likely deem to be problems. You’re going to encounter facts, and you’re likely going to think that they’re problematic, that you’re encountering a problem, a challenge.

In light of that, because that is likely to be part of your human experience; actually, I’ll guarantee it for you; I want to give you an example of the different life experience that you have when you anticipate and expect there to be problems, versus when you expect there to be no problems. Okay?

Now, I’m going to use the example of a comparison between me and my dad. My dad and I are very different, and I see how he thinks of the world. I can tell that in his mind, he’s essentially playing a game of Whack-a-Mole when it comes to problems. They arise and his goal, all the time, is to extinguish them as they arise so he can get to the point where he’s cleared the board, and there are no problems.

And every time a problem arises again, he’s frustrated that another Whack-a-Mole had popped up, and then he had to whack it back down. He thinks that he should be getting to a point where he’s free of problems.

Now, I don’t think like that. So, our emotional experiences in the world are very different. When problems in my life continue to arise, I’m like, “Ah, of course, there’s more problems. There’s supposed to be more problems. That’s just part of life. Here’s another one for me to deal with.”

When another problem arises for my dad, he thinks, “What the hell, why is this happening? This shouldn’t be happening. Why are there always problems? There shouldn’t always be problems.” He has this phrase that he uses, and I use it too, I just have a different meaning behind it than he does.

Where he says, “You know, if it’s not one thing, it’s another,” as if like, something’s gone wrong. As if it shouldn’t always be one thing or another. Where me, I think the same thought, but I reframed it to think, “Of course, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” It’s always going to be one thing or another.

My dad’s a business owner. And as a business owner, you’re encountering different problems all the time. He’ll get really frustrated and agitated and almost discouraged, I’ll add that in there, too. That problems keep arising. One day, it’ll be an employee doesn’t show up for work. And the next week, it’ll be the furnace breaks. And the next week, one of the employees, he owns a collision shop, will back a brand new, fixed car into some inanimate object and damage the car. They have to fix it, and it comes out of my dad’s profit. Those are all different things that arise.

Every time something like that happens, my dad gets super frustrated, because he’s thinking that he should have reached a point where these problems are solved, where they don’t arise anymore. I don’t think that way. I think they’re just going to keep coming. The hits are going to keep coming.

One day, I was at my parents’ house, and my dad noticed… I didn’t even notice it, funny enough. My dad noticed, because he has an eye for these things being in the automotive business, that someone had hit my taillight; my taillight was cracked. He automatically became really disgusted. Not at me, just at the fact that my taillight was busted.

We talked about it, he could tell by the way that it was broken that I hadn’t hit something, that someone had backed into me; that was how it was cracked. I noticed how upset he got. So, I started to talk to him about this underlying premise that there shouldn’t be problems.

I said, “You know, the difference between you and I,” and this was arising from a conversation about life coaching and how I teach my clients to reframe their thinking and change their thoughts, and how changing their thoughts changes their emotional experience.

So, I was explaining to my dad, “The difference between us is that you think people shouldn’t hit my car. And I think, of course, people are going to hit my car.” That’s just the risk you take when you drive a car, and you exist in the world around other drivers.

They literally get to hit your car. Not intentionally, of course. We’re never going to be thrilled that someone would intentionally hit our car. It’s just the risk that you take that people make mistakes, there are accidents. And these things happen when you’re a person who owns an automobile, and you take it out around other people who also own automobiles.

My dad paused for a second, and he goes, “You’re so right. I definitely think that people shouldn’t hit your car. And, I feel really frustrated when they do.” I said, “Exactly, and I think, of course, this is bound to happen when you have a car, and you drive it around other drivers.” I feel very accepting.

Now, that’s not to say that I’m jazzed that I have to get a new taillight and that someone hit my car, I just don’t get frustrated by those everyday annoyances because I anticipate them. And people who don’t anticipate them get really frustrated because they catch them off guard, they’re very surprised by it.

But that being caught off guard, being surprised, is all optional. When you anticipate that your life is going to contain problems, and you’re going to encounter them on a pretty regular basis, you’re not going to be disgruntled when you do, in fact, encounter them.

Now, there’s another trap we also get caught in when it comes to problems. If we’re currently experiencing them, we tend to think that we will outrun them, eventually. We mistakenly believe that we will eventually arrive at a point in time where all of our problems have been extinguished. And when we believe that we begin to chase the horizon, believing that the future will be better than the present moment we’re experiencing right now.

Doing this causes, just like believing that there shouldn’t be problems in the first place, doing this causes so much emotional suffering and disappointment. We have this expectation that ‘there’ will be better than ‘here.’ That when we achieve this thing, it’ll be better than what we have right now. When we solve this problem, there will be better than where we’re at right now. When we achieve this goal and reach this finish line, there will be better than what we experience and what we have now.

But the truth of the matter is, there will still be problems. Likely, they will be different problems; sometimes they’re the same problems, but likely there’ll be different. And, you really want to emphasize that and internalize that message. You will still have problems; they’ll just be different. Which means ‘there’ won’t be better than ‘here,’ it will just be different than here. You will still encounter the 50/50 that life has to offer you.

One of the things I teach my clients and that I practice myself in my own life, is that there is no ‘there’ there. We think that ‘there’ is going to be better. That there is something different ‘there’ than what we are experiencing right now. And that it will be better as a result, right?

When we think that way, when we anticipate that there’s going to be a ‘there’ there, that ‘there’ will be better, we end up being in the pursuit of ‘there’ only for the destination. We’re in it for the end goal. We’re in it for the trophy.

And when we do that, A- We tend to really not enjoy the journey because we’re so focused, not on being present in the current moment, but on reaching that destination. Because we’re so anxious and eager to get to that place that we mistakenly believe will be better. You’re in it for how you think you’re going to feel when you cross the finish line.

When you do this, you end up spending so much of your time anticipating an experience, that you end up being disappointed at the end of that race, at the end of that pursuit. Because it doesn’t live up to your expectation, to your anticipation.

What is true is that there is no place where you arrive, where you feel good all of the time. There is no place where you arrive, where all of your problems are gone. You will still have problems when you arrive at that destination, whatever destination it is that you’re pursuing. Your problems will just be different. Why is this? It’s because problems are forever.

I want to give you a couple examples of this too, that problems are forever, they just change. Think about when you’re unemployed. There’s a particular set of problems you have versus being employed, different situation, different problems, right? Your problems don’t go away entirely. Now, the problems that you are experiencing as an unemployed person might go away, but then you gain new problems.

Same thing happens when you’re single, right? There’s one set of problems when you’re single. You have to handle all of the house obligations by yourself. You don’t have dates to attend significant events. You don’t have plans on Friday night, unless you’re going out with friends or whatnot. Or you’re like me, and you take yourself to dinner. But there are particular problems that you have when you’re single.

And then, when you get married or when you’re in a relationship, you gain a whole new set of problems. The original problems probably go away, and you have a whole new bunch of them.

Same thing happens when you’re an employee versus an entrepreneur. So many people that I work with are so eager and desperate to go out on their own and start their own businesses. And I always want to encourage them not to do it because they think it’s going to be so much better, or that their new life is going to be problem-free.

Now, you get to have a preference. I prefer the problems of being an entrepreneur versus the problems that come from being an employee, which is why I’ve chosen to be an entrepreneur. But I’m not under the delusion that I’m going to be free or rid of problems altogether as an entrepreneur. They’re just different problems.

So, as an employee, I don’t have as much autonomy. I have someone who gets to set rules that I either have to adhere to or suffer a consequence, potentially. As an entrepreneur, I don’t have that problem, right? But as an employee, I don’t have to be responsible for getting paid. I just receive a paycheck; it comes to me.

Versus being an entrepreneur, that responsibility falls on my shoulders and my shoulders alone. I also see this with entrepreneurs in the beginning stages of their business versus later stages of their business. There’s a whole set of problems you have when you’re not making money. And then, those problems go away when you make money. But then, you gain a whole new set of problems.

You have to figure out what to do with your money, you have to pay taxes, you have to potentially hire more people, things of that nature. You gain a whole new set of problems.

Same thing with being a solo practitioner. There’s a whole set of problems you experience as a solo practitioner. And if you begin to hire people and delegate, you extinguish some of the problems that you experienced before, but you gain a whole new set of problems with learning how to manage a team and supervise people.

So, when you realize this, that problems are forever, and that you’re just going to experience different problems as you achieve new goals, and you make progress throughout your life. Rather than being in it for the end point, for how you think you’re going to feel when you cross that finish line. Consider switching your perspective and being in it for the journey. With falling in love with the journey.

If I was only in it for the end point, as an entrepreneur, I would only be able to celebrate my business a couple times a year. When I achieve certain goals, when I pass certain mile markers. On days when I achieve income goals or when I sign clients. That’s not going to be every day out of the year.

Instead, I’ve made the active decision to fall in love with the journey. With the daily pursuit of these goals. With the practice of actively pursuing, day in and day out, what I’m striving for. The daily challenges, the daily triumphs, the daily learning, and the daily winning, I’m in it for all of it.

One of my mentors and inspirational figures in my life is Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s an entrepreneur, and one of his lifetime goals is to buy the New York Jets. People are always cheering for him, rooting for him. Saying, “Gary, we can’t wait for you to buy the New York Jets.”

What he explains to them is that it’s not about the day that he actually gets to buy the Jets. He is in it for the journey of becoming an entrepreneur who amasses enough success to become someone who has the net worth to be capable of buying the Jets. All right?

What does he have to do along that path, along that journey, in that pursuit to cross that finish line eventually? He’s in it for the daily challenges. And when you’re in it for the daily challenge, you fall in love with the path that you have to take to get to where you want to go. You’re able to enjoy that pursuit so much more than only being in it for the end results.

Think about your work this way. If you’re only in it for the deal closings, or you’re only in it for the trial wins, you’re going to have such a miserable experience in the days, weeks, and months leading up to those huge moments in your career.

What would it look like for you to fall in love with the journey? To fall in love with the daily challenges, the daily triumphs, the daily learning, the daily winning, the daily problem-solving that you do in order to inch your way a little bit further and make progress towards that end goal?

What if you weren’t in it for the trophies? How would that change your day-to-day experience? It’s going to make the problems you encounter on a day-to-day basis so much less of an issue.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Olivia, if I’m always going to encounter problems, why on earth would I do anything differently? Why wouldn’t I just maintain the status quo, save all of my energy, and not go out and challenge myself and risk feeling all of this negative emotion that comes from pursuing new things?”

I want to offer you a way to think about this. This is optional, you don’t have to think about it this way. But if there will always be problems, instead of thinking, “Why not conserve energy, just maintain the status quo, and not do anything different?” I want to offer you, that new problems are better than having the same problems. All right?

Now, that’s just my thought. That’s not true. That doesn’t have to be true for you. You don’t have to adopt that mindset. But if you’re growth-focused, which if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably are, you probably look at the world this way already. That you would prefer new problems over feeling the stagnation that you experience when you’re dealing with the same problems over and over again.

So, I want to offer you that new problems, being newly challenged by different situations, and learning and growing, which comes as a result of working through new problems, that that is going to be a much more exciting life to live than dealing with the same problems over and over again.

How discouraging is it to constantly be dealing with the same problem for eternity? How much of a letdown is that? How much under-living are you doing when you’re just dealing with the same problems over and over again?

I invite you to adopt that mindset; the mindset that new problems are better than old problems. So, let’s not maintain the status quo. Let’s go out and strive to accomplish new things, and risk experiencing new problems that we haven’t encountered before. And that that will be better than experiencing the same thing over and over.

Now, I want to just add one more thing here. I want to highlight why it’s a problem to think that it’s a problem to have problems. Does that sentence even makes sense? I know it did. I want to explain why it’s a problem to think it’s a problem to have problems.

First, as I explained earlier, you cause yourself additional emotional suffering. Feeling uncomfortable is unpleasant. So, where it’s really optional and voluntary, don’t engage in that, right?

This is really unnecessary emotional suffering, that’s completely within your control to dial down or eliminate altogether. I tell my clients, “Feeling like shit feels like shit.” So, when it’s in your control to not feel like shit, opt out of thinking in the way that makes you feel shitty.

Moreover, though, it’s a problem to think that it’s a problem to have problems, because of the action you take when you’re thinking this way, right? You cause yourself that extra emotional suffering. You experience more negative emotions than you would otherwise, if you didn’t think that it was a problem to have problems.

And what you end up doing, is that you buffer in order to escape the negative emotion that you’re experiencing. When you think it’s a problem to have problems, and you think that you shouldn’t be having problems, you think that you should be feeling good all the time, you go about your life trying to curate an experience where you don’t feel discomfort. Where you don’t feel emotional pain.

So, you create false pleasure by way of buffering; drinking too much, eating too much, scrolling too much on social media, watching too much Netflix, spending too much money, traveling too much; doing things to escape your discomfort. And, all of that buffering creates more problems.

When you don’t think it’s a problem to have problems, you don’t need to escape the discomfort that comes when you’re experiencing and encountering a problem. You can just make peace with the reality of your human experience. That sometimes it’s going to be that 50% discomfort; that 50% ass, that 50% negative experience; and that it’s not something that you need to escape or avoid, you can just experience it.

Remember, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, you have survived every negative emotion you’ve ever experienced. You don’t need to go buffer in order to escape the discomfort that you’re experiencing when you’re facing a problem.

You can experience that discomfort, face it head-on, feel it all the way through, and you can experience it as just part of being a human. You don’t have to make anything wrong about the fact that you’re feeling that way.

When you stop thinking it’s a problem to have problem, you stop needing to press the escape button all the time, because you start to believe nothing’s gone wrong. “This is how life is supposed to be. Problems are a part of life. Problems are forever, there’s no escaping them. They always come with the territory of being a human being. And, I can navigate them without needing to numb myself or escape the issue at hand.”

In fact, when you don’t escape them and you face them head-on, you reduce your problems rather than increase them. All right?

That’s what I have for you this week, my friends. I really want you to marinate on this concept, on this topic, that problems are forever, and that it’s not a problem that you have problems. Problems will always be a constant in your life. They will come and go. When they go, they will come again. And, you can always handle them. You’re meant to handle them as part of your human experience. And the best-case scenario? Is that you just experience different problems along the way, rather than continuously experiencing the same ones over and over.

All right, go embrace your problems this 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 49. Today, we’re talking all about how to determine your capacity for work. 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. How you doing today? I’m so excited for today’s episode. This is a topic that I get asked about all the time. How do people determine their capacity for work? When should you take on more work? When should you turn work away? All of those things.

Like so much that comes along with legal practice, this is one of the things that no one ever teaches us how to do. You just have to fumble around by yourself, figure it out, kind of guess your way through it. And, most of us end up guessing wrong. We end up taking on work when we really don’t have the capacity for it. That’s one of the ways that we end up overwhelming ourselves.

So, this ties directly in with maintaining the “work/life balance” you want. I don’t love that term, because I think we have one life and work is a part of it. It’s not that they’re separate and in competition with one another. But if you use that term, this is a way that you can help maintain the work/life balance split that you want to have.

It also helps you reduce your overwhelm. It’s going to help you have a better handle on your workload and getting through the tasks on your to-do list. It’s really going to help maintain your stress levels, reduce your stress levels, so you feel more in control and capable and accomplished as you go throughout your weeks.

Now, I actually didn’t learn how to measure capacity when I was still practicing law. This is something that I’ve mastered since I started my coaching business, because my coaching business operates a little bit differently than most legal practices operate. I have such a clear understanding on what my capacity is in my current business.

I started to see the differences between the way I operate my business, and the way my attorney clients operate their law practices. And, I started to see what I do differently that allows me to have such a clear understanding of my capacity, versus what they do. They really don’t have a clear understanding of what their capacity is.

So, since seeing this difference, I’ve really been on a mission to come up with a framework to give the attorneys that I work with. To have them be able to use it to measure their capacity and to work within their capacity, rather than continuously and consistently working outside of their capacity and overwhelming themselves.

I did an inventory on how I operate my business, and I came up with the best practices to give you for how to measure your own capacity. So, that’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode. First, I want to explain how I measure my capacity in my business. If you’re an attorney and you’re in a billable hour model, this will probably not be how you measure your capacity.

But I want you to have the background context here, and give you an example of a different way to structure your business if you’re not in the more traditional billable hour model. Maybe you have a subscription service; that’s a really nuanced way to charge people. Maybe you do flat-fee work. There are just different ways that you can structure this, depending on the services that you provide people.

If you’re a much more of a counselor role rather than a litigator or doing transactional work, this might really work for you. It might be a little bit more akin to my coaching business. But I work with people… I have two offers. I work with clients one-on-one and then I have my group program, The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind.

The bulk of the hours that I spend in my business each week are my one-on-one coaching hours. I spend, roughly, at any given time, I normally have between 22 and 24 clients, and my sessions are an hour long. So that’s max 24 hours in a week.

And then, I have my group program, which is also an hour. I spend several hours in our Facebook group outside of that, so we can round up to 30 hours there. That’s just the client work. And then, in addition to those 30 hours, I do marketing work. I do a minimum of two hours a day on marketing.

I tend to do a little bit of marketing on the weekends, as well. I do some social media. I normally do my Ask Me Anything, anonymously, questions on Instagram. So, all-in with marketing, I’ll also go ahead and include me recording my podcast episodes, me doing my monthly webinars. And then, I do some consultation calls and some networking calls throughout the week, as well.

So, all-in I’m probably at around 50 hours a week for work. Now, I am single, and I don’t have any kids. Those are the hours that I prefer for this stage of my business. I am not suggesting that you work 50 hours a week. I’m not suggesting you work 60. I’m not suggesting you work 40 or 30 or 20, you get to decide. There is no right or wrong answer. Okay?

Now, I also structure my days, so I don’t take any calls before, it used to be 10am. I’m switching it to 11am. I am not a morning person. And, I like to wake up a little bit later in the morning. I start my day with social media. I normally draft a social media post for LinkedIn, between 8:30am and 9pm. Then I post that, and then I engage on LinkedIn for a while.

Then, I get ready for my day, and I start my calls by 10am or 11am. And then, I have relatively back-to-back calls with short little breaks in between, from whatever time I start until 6pm or 7pm. Then, I normally just chill. And then, I might do a little bit more marketing in the later evening, after I eat dinner, after I’ve had a chance to relax with the cats.

So, that’s what my schedule looks like Monday through Thursday. Fridays, I don’t do calls anymore. I normally do some behind-the-scenes stuff, and I’m working to eliminate that altogether, so it just really is a day of leisure for me. And then, on the weekends I don’t do any coaching calls at all. I just do a little social media stuff. That’s what my week looks like.

The reason I wanted to give you this breakdown is for a couple of different reasons: Number one, you’ll notice that I spend a lot of extra time in my business that isn’t devoted to just client work. And I want you to keep that in mind, as well.

How much of your time, each week, do you have to devote to client work? How much of your time do you have to devote to other stuff; marketing, administrative work, anything like that, billing, back-end stuff? You want to know these numbers, okay?

Rather than just guessing at them, or scrambling and making time when something is really urgent or emergent. I don’t want you doing that. I want you to have a baseline, so you know, how much of my week do I need to devote to this part of my practice? How much of my week do I need to devote to this part of my practice? And then, you plan that way accordingly, rather than just crossing your fingers, hoping for the best, thinking, “Well, hopefully, I’ll have the chance to make time for it all.”

I also am very clear about the number of hours I’m going to spend on client work. That is not an elastic number for me. I have capacity for 24 clients, or 22 clients, or whatever my number is at the time. I’m slowly reducing that, so by the middle of the year, that should be down to 18. And when I’m at 18, I don’t take more clients. All right? That’s what I want you to get a better understanding of.

Now, I’m going to explain what you’re going to measure, because you probably won’t have a business structured like mine. So, for me, I spend an hour with each client, each week. I cap it at whatever number I’m willing to take at that time.

And when I’m full, if I continue to do consultations with clients, I don’t just add them into my schedule and make my days longer, which is what most attorneys do. I don’t do that. I wait until I have a spot opening, one of the 24 spots, and then they get that spot when it becomes available. So, I’m never exceeding the number 24. All right?

Now again, I’m just giving you the background here. This is going to be a little bit different for you. I’m going to teach you how to adapt it to your legal practice, but I want you to understand how I measure my capacity first, so you have all the context.

The main takeaway here is that my days do not become elastic. Okay? I start my calls at 11am. I end at 7pm or 6m, depending on the day. And, there’s a certain number of slots each day. When all of those are full, my answer is that I do not take more work. I postpone someone’s start date with me until a spot becomes available.

Rather than taking it on and working on the weekends or working earlier in the day or working later in the day. All right? My schedule, my capacity, the limit that I set for the number of people I’m going to work with does not move.

Learning to honor my capacity was one of the hardest things that I had to do as an entrepreneur. When you start a business, you are really in the hustle and grind mode of getting clients and creating money, right? It’s a very different skill set, and it requires you to allow very different discomfort to turn away business. Or, to tell someone, “Yes, you can work with me. But not quite yet.” Okay?

That is very mature entrepreneurship, to be able to say that and to be able to trust that there’s enough work that’s coming your way. That you know how to create and develop more business. And that it’s okay for someone to go to someone else, rather than work with you right this second if they’re not willing to wait, trusting that other people will come.

This is an exercise in allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable and tolerating that discomfort and honoring your capacity, anyways. I know it sounds like a walk in the park, really fun, but this is another example of an instance where you’re going to have to gag-and-go through the discomfort. You’re going to have to feel worried. You’re gonna have to feel a little scarce. That’s okay, you can survive all of those emotions.

You might even have to feel guilty. I sometimes feel guilty when I know a client is really struggling with something and they want to start right away, and I just don’t have the capacity for them to fit into my schedule at the time. So, they have to wait a couple months to begin to work with me. It’s uncomfortable, and I don’t change my capacity to fit them and squeeze them into a schedule that’s already full.

If you have a business model for your firm, for your legal practice, that’s more closely aligned with mine, where you’re counseling clients, rather than working on different projects or different matters for indeterminant lengths of time, then you might be able to structure your capacity just like mine.

Where I plan the amount of hours a week that I want to work. I have a clear breakdown between the number of administrative and marketing hours, and then client working hours. You can limit and put parameters around those client working hours, and you only take that.

Now for me, I know when spots are going to become available in my client capacity schedule, because I work with clients for six months. So, we commit to working together for six months. And then, they either continue to renew with me and we work together for another six months. Or, they go off on their own and they prosper, and I have an open spot that becomes available for a new client.

For you, if you’ve got a subscription model, I’ve seen attorneys do this, where it would just be a recurring income, right? They continue to work with you until they decide to not work with you, there is no end point. But you would be clear on what your capacity is. And you might be able to grow and increase your capacity by adding additional team members to service your clients, so it’s not just requiring you to interact with these clients. That’s one way to grow.

But you would know what your capacity is. And then, the clients would just renew, that subscription service would renew each month. Once you hit your capacity, you’re full until a client decides not to work with you anymore. Then you’d have an open spot become available and you could sell it.

Now, I am cognizant that most legal practices are not set up this way; you’re probably not in a subscription model. And, you’re not going to be in a scenario where you’re only interacting with a client one hour per week. Where you’re having one call with them a week or something along those lines. Very similar to my business or the subscription counseling model that I just described.

Instead, you’re probably, whether it’s flat-fee or hourly billing, you’re working on matters. Different projects that require different lengths of time to complete. You’ll finish one project on a matter and then it’ll be done for a little while. And then something else will need to be done on that matter. And then, you’ll finish that, and there’ll be a little bit of a respite. And then, something else will need to be done on the matter, and so on and so forth. Right?

If that is how your practice is set up… This is also great if you’re in-house or have another type of job that isn’t like the private practice legal model. Then here’s what you want to do instead, in order to measure your capacity.

First thing’s first, you have to decide how much you want to work each week. You have to pick a number. Right now, you’re probably not picking an upper limit on the amount that you want to be working each week. Instead, you are letting your workload dictate how much you work each week. You’re creating a situation where your weekly hours become very elastic.

If there’s more work to do, and in the practice of law there will always be more work to do. When there’s more work, you let your hours each week expand. You probably start your days earlier, you end them later, you cram in work on the weekends; your time each week becomes elastic. We want to eliminate and remove the elasticity from your weekly schedule.

So, I want you to pick, decide right now how much do you want to work each week? What’s that hourly breakdown? And again, there’s no right answer to this. There’s no wrong answer to this. Once you have your answer, whether it’s 30 hours a week, 40, 50, whatever you choose, I want you to get really clear on how much time you have to do non-client related work.

How much time do you need for administrative stuff? How much time do you need for marketing? Anything on the back end of operating your business? I always like to break this down. There’s a difference between working in your practice, which is working on client work. And then working on your practice, which is all of the other ancillary things that you need to do, you need to complete, in order for your firm to operate effectively.

Okay, so once you get this number, you’re going to make a to-do list. And you should already be doing this if you’ve listened to my time management series on the podcast, which was so good. If you haven’t listened to that yet, and you struggle with time management, I teach you all the stuff that you need to know in order to master managing your time. So, go give that a listen.

But I would have explained, as part two of my three-step process for managing your time effectively, you need to plan your schedule accurately. And in order to plan your schedule accurately, you need to make a to-do list. I like this to be electronic, because we live in an electronic world these days.

I want you to be able to delete cut, paste, move things around, rather than having to constantly rewrite your list. So, you’re going to have an electronic to-do list with every task that you need to complete on it. Okay? Everything from the big things to the small things, and everything in between.

For each task, you’re going to estimate the amount of time it will take you to complete it. Now, if you are new at this, as humans we are horrific at estimating how long a task will take us. So, what I want you to do is whatever your initial guess is, I want you to double it. So, you’re on the safe side, and you’re not under estimating how long it’s going to take you to complete something.

You make your list, you put everything down, and then you estimate how long it will take you. Let’s say the number of hours that you want to spend in your practice each week is 40. And you do 10 hours’ worth of back-end administrative stuff, and you do 10 hours of marketing. Now, you’ve got 20 hours left over for client work, okay?

Now, with your to-do list, you should have a total. You’re going to add up all of that work, all of the tasks that you have to do. And if some of it is administrative, you can separate that out, and then all of the client work that you have to do. So, you’ll have two numbers; the total amount of admin work, and the total amount of client work.

Let’s say, when you make your list, you have 60 hours of admin work, and 120 hours of client work. What that would mean, is that without adding anything else new to your plate, to your schedule, to your current workload, you would have a full six weeks of work to do; 120 ÷ 20 hours each week for client work, breaks down to six weeks, right?

Same thing with the administrative stuff; 60 hours of work ÷ 10 breaks down to six weeks. So, your next six weeks would be completely full. Now, you get to decide what your comfort level is for having new clients to sign up with you, or existing clients giving you new work matters. You get to decide what your comfort level is for postponing the start.

You might decide you’re totally fine having someone wait six weeks to begin working on their matter. Then you wouldn’t be at your capacity yet, and you could sign that client up. Tell them that you’re not going to start on it until six weeks from now. Everyone’s expectations would be level set from the beginning. And, we don’t have a capacity issue.

Where we would encounter a capacity issue is, let’s say, you decide that you don’t want to add any additional client work or take on a new matter, a new matter, or a new client, when you have more than three months’ worth of work. Let’s say the number wasn’t 120hrs, and when you list everything out, you actually have 240 hours’ worth of client work to do.

Which, I know these numbers probably sound really high, but think about it. A lot of firms have monthly billable hour requirements that are in the 166 range, 160, 170, right around there. So, it makes sense that you actually would have this much work on your plate.

You make your task list, you add it all up, and you see that you have 240 hours’ worth of client work on your plate. That would be three months’ worth of work, based on the current breakdown that we’re doing with these; 40 hours a week, only 20 reserved for client work, 10 for marketing, 10 for back-end business stuff, administration.

If you’ve decided that you don’t take new clients, when you can’t get to their matter in a shorter amount of time than three months, then you would be at capacity. And you wouldn’t add a new client until your number got down lower; until that 240 was like 160 or something like that.

Whatever your limit is, you get to decide, when do I sign clients? When do I want to be open for taking on more work? Is it when I can get to a new matter in six weeks? Is it when I can get to a new matter in four weeks? Is it when I can get to a new matter in two months or in three months? There is no right or wrong answer.

Again, you get to make these decisions. It’s all going to be about what your comfort level is. Now, I’ll tell you this much, my comfort level has drastically increased over time. In the very beginning, I wasn’t comfortable having people wait. I wanted everyone to be able to start working with me immediately. And it was coming from fear, worry, guilt. I was definitely in people-pleasing energy. I would just want to get started as soon as possible. I thought that they would be upset with me if I made them wait.

And then, I just became so, so full with clients that I didn’t have another option. I mean, I guess I technically did. I could have worked mid-nights or weekends, but I wasn’t willing to do that. So, I ended up putting people off.

In the beginning, it was, “Oh, you have to wait two weeks to start with me.” And then, I was full even with that situation. So, it was a month, and then it was two months, and then it was three months. And then, now, sometimes people have to wait almost five or six months to start working with me, depending on my schedule and when I have spots becoming available.

I had to increase my tolerance for that discomfort, but it was really worthwhile work to do. Now, you can’t increase your tolerance for this, if you don’t set the restriction in the beginning with the number of hours you’re going to work. Okay?

For me, I set the number of clients that I’m going to work with at a given time. You can do that, but because you’re not selling individual hours per clients each week, it’s not going to work the same way that mine works for the way my business is set up.

So, you want to create that cap on the number of client hours you’re going to do, even if it’s not broken down per client. But max 20 hours a week or 30 hours a week, whatever your number is, on client work. That’s step one.

Then, the second decision you have to make is how comfortable are you with making people wait for you to start working on their matters.

Now, you’re going to be tempted to take on new work and reshuffle your schedule, and let new matters cut the line of that to-do list; of that 240 hours’, that 160 hours’ worth the client work. You’re going to want to put people in higher up in the rotation out of that sense of fear or worry or guilt. That is another way that our work becomes really elastic.

That limit that you have on when you are full, and when you’re not full, just becomes elastic. And that to-do list keeps getting longer and longer and longer, and pushed out further and further and further away from today’s current date.

Instead of letting your time be elastic, you want to make these decisions: What’s the max amount you’re going to work each week, of that number? What’s the total number of client work that you’re going to do? It’s gonna be a fraction of your total number of hours. And then, with all your to-do list items added up, what do you consider full? Where are you at capacity? When do you hit that point? At what point will you know that it’s time to say no to new work until you get back under that capacity?

The perfect example of this is 40 hours a week max, 20 hours of client work or 25 hours of client work. You get to decide what that number looks like for you. And then, whatever amount of time that you’re comfortable with making people wait is what your capacity will be.

So, if you’re over that, if people can’t have their matters get worked on within the next two months, that means you’re at capacity and you tell them, “No, not right now. Not until my number gets below that.” All right?

I hope this makes sense for you. I know it’s a little nuanced. I’m getting really specific in today’s episode. But I have people ask me about this all the time. And I wish there was a simpler, less clunky way to do this. There are quite a few steps involved in this process. You’ve got to make the to-do list; you’ve got to add it all up.

Hopefully, it sounds simple to you. I painstakingly went through and I wrote this all down, and I kept working through it because I wanted to get it as digestible for you as I possibly could. But I really want you to have a handle on your own capacity so you know when you should take work on, when you should turn it down, when you should make people wait. That way you don’t overwhelm yourself, overwork yourself and burn out.

All right, my friends, have fun making these decisions for your own practice, for your own work: Total number of hours each week. The amount of time you want people to wait before you start working on new matters. Those are the two ultimate decisions you have to make.

And then, honor it. It’s going to be super uncomfortable. You can gag-and-go through the discomfort; you will survive it, I promise. And reach out to me, let me know how this goes. I’m so excited for you to have an understanding of what your own capacity is. And to begin working within it, rather than constantly exceeding it, and experiencing the stress and the overwhelm and the pressure and all of that discomfort that comes with it.

Remember, there’s always discomfort both ways. I always suggest, choose feeling the discomfort that gets you the life you want. All right? In this case, it’ll be with choosing your capacity and honoring it and working within it, rather than exceeding it day in and day out.

All right, 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 48. Today, we’re talking all about want lists and goal stacking. 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.

Hi, my friends? How are we? I’ve got to be honest, babes. I am missing Charleston, now that I am back in Detroit. I am meant to be I think what they call, is it a snowbird? Yes, I want to be a snowbird. I am over winter. It’s not for me. I’m missing the warm weather.

My cousin, Emily, and I were remarking when we were down there how the worst it gets is kind of like fall, like October in Michigan, I am missing the warmer weather, being able to walk around, the sunshine. If you are from the Midwest, or a northern state, you know it gets pretty gloomy during the winter. So, it’s definitely like that here right now.

And now that I work from home, I really struggle in the winter more than I ever have. It affects my mood more and more and more. I’m noticing a pattern year in and year out, I think it’s called a seasonal affective disorder. I’m totally diagnosing myself, but I think this is a real thing. I think I have it. I don’t do a great job of getting out into the sunshine during the winter months because it’s cold. And I really, really, really hate being cold.

It’s super convenient, I can just work inside. I hibernate exactly like a bear with my cats during the winter. And I know that this just isn’t me. A lot of people struggle with this, but it is getting real. I am ready for some sunshine. I think the writings’ on the wall, I really just need to move. So, that’s kind of what’s going on with me lately. I hope you’re in a place that’s sunnier and warmer and more enjoyable than February in Michigan.

Alright, enough about me. I want to give you a little bit of an update about something that I did this week. And then, I want to use it as the premise of this episode. So, this week, for The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind, we had our first call for the new round. After we were all together in Charleston for the live event, we take a week off. And all of the learning and development that we did in person gets a chance to sink in and people get back into the swing of things in their normal everyday lives. And then we get to meet for the first time. So, we take a week break and then we meet.

This week, on Tuesday, we met for the first time. I did this really awesome exercise that I absolutely love doing with my clients. Really, it’s like two exercises combined into one, and they go together. We create what I call a “Want List”.

And then, we do what I call “Goal Stacking”. Where you take the want list items that you identified, and you put them in order, so you know what it is you’re going to focus on. You’ve basically got a plan of attack for everything you want to accomplish in your life.

Today, I want to talk to you about creating your own want list and then completing a goal stacking exercise so you have a lot of direction in your life. You dismantle or clear up any overwhelm or confusion about what you want to focus on and what you want to achieve right now, where you want to put your attention and your intention. And we’re also just going to daydream a little bit. It’s going to be so fun.

Okay, so for those of you who don’t know me super well, this might seem a little bit surprising. It might shock you a little bit, but I am absolutely a dreamer. Like, big picture, day dreaming, pie in the sky; very inventive imagination of what I want for my life.

And legend has it that this has something to do with me being a Pisces. My birthday is about to come up in March. So, I’ve heard that this is a thing that Pisces do. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. But whether or not it is, it is true that I am a big time dreamer.

Now, a lot of people who know me see me as being really intentional and pretty pragmatic. So, that is also true, I am both of those things. Which is why, me self-identifying as a dreamer who’s a little fanciful might seem a little misaligned or it authentic. But I promise you, I am both of these things, I am all of these things.

Completing these two exercises, creating a want list and then goal stacking, what you add to your want list, it’s a great example of how I blend these qualities about myself together. It’s such a good example of how you can be two things at once. How you can hold two things at once.

I always love to use an intentional use of the word “and” you can be a dreamer, “and” you can be intentional. You can be a dreamer, and you can be really pragmatic and methodical. Alright?

So, I definitely am both of those things. You don’t have to be either/or, all or nothing, one or the other. You get to be really dynamic. I think that’s one of the most fascinating things about being a human, we get to be so dynamic. And we get to be a little combination of whatever we want to be.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those TikToks or those Instagram reels where people pour in water, and they label the water. They’re like, “When God made me he put in this much charisma, and this much sass, and this much intelligence,” or whatever. But it’s kind of like that. We get to be whatever we want. We get to consist of whatever we want.

And there’s always room for nuance. You get to be whatever magical, incredible, insane combination you want to be. So, for me, quite a bit of a dreamer. And I’m really intentional and pragmatic. I’m all those things, roped into one.

In light of that, I’ve paired these two exercises to really bring in that dreamer part of me, and bring in that intentional part of me. I do this exercise with my clients to bring out the dreamer part of them and the really intentional part of them.

Also, I’m giggling to myself right now. I just talked to a friend of mine who also has a podcast. And she was talking about how she talks with her hands when she records the podcast. And you guys, so do I; full-on Italian mode over here. When I record these episodes for you, I’m talking with the hands, plural, the entire time.

And one of these days, I’m going to have to record video of me recording the podcast, just so you guys can see what I’m talking about. My cousin Emily always yells at me for not creating the video content when I record these anyways. But it’s just funny, I talk with my hands so much.

So, I’m, on one hand, intentional. On one hand, being a dreamer. And every time I say those words, I’m moving my hands to and fro. But of course, you can’t see that. Anyways, I digress.

We’re going to bring out the dreamer in you today. And we’re going to bring out the intentional, pragmatic side of you, too. Okay? We’re going to combine those two things. First, we’re going to start by creating a Want List. I just want you to go grab a piece of paper. Or, you can break out your phone and create… If you’ve got an iPhone, go in your Notes app, or whatever the Android equivalent of that is.

You’re going to make a list. I want you to label it your Want List. I love to date mine, just so I can see what I wanted at a certain period of time in my life. And now, I want you to put your dreamer hat on, okay? I want you to make a list of all of the things you want for your life.

What are all of the things you want to accomplish? Write those down. What goals do you have? It doesn’t just have to be for this moment in your life, it can be for your entire life. What are the things you want to accomplish? What do you want to achieve? What are the things that you want to do?

That’s the second question I want you to answer. You might notice that some of the questions might overlap, or you’ll have similar answers, depending on what the question is, that’s okay. Don’t duplicate, but we’re going to add some nuance to different questions here, just to pull out and make sure we catch every single one, that we want to make sure it gets on your Want List.

So, what do you want to accomplish? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to do in your life? What experiences do you want to have? Where do you want to travel? What do you want to learn to do? Where do you want to live? What do you want your life to look like?

Go ahead, pause this episode, and make your list. Go through and answer all those questions one by one and see what comes up for you. If, after you’ve taken a few minutes, you’re really struggling to identify things on your list. And I want you to at least write down 20 things. Okay? It can be as long as you want it to be, but strive for at least 20.

They can be small. They can be huge. They can be the Goldilocks version, in between. Totally doesn’t matter. Like I said, they can be goals that you want to achieve this year or this quarter. They can be things that you want to accomplish 30 years from now, it does not matter. They can be things that will take you a very long time to accomplish. They can be simple, little things. Whatever you want for your life, I want you to include on this list, okay?

Now, if you really struggle with coming up with responses to the questions that I just gave you, I have another prompt for you. That normally kind of sounds negative, but I do think it’s really effective at helping you identify the things that you might want for your life.

So, instead of asking yourself, what do I want? Which people aren’t always practiced in being able to answer skillfully with ease. I want you to do an inventory, and ask yourself, what is it that you envy that other people have? What are things other people do that you envy? That you wish you had that? You wish you could do? Alright?

Now, this isn’t meant to create a compare and despair situation where you’re measuring yourself up to other people. Where you’re using their achievements or their experiences against yourself, feeling badly about your own life and what you’ve done so far. That is not the point of this exercise.

There are always two directions that you can go when you’re looking at someone else’s achievements. When you’re looking at the things that they have in their life that you really appreciate or enjoy or envy, you can use it against yourself to feel terrible; highly don’t recommend that. Or, you can use it as inspiration.

One of my favorite quotes is that success leaves clues. I got that from a friend of mine, Maggie Reyes. And it’s so true, success does leave clues. So, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we get to crib ideas from other people, and include it in our own want list. I’m going to share my want list, what’s on mine, in just a second, so you can use mine as inspiration if it helps you at all.

But I also just want you get a flavor for what can be on a want list because that might inspire you. Your list might not be identical to mine, and that’s totally fine. You want your list to be bespoke to you, of course. But I do want to offer it to you as a bit of inspiration.

So, make sure you get your list. Don’t worry about putting it in an order yet, you just want to do a brain dump. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to achieve? What are the things you want to do? What experiences do you want to have in your life? What do you envy? What do you want to learn? Where do you want to live? Where do you want to travel to? I also feel like I kind of want to include, who do you want to be? But really what do you want your life to look like?

Now, quick sidenote here, if you wanted to engage in a gratitude practice, you could make a whole list of the things that you want in your life that you currently have. That’s a really fun exercise, too. But that’s not what we’re doing today. Really, the focus of today is to put that dreaming cap on. To really think bigger and more expansive than you typically do. Alright? What are all the things that you want for your life, now and to the end of your days?

Alright, without further ado, here are some things on my want list. So, you’ve probably heard me talk about it already before on the podcast, but my goal for my business this year is to make a million dollars. That’s front and center on my want list. I also want to learn how to do a bunch of things, like in the hobbies department. I want to learn how to play the guitar. I want to learn to speak Italian. I want to take dance lessons.

I want to start working out with a personal trainer. One of my goals is to get in the best shape of my life and I want to celebrate that. Hopefully my parents aren’t listening, but I want to celebrate that by wearing a completely outrageous bikini, probably a thong bikini, in South Beach. I love Miami.

And that is just a once in a lifetime thing. I’m pretty modest. I’m a typical one-piece girl. But it is something that I want to do before I get older and feel less comfortable in my skin. So, I want to take advantage of that while I’m still in my 30s. I want to work out with a trainer.

I want to really master driving a stick-shift; my dad taught me years ago, but I’m still not an expert at it. So, I want to become an expert in that. I also am taking another page out of my dad’s book, and I want to learn how to fly a plane. My dad recreationally flies helicopters. I’ve gone with him before; he’s taught me a little bit about flying helicopters. It is very challenging for me. The three-dimensional aspect of it is a little confusing for my brain.

So, I don’t know that I’m ready for that yet, but I do want to learn how to fly fixed-wing aircraft. I want to learn how to fly a plane. I just think it’s such a flex for a girl to know how to fly a plane. That’s definitely on my want list.

I also want to renovate my house, the one that I just moved out of. That is a goal, so I can figure out what I want to do with my house. But that’s on there. I also want to pay it off if I decide to keep it. Which I’m pretty sure that I will keep it; I want to pay it off. And then, I also want to achieve the goal of being debt free.

After I went through my year of poverty, after I left my last law firm job and I started this business, I have paid off almost all of my debt, but I still have some to pay off. So, that is definitely a goal of mine, to be debt free.

Speaking of houses, I want to move out of Michigan. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast recently, you already know Charleston, here I come. But I don’t just want to live in Charleston, I want to hop all over. So, I want to live in Italy at some point in my life, preferably also in my 30s. And I have a dream of living in New York City. I want to have a place that overlooks Central Park.

I am absolutely fascinated by Central Park, and just the fact that it’s been protected and conserved all of these years. I’m really in awe of it, and I would love to have that be my view waking up in the morning. How amazing would that be? So, that’s also on my want list.

I also want to get married, that’s on my want list. As for travel, this actually came up in our Tuesday call in the mastermind. Someone else in the mastermind said that they wanted to see the Northern Lights. And that’s on my list, as well. I want to see the Northern Lights.

I also want to do some traveling with my parents. I want to take my dad to Africa. He is fascinated with Great White Sharks. So, I want to take him to South Africa to see the Great Whites. And then, we also want to go on safari. I want to stay at the giraffe hotel, which is probably super basic girl stuff, but I don’t care. It looks amazing. So, I want to do that with my dad.

And I want to take my mom to Disney. We’re not Disney people, at all. But there’s some history behind this, and it’s really important for me to do this in my lifetime. I want to take both of my parents to Italy. My mom’s family’s from Scotland, so I would like to take her there as well.

What’s really neat about having a want list, once you create it, you just get to keep adding to it over and over and over again. So, as you’re inspired, and as you get other ideas, you just get to pop them on your want list, to constantly be adding to it, which is so fun.

I was just talking to my mom this weekend, actually. And she asked me if I had any interest in doing the Turner Classic Movies Cruise that they do. I’m a huge movie buff. I love old black-and-white films. I’ve been a movie buff my whole, entire adult life. I think, even as a teenager, I was really into them. And Turner Classic Movies, TCM, is one of my favorite channels. I love all the classics, especially like 1930s, 1940s films. Those are the films that I love.

TCM hosts a film festival cruise, and it’s so incredible. It has famous people from the movie industry, and a lot of the older actresses and actors have passed away, unfortunately. But they still find great talent who are in some of the movies that they feature. And they do panel discussions about old Hollywood. It’s so up my alley. And it’s a really glamorous ship.

So, my mom just asked me if I wanted to go, and it’s been on my “bucket list”; your want list is essentially a bucket list. I just like the name Want List better. I don’t like the whole idea of ‘kicking the bucket’. That’s just like, no, thank you. I’m not fine with that name.

My mom asked me if this is something that I wanted to do, and I said, “Oh my goodness, yes. Absolutely. Let’s look at the dates.” And I just added that to my want list this weekend. So, that’s on there now too.

In addition to travel and trips that I want to take, I also have some huge goals, like long term, lifelong goals on my list. One of my goals is I want to speak at the Staples Center. And then, I also want to go to culinary school, and I eventually want to own a restaurant. That’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

Many decades from now, I’d like to run for Senate. Senators have so much power, so I would love to run for Senate. And I also, this is actually, probably, going to come before my Senate run, but I would love to become an actress and get cast in a movie. I’m going to fit that in somewhere in my 30s. I haven’t figured that out, exactly when yet, but that’s also on my want list.

You should be getting the picture here, right? Everything from small things to big things. Things that you can accomplish fairly quickly, maybe with just a tiny little bit of planning, or you just have to make one decision. And then, other ones will take a ton of work, right? A lot of intentionality, a lot of planning, a lot of focus. That’s not a problem, you just want to know what is it going to require of you.

Okay, now, once you have your Want List, you get to start putting it in order. This is what I call “Goal Stacking”. You literally stack your goals, one by one by one, on top of each other. You create the order in which you’re going to approach them. In which you’re going to tackle them. In which you’re going to accomplish them. Okay?

You can do all the things. I am never going to be the person to tell you that you can’t do all the things that you want to do. I wouldn’t be a very good life coach if I was giving you have limiting beliefs about what you can accomplish. So, you can do all the things, you just can’t do them all at the same time, alright?

Unfortunately, and I always joke with my clients when I say this, unfortunately, time is finite. It just is what it is. Now, I’m underwhelmed and a little disappointed by that if I’m being completely honest with you. If you’re like me, and you’re also a little underwhelmed and disappointed with the truth, that time is finite, listen, I get it. I’m right there with you.

But you want to not be at war with that. I just did that podcast episode on the wars that you’re waging, the unwinnable fights that you engage in, and that is often one of them for people. They’re wishing that they could do more things at a given time than they can. So, you want to accept the reality that your time is limited, and there’s only so much you can do within a given period of time.

What I like to do is really constrain my focus to prioritizing one goal at a time. This allows me to put all of my intention, all of my energy, all of my action into accomplishing one thing, which helps me get so much further faster. It really increases my ability to achieve things in a rapid manner.

I learn more because I take more action. And then, I can evaluate and rather than jumping from one thing to the next, I’m able to just really obsess. But in a positive way, not a negative way. I obsess over the thing that’s right in front of me, the goal that’s right in front of me, the accomplishment that I’m working towards achieving.

That’s what I want you to do with your want list. I want you to put it in order; in the order that you want to achieve it in. Okay? We’re going to stack these goals. That way, you have a very clear framework of what you’re going to focus on right now. And then we’re going to focus on later, after you accomplish what you’re going to focus on right now.

You can do this from now until the end of time, essentially, right? Some of my goals, like owning a restaurant or going to culinary school or running for Senate are not goals that I have any interest in even pursuing for decades. That doesn’t matter. That’s okay. They get to be on my Want List still; they’re still there in the back of my mind. I know to look forward to them, and I don’t have to spin out about not working towards them now because they’re built into my plan.

Alright, now, I know people always say when you make a plan, life happens. I agree. This isn’t set in stone and completely inflexible. But it does help me get out of the FOMO that comes up when I want to pursue multiple things at once.

Maybe you’re like me. And if you’re a dreamer, you get FOMO too, because you want to achieve and do all the things all at the same time; as in, like, right now. Okay, if that’s you, your FOMO probably has you freezing and spinning out.

And you’re either doing one of two things. You’re either pursuing everything all at once with a lot of unintentionality, right? You’re not doing it with intentionality, you’re pursuing a plethora of different goals in a very unintentional, kind of chaotic, messy manner. That’s one way that you respond to having a ton of focuses all at the same time.

The other way people tend to respond is that they just freeze, they spin, they don’t make a decision. They are really overwhelmed. They don’t know where to start so they’re feeling overwhelmed and confused. And then, they don’t get started so they don’t achieve anything. Okay?

So, you’re either making really slow progress because you’re pursuing way too many things all at the same time, or you’re not pursuing anything. There’s also kind of a subtle third option here, where you start with option one, you’re pursuing doing all the things, and it just becomes too much to maintain. So, you eventually quit and then you don’t pursue anything.

It’s like you start and then you freeze. You don’t just freeze from the get-go. You get started, and then you freeze, because it’s too hard to maintain that much focus and that much consistent intention with so many different goals.

So, check in with yourself. Which camp do you fall into? Are you pursuing a lot of different things all at the same time? And if you are, because you’re afraid of missing out, because that FOMO comes up for you, because you’re just really passionate about so many different things all at the same time, do you slow yourself down? Do you get started and then quit? Or, do you just freeze all together? You want to know.

Now, by goal stacking, you’re going to constrain your focus, and you’re going to start to prioritize what you care about in the immediate future. What do you want to accomplish this week, this month, this quarter this year? Start to get clear on that, alright? And then, what are some things that you don’t really need to accomplish right now?

I did this with a former client and a good friend of mine. She really wants to go to grad school, but she’s also working on building a successful business. I asked her, “You can definitely still go to grad school. But is that something that has to happen in 2022? Or, can that be like 2025? Would that be okay for you to pursue that later?”

I think she wants her doctorate, that’s what it was. Is that something that you can do a couple years from now? And we decided together that that was something that she was okay with pursuing a couple years from now. So right now, she’s prioritizing her business. And then later, she’s going to prioritize that graduate degree, that doctorate degree.

Don’t come at me if I’m mixing up the two. I don’t mean to insult anyone. It’s a doctorate, I know deep down that’s what she wants to achieve. So, I’m not trying to belittle or diminish anyone’s doctorate degree by calling it a graduate degree, just scratch that part.

Now, what’s fun about goal stacking is you may see that there are some things on your list that are just really easy to cross out. You can make those more immediate if you want. We’ll use an example from my Want List.

Seeing the Northern Lights is very easy to accomplish. That’s just booking a simple trip, right? So, I could prioritize that pretty immediately. But if I wanted to prioritize something else, I can just put that further down on my goal stacking list.

There might be other things. Another thing on my want list is that I want to have a housekeeper who comes at least once a week. I could just hire that person right now. I’m not going to, it’s a financial investment that I’m not completely committed to making right this second, that level of frequency. But that’s a next year goal. So, that’s going to be not too far down on my want list and my goal stacking list, but not at the tippy top.

Same thing for you, okay? If there are some really low-hanging items on your Want List, as you’re goal stacking you can put those a little bit higher up, if they’re really easy to just tackle them and get them out of the way.

If there are other things that take a bunch of planning, like I said earlier, you might want to put those a little bit lower on the list. Or, it can be your main focus. You just want to know that’s what’s getting your focus right now, it’s not going to be that and 15 other things from your Want List. We’re going to take it one at a time. It’s how you get the furthest fastest. It’s how you make the most progress in the shortest amount of time.

Now, clients always like to fight me on my advice that they constrain to one goal at a time, and I get it. I would love to be able to actively and successfully pursue a million different things at once. But I have coached so many people on this, and this has been my own personal experience as well.

You will do so much better and your success rate of achieving what you set out to accomplish will be so much higher, if you constrain your focus to one goal at a time. I get it, I know you want to be able to do more things at once. And our brains love to tell us that we can, that we’re capable of multitasking this way. It’s just really inefficient.

I coach people on this. I see it day in and day out. And it is so fun to watch my clients have this epiphany because they will try to pursue a lot of different goals or even two goals at the same time, and they will struggle to maintain the intentionality and the discipline required to pursue a goal. Whether it’s building a habit, or achieving another type of goal that they set, they wish that they could maintain the discipline, the focus, and the intentionality, but it really does require a lot from you.

So, I find that people have a much higher goal achievement rate when they constrain their focus to one thing. Again, this is just a war that I don’t want to be waging. I’ve just made peace with it; I’ve come to terms and accepted it. And now, I hack my own brain, and I just focus on one thing. I let myself build up wins. I let myself build up momentum. I get so much further faster when I do this because I start to see progress immediately.

And then, I get more encouraged to stay the path, to take more action, to continue to pursue it until I cross the finish line. And that’s what’s going to happen for you, too. So, we just want to be honest and admit that we don’t have the bandwidth to pursue everything we want, all at the same time. Whether you want to be bummed, sad, disappointed about that reality is up to you. But you do want to make peace with it.

And then from there, you’ve stacked your goals and you know, the hitlist that you want to attack them in; in the order that you want to pursue them. So go ahead, and whatever item number one is, you want to… And this is called reverse engineering your goals and creating a result roadmap, which is something that I teach inside the mastermind. But you want to identify all of the different actions that you need to take in order to achieve that result.

And then, when you’ve got that plan, you get to follow the yellow brick road and take the first action that you need to take and then the next one and the next one and the next one after that, all the way until you crossed the finish line. During that process, you’re going to be taking action. You’ll be evaluating. You’re going to take an audit of what you’re doing, figure out what’s working, what’s not working, and decide what you’ll do differently.

So, you’re constantly in a state of winning or learning. Constantly improving until you get where you want to go. Okay, as part of this, you don’t just identify the action that you’re going to take. You also want to make sure you’re cultivating the mindset that you need to have. That means the thoughts that you need to be thinking, and the positive emotions that you need to be feeling, in order to take the action that you want to take, to produce the results you want to have.

But that is a whole other podcast episode in and of itself. And it’s something that we take to the next level inside The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. So, if you complete today’s exercises, you go through and you make your Want List. And then you go stack; you go ahead, and you prioritize the goals. You put them in the order that you want to achieve them in.

And then, you’re ready for having an immense amount of support as you pursue these goals, as you work towards them, as you go about tackling them. You want to make sure you join the mastermind, okay? Make sure you go to my website, TheLessStressedLawyer.com/mastermind and get on the wait-list for when enrollment opens for the next cohort, okay?

Enrollment is going to open May 12. You want to make sure that you’re on the waitlist, so you get the first opportunity to enroll as soon as doors open. If you’re on the wait-list, you get a chance to join before the general public gets the chance to join. And spots are limited every round, so you want to make sure you’re on the wait-list.

You don’t squander your opportunity to get the support that you’re going to want to have as you knock off these items on your Want List. As you goal stack, and pursue them one by one in that really intentional manner.

Alright, my friends, reach out to me and tell me what you identified on your Want List. I would love to hear about it. You can DM me on social media, on LinkedIn or Instagram, or feel free to even email me at Olivia@thelessstressedlawyer.com.

I would love to see what you come up with. It’s so fun learning about other people’s want lists; what they have on theirs, what they want for their lives, even the things that they envy, that they’re inspired by from other people around them. I love hearing all about this. So, reach out, tell me what’s on your Want List.

Tell me if you were surprised by anything that came up, and then tell me what you’re prioritizing. You went through the goal stacking exercise, you put it in order, I want to know what’s the number one item at the top of your goal stacked Want List, okay?

All right, my friends, that’s what I’ve got for you this week. Go put your dreamer cap on. Step into that big dream energy. It’s a different type of BDE, now that I think of it. I love to talk about BDE, which for those of you who don’t know, it’s big dick energy. That’s what that means. I love to channel that and bring it into my life, but this is a little bit different, big dreamer energy.

Okay, I want you to go tap into your big dreamer energy. Think about landish things to put on your want list and then put them in order that you want to achieve them. All right, have fun doing this, my friends. It’s such a fun exercise.

Have a beautiful week, and 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 47. Today, we’re talking all about asking for what you want. 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. How you doing? I am so excited to talk to you. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever. Last we spoke, or last you listened, from the last episode that I did, I was in Cabo. I had a little bit of a toe catastrophe. I told you all about that. But I haven’t had a chance to speak to you since I headed to Charleston to host The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind live event.

And let me tell you, I want to give you all a life update. Also, I’m saying “y’all” now because I spent enough time in Charleston that it stuck. But I want to give you all an update and just tell you all about it. It was so amazing. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing the people that we have in this round are; they’re absolutely incredible.

First of all, they’re so supportive of one another; just to watch the way that they’re bonding with one another. We have a Facebook group for the mastermind. Since we’ve all returned home, to see them support each other in that space, as well as in the room, in person, down in Charleston, it’s really miraculous.

And I love the people in this room. They have the most diverse backgrounds; people from all parts of the legal industry, in-house counsel, solo practitioners, people from big law, and people who have transitioned into professional development within law firms. All different types of backgrounds. People that used to practice law and are now entrepreneurs running legal adjacent businesses. That’s so nice.

So, it’s truly people at all different stages of their careers, all different ages, and all different life experiences which makes for such a rich community. It’s really amazing to see everyone add their own spice to the room and to the experience. I’m just blown away with the incredibly dynamic group of professionals that we have in the mastermind.

Now, if you’re thinking about joining, I do not want you to use that against yourself. If you’re like, “You know Olivia, I really want to be there. But I don’t know if I’m impressive enough,” I promise you, A. you are, and B. you’ll fit right in. This room is just going to like wrap you up and give you a big hug, and welcome you with open arms. So, if you’re contemplating being in the next round, definitely don’t let that deter you. These are definitely your people.

We were together for four full days, and it was really next level. We had the welcome reception the first night, which was so fun. People were coming into the room. Some people had already known each other from the last round of the mastermind. So, it was like a big reunion, which was so fun. And then, the new people coming in getting introduced to everyone, and starting to form connections; that was so incredible to see.

The space was so beautiful, and the food was amazing. And then, we had three full days of learning and coaching. I added an extra day this round because I really didn’t want to pack too much into two days and have it feel rushed. I wanted it to feel luxurious and steady and grounded and calm, to really help people foster their learning and their development in a way that felt like the right pace for the room.

And as the room gets bigger and bigger, this round is double the size almost of the last round. As the room gets bigger and bigger, the transformation happens faster and faster. And the exchanges and the dialogues as we’re coaching and working through different issues, it’s so rich, and people get to add their own experiences. You’re learning from such a diverse set of situations that it really expedites all of the growth that’s happening in our container, which is so fun.

It was also amazing to see people return and see how they’ve grown over the past six months and how they bonded over the last six months. I was talking to one masterminder, and she pointed out that it felt even more incredible to be at this live event because the returners… And they actually have a name for themselves. They call themselves the OGs, which I’m just obsessed with. I love it that they named themselves that.

But the OGs already know each other, and they’ve spent the last six months learning and growing together and transforming their lives together, so it just makes for a warmer experience. Like you’re coming into a room that’s already fostered connection, and it’s already a warm space with really enriched relationships and communities.

So, as other people are coming in, it’s not like you’re walking on eggshells, or the ice needs to be broken; the ice has already been broken. People already have strong friendships, and you just get to become a part of that. And those bonds get to deepen and grow, which is so fun.

One of the OGs was saying to me that you could feel how connected people already are because they’ve known each other for a while. And you could sense that as soon as you came in, even at the welcome reception. It just expedited everyone’s bonding over the course of the next three days, which was just really incredible.

And as for the coaching, which is what we’re all there for, there were too many breakthroughs to count. We talked about all the things. We talked about time management, and planning your day, and procrastinating, reshuffling your schedule, not setting boundaries around your calendar, overworking, working nights and weekends.

We talked about business development and setting boundaries, both professionally and personally. We talked a ton about the expectations we have for other people in our lives and how we experience disappointment when we set expectations that go unmet, and how we navigate those situations.

We talked about conflict and navigating difficult relationships with our spouses, with our friends, with other family members, with clients, with our colleagues, all of it. How you want to show up in those relationships. How you handle and respond to behavior that maybe you don’t appreciate.

We talked about food and weight loss, and health. We talked about overcoming impostor syndrome and navigating self-doubt and failure. We talked about entrepreneurship and practicing constraint and marketing, business development, and all of that stuff. How to sign clients, how to believe in what it is that you’re offering, and how to network. We talked about so many things.

I taught everyone who was there all of the life-changing foundational concepts that I teach inside the mastermind, and we went to work on mastering them. That was really my goal this round, for this live event, to help people master the tools I teach. So, they can think the way that I think, not the way that I think is the best; I’m not trying to say that. But it is very freeing, and it provides you with so much empowerment in your life.

So, if you want to feel really in control over your emotional experience, the action that you take, and the results that you produce, you probably do want to think like me. And that’s why people hire me. That’s why they want to be in the mastermind. They want to learn how to examine and approach the world in the way that I teach, and that is what we spent three days mastering.

And then, we capped it all off after just three days full of transformation with this excellent farewell dinner. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was so, so intimate. And the conversations were just so incredible. You could feel the vibe in the room; it was just so rich.

There was just this energy, and it was, I don’t know, just delicious. You could feel the bonding that had taken place over the past three and a half days. You could get the sense of community. People were so engaged; they were so connected. It was just really beautiful to see.

And you know, I’m going to toot my own horn here. I pick the best places for my live events. Charleston was absolutely amazing. It’s the most charming city. If you were there with me, you know what I’m talking about. The food scene is incredible. It’s such a walkable city. It’s just so adorable and welcoming. I have a favorite restaurant there, and it’s called Magnolias. Their bouillabaisse and their sangria are just life-changing. I got to go there while I was in town.

And then I also found this incredible Italian restaurant called Melfi’s. I had this duck ragù that was also life-changing. I am terribly missing all the food now that I’m back home in Detroit.

I’ve been planning to move down there. I was going to wait till the fall, but now that I’m home, I’m a little homesick for Charleston, if that makes any sense. I think I’m going to head down there before the fall. So, if you’ve got thoughts on this, DM me on Instagram or something. Should I move? I’m thinking I should. I think I should do it ASAP.

Now, if all of that sounds just delicious to you and amazing, I want you to mark your calendars for the next one. Okay? I do these live events every six months; that’s how the mastermind works. It’s a six-month program, and it kicks off with a live event in a new location every six months. So, the enrollment, early enrollment for the next one, opens May 12. I want you to not only mark your calendars, but I also want you to sign up for the waitlist.

If you go to my website, TheLessStressedLawyer.com, you can click the menu button for the mastermind, and you can sign up for the waitlist there. That way, you stay up to speed on all the details for the upcoming enrollment, and you’ll get the first opportunity to enroll.

I actually do an early enrollment period, and you have to be on the waitlist in order to enroll during that time. So, it’ll be the 12th, the 13th, and the 14th of May when the people on the waitlist get to enroll before I open it up to the general public. There is a max on the number of people that I’m going to allow into the next round. So, if you want to make sure you don’t miss out, you want to make sure that you’re on the waitlist.

I also want you to mark your calendars for the next live event. Because one of the things that people say to me constantly is, “Oh, my God, I’d love to come, but I have a conflict.” So, I want to avoid scheduling conflicts for you, so I want to give you the dates as early as possible. The dates for the next live event are August 23 – August 26.

If you are like me, and you want to make your travel experience to wherever it is we’re going really seamless, I suggest you come in a day early; the welcome reception will be on the evening of the 23rd. But I always like to come in a day early and just give myself a leisurely amount of time to get acclimated to my new environment. If anything bad happens as far as travel, you give yourself a little bit of a buffer space to figure out a plan B. So, August 23 – 26, mark your calendars. All right?

Okay, enough about the amazing live event. I just had to rave about it a little bit; it was so much fun. I’m missing everyone terribly. I can’t wait to see them on Zoom when we start our weekly calls. We start that this week, which is going to be so fun to see everyone’s faces again. But I just wanted to give you all a little behind-the-scenes peek at what it was like and what the experience was all about. And to give you the information to make sure that you’re in the next round.

Now, as for today’s episode topic, I wanted to talk about something that actually came up at the live event. I coached one of the masterminders on a situation with one of her family members. She wanted her husband to do something, and he didn’t end up doing it. And through the course of the coaching, I asked her, “Did you ask for what you wanted?”

Because it’s always important to start there. It helps me get a full picture of the circumstances that we’re dealing with. Like, did you ask, and they didn’t do it? Or did you not ask? And if you didn’t ask, why didn’t you ask? So, in this instance, I asked her, “Did you ask for what you wanted?” And turns out her answer was no; she didn’t ask for what she wanted. That’s not a problem; it’s just a data point. I wanted to make sure that I had it in order to continue coaching her.

But it really inspired a huge thread that we kept picking up on throughout the course of the three days that we were coaching together in person, for the mastermind. And as many of us do, she didn’t ask for what she wanted. She was just expecting him to do it on his own. To kind of be a mind reader and figure it out without having to ask. And that’s super common. It normally doesn’t lead to anything good, but it is super common.

Anyways, this line of coaching prompted a whole conversation about our, and when I say “our,” I just mean people’s ability to ask for what we want from others. And it ended up becoming a theme throughout the three days of the live event: That sometimes you can literally just ask for what you want. And lo and behold, you can get it.

The particular masterminder that I was coaching, when I asked her, “Did you ask for what you wanted?” She was a little surprised. She was like, “Wait, you can do that?” Sometimes it works, and it doesn’t always work. Let me be really clear; it doesn’t always work. But you can always ask for what you want. And sometimes, it’s the easiest route to get what you want because it’s not a problem.

I’ve done this a couple of times, with friends or family members. I’ve had a preference, and I’ve just asked for what I wanted, or even to have them stop doing something, and they’ve complied. So, I wanted to talk today about asking for what you want. And I wanted to give you a specific framework to follow for how to do it.

Now, you always get to ask for what you want. Even if you don’t follow the framework that I’m about to give you. I want to be really clear on that. Because you’re a human and you have free will just like the rest of the humans. So, you always get to ask even if you don’t follow the framework.

But consider this framework like a best practice when it comes to asking for what you want. The first step is for you to get clear on what you want. A lot of people skip this part, and it’s not to be skipped. You want to get really clear on what you want. So, you can be really clear on what you’re asking for.

When you’re not clear on what you want when you ask for something, it gets really muddy. Or, when you’re expecting something from someone but you’re not really clear on what it is that you’re expecting or what it is that you want, it leads to a lot of disappointment and resentment. So, I want you to get really clear on what you want.

Then, I want you to get clear on your reasoning for wanting it. That’s step number two; what are your reasons for wanting it? And as a sub-step to step two; do you like your reasons? Okay? Now, as a reminder, you always want to know that your reasonings are the thoughts and feelings driving a particular course of action.

So, if you’re going to make a request of someone, that would be the action that you’re taking. And there are certain thoughts and feelings driving you to take that action; you want to know what those are, and those are your reasons.

If they’re super negative, if it’s a lot of “should” thinking, that someone shouldn’t do something, and you’re feeling really frustrated, or angry or resentful, or disappointed, or irritated, you may want to take a deep breath and slow down and examine whether or not you want to make a request from that space. I’m going to talk a little bit more about that in a second.

All right, step three, you want to check in with yourself. You’re clear on what you want, and what you’re going to be asking for. You’re clear on your reasoning. Step three is checking in; is this something that the other person can actually do?

I know this might seem super obvious, but a lot of times, we want people to do things that aren’t actually in their power, right? So, you want to just check in and make sure it’s something that the other person can actually do.

Step four is a little bit more nuanced. Is it something that they’re going to want to do? Now, this one’s a little tricky. You still get to ask them and make your request. Even if the answer to this question is no. Even if the answer to this question is, it’s probably not something that they’re going to want to do. You still get to ask them to do it.

It’s just an important question to think about. Because if you think that they’re not going to want to do whatever it is that you’re asking them to do, you want to check in with yourself; why are you asking someone else to do something that they’re probably not going to want to do?

And a better question here is, are you operating from a place of integrity? I always go back to this famous cherry pie example. I think I’ve talked about it on the podcast before. But I was dieting and abstaining from alcohol for a while, and I was going out to my parent’s house to eat dinner on Sunday nights.

I didn’t like the menu that my mom was cooking most weekends because it was pretty carb-rich. And I was trying to abstain from eating carbs like that, like pasta, or a lot of bread. Now, for several weeks, I did ask my mom to cook something different. She allowed me to cook; actually, that was kind of the compromise that we had. But I was able to control the menu. But one week, I asked, and she insisted on cooking pasta.

After dinner, she ended up eating this cherry pie that she had purchased. And there’s more to this story. I had gone into the basement. I came upstairs, and my mom and my uncle were eating this cherry pie, which happens to be one of my favorite desserts. And I thought that they were doing it behind my back.

I ended up getting super upset about the whole thing. Obviously, the cherry pie was not causing my feelings. I was causing my feelings with my thoughts about the whole scenario. Which was, my mom doesn’t care about my weight loss goals. She’s making this harder on me. I can’t believe she bought the cherry pie. Like, I was really in a state of emotional childhood and victimhood with the cherry pie.

I stayed mad for a couple of days. And then, I finally coached myself on the situation. I was trying to get myself to a much cleaner place. And one of the things that I realized, when I was self-coaching, was that what I really wanted to do was have my mom feel deprived, so I didn’t have to. I wanted her to abstain from buying and eating the cherry pie, so I didn’t have to be triggered and crave it by seeing someone else eat it in front of me.

And when I thought about that, what I would have been asking at that moment was to have my mom not buy or eat a cherry pie, right? That wasn’t something that she was going to want to do because she likes desserts. She likes sweets. And I was asking her to feel deprived, so I wouldn’t have to.

When I noticed that, I realized that I wasn’t really operating from a place of integrity. I was asking her to feel uncomfortable, so I wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable. And I think that’s a really great litmus test from; are we operating from integrity? Are we asking someone else to feel uncomfortable, so we don’t have to?

When the answer to that question is yes, I think it’s such a great opportunity for us to do our most meaningful work. For us to inquire, what is it that I would have to do? What kind of discomfort would I have to feel? How would I need to manage my mind in this moment, in order to navigate this situation without needing anyone else to do anything to protect me from that discomfort? Without needing anyone else to be different?

So, for me, my work was to just feel deprived and manage my mind around other people eating sweets when I was abstaining from them. In this scenario, with my client at the mastermind that brought up this whole topic of conversation, she wanted her husband to do something that would have been uncomfortable for him, so she wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable setting a boundary, asserting a boundary, or saying no.

And it’s just fascinating to know that. Again, you totally still get to ask someone to do it. Even if that is your reasoning that you’re trying to escape discomfort and you’d rather have them feel uncomfortable than you. But you want to know that that’s what you’re doing. And ask yourself; by doing that, are you operating from a place of integrity?

You know, one of my cardinal rules, and I got this from my mom, is that you don’t inconvenience someone else’s life to make your life easier. And I feel this is very similar to, you don’t ask someone else to be uncomfortable, so you can avoid feeling uncomfortable. If that’s the situation that you’re dealing with, your work is to just navigate feeling uncomfortable.

Now, once you answer this question, is it something that they’re going to want to do? And are you operating from a place of integrity? Based on your answer, decide what you want to ask for and if you still want to ask for it. If you do still want to ask for it, you can move to step five, which is, prepare yourself for their response.

I’ve really been thinking about this so much since the live event. You can absolutely ask for anything that you want from other people. But my best practice recommendation for you is to only ask if you’re okay with receiving their honest answer, especially if that’s a no. So, prepare yourself for the response and be honest with yourself, are you going to be okay if you receive a no from them?

If you’re not okay with receiving a no, my recommendation, my best practice for you is to not ask because it’s going to send you into a tailspin of negative emotion, resentment, frustration, disappointment, anger, outrage, and righteousness. None of that’s going to serve you. So, if you’re not okay with receiving a no, you’re not in a clean place to ask for what you want.

Now, you don’t have to listen to me on this. But if you aren’t okay with their no, you’re not asking from a clean place. You’re likely in a state of victimhood, and you want to be really aware of that. I don’t recommend asking for anything from that state of victimhood.

If your first answer to this question is that the answer’s no, you’re not prepared to receive a no; you can get yourself to a place where you’re prepared to receive their no. How can you take care of yourself, how will you talk to yourself, how will you think about the situation if you get an answer that you don’t want?

I just had a friend of mine; she’s a coach. She just posted she was doing something in her business, and she said, “The worst thing that could possibly happen during this experience, is how I talk to myself during and after.” And I thought that was so beautiful because it’s true. The worst thing that can happen is how you talk to yourself during and after.

If you ask, and you’re mean to yourself the entire time you’re asking, and you’re mean to yourself afterward, it’s going to be a really unpleasant experience. But you can make it such a pleasant positive experience if you talk to yourself in a really supportive, understanding, compassionate way. Alright?

So, make a plan. How will you talk to yourself, how will you take care of yourself, what will you do if the answer’s no? You want to make sure you’re prepared for that to happen. And that you’ll be okay if it does. I guess I just got ahead of myself a little bit.

Number six, step number six, is for you to make a plan for how you’ll take care of yourself if you do get a no. What will you do? How will you think? How are you going to want to feel? You can plan all of that ahead of time.

Now, step number seven is to get to a clean place. Make sure you’re not asking from a place of frustration or resentment or anger or disappointment or outrage or righteousness or feeling justified. It’s a recipe for disaster, and it will come across like bad perfume or bad cologne when you make the ask.

So, make sure you’re not operating from those emotions. You’ve got to be really honest with yourself here if that’s why you’re operating and making the request. If that’s the emotion that’s driving you and fueling you as you make the ask. You want to get yourself to a clean place. You want to be asking from a calm, grounded energy. Feeling really in control of your emotions. Feeling really safe and secure, no matter what their answer is going to be.

Ask yourself, how do you need to think about making the request in the first place, and what the person says in order to feel calm and grounded? All right?

And then, once you’ve gotten yourself to a clean place, and you’re asking and being fueled by the right energy, by the right emotions, you get to make the ask. And then, whatever the answer is, don’t argue with it; respect it, honor it. And follow that plan that you made for yourself ahead of time. Take care of yourself in the process. Focus on what you can control going forward. Honor their response, honor their answer, and then focus on what is within your control.

When you follow this formula, when you trust yourself to handle the response no matter what it is, you can ask for anything you want, and control your emotional experience no matter what the response is. It’s such a powerful way to go through life. I’ve been thinking about this nonstop since the live event. That if you are able to handle whatever someone’s response is, there’s literally nothing you can’t ask for.

If you’re willing to honor their no, if you’re willing to respect their answer and their autonomy and their agency and their free will… Which I always joke with people, unfortunately, people have free will, right? I’m kidding with the unfortunately part. But it can be a little frustrating sometimes.

We can be frustrated that people have free will, and they don’t always just do exactly what we want them to do. And the truth is, it’s okay that they don’t, all right? But if you’re able to take care of yourself on the back end, and handle the response no matter what it is, there’s nothing you can’t ask for. There’s so much that you can make available to yourself if you’re willing to ask for it. You would be amazed at what you can get if you just ask.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I actually met someone in Charleston, a man, when I was out at dinner. We exchanged contact information, and I was like, “You know what? I think he’s interested in me. I’m just going to ask if he’s available. And if he is available, I’d like to go to dinner with him.”

And the reason that I was willing to ask is that we live in different states. I didn’t know if he would think that it’s crazy, or maybe he thought dinner just wasn’t possible, but I’m pretty spontaneous, so I will travel for dinner. I talked to myself beforehand, and I was hemming and hawing, should I ask, or should I not ask? Am I being too forward? Am I going to look like an idiot? Just going through all the normal human thoughts, right?

I finally decided, what’s the worst that could happen? And the worst that could happen is that he is single, and he says, no. I decided ahead of time, what will I do if that’s the response that I get?

And I realized, I’ll be fine. I can handle the no. I’ll be able to accept it and honor it. I’m not going to get mad. I’m not going to make it mean anything about me. I’m not going to get defensive. I’m not going to feel rejected. I’m just going to be able to ask and appreciate an honest response. It’ll be fine. I’ll be able to take care of myself.

So, sure enough, I asked, and turns out, he’s not available. And that’s totally fine. I was able to handle the response and not make it mean anything and accept it and move on. And I saved myself so much mental spinning over, should I ask? Should I not ask? What should I do? Is anything going to come from it? I just got to an answer really quickly. And I freed my brain up to focus on other things, which was such a gift I gave myself.

So, if there’s something in your life that you want to ask for, maybe it’s not a date, and sometimes it might be a date. It can be a really amazing answer, or you can be a little bummed, and you can trust yourself to handle the bummed. All right?

But maybe it’s not that, maybe it’s asking for a raise. And if you want to ask for a raise, or you want to ask your law firm or your boss to change their compensation structure in order to give you origination credit and incentivize you to develop business, you totally get to ask. You just want to be okay, getting a no.

And that doesn’t mean you don’t leave and go somewhere else if what you ultimately want is to get origination credit or to work someplace with a compensation structure that rewards you for developing business. That’s totally fine to want that. But you can be okay with getting the no and leave. Both things get to happen.

You also, if there are boundaries that you want to set in your life, with family members, with friends, with clients, with colleagues, think about those boundaries. And whatever the boundary is, if you want to ask for it before you set the boundary, right? So, a boundary, remember, is always, “If you blank, I will do blank.” It’s always about what you will do.

But if you want to ask someone to do something before you set a boundary, like, “Hey, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come over unannounced. Can you not come over unannounced?” Or, one of the things that I’ve done in my life. My mom used to make comments about my makeup, I’ve asked her not to. Or if you want people to not email you after a certain time. Or if you want someone to not talk to you a certain way, right?

You get to ask all of these things of people. They get to say no because there are humans with free will. But you get to ask them. And you just want to make sure, before you ask, that you’re comfortable getting whatever the response is. And if you can handle it, by all means, go ahead and ask for it.

You will be amazed with what happens. It won’t be a perfect record; you won’t win 100% of the time. You won’t get the responses you want to get 100% of the time. But you’ll have a batting average better than zero, I bet. So, it will likely be worth your while. Following this formula is the way to do it and prevent the most disappointment, prevent the most upset, prevent the most outrage. Okay?

If there’s something you want to ask for, walk through these eight steps, follow them, and you’ll create a much more grounded, in-control, intentional experience for yourself. And you might just get exactly what you want. Imagine that.

All right, my friends. That’s what I’ve got for you this week. I will talk to you in the next episode. 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.

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 46. Today, we’re talking all about the wars you wage. 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. How are we doing? I am coming to you live from Cabo. I am down here with my business coach. I just spent a week in paradise, learning how to grow my business to a million dollars. It’s been so much fun, and it’s like a big reunion every time I’m here, just like when I was in Phoenix, in November, for Life Coach Live with my coach Brooke Castillo.

I’m here with my coach Stacy Boehman. It’s one big reunion of really powerful and incredible entrepreneurs who are also devoted to building seven-figure, eight-figure businesses. It’s so exciting to just be in a room with so many inspiring people. It’s one of the reasons that I love a mastermind. It’s one of the reasons I created my own mastermind for lawyers.

So, I’ve been here; we’re at the beach in a beautiful resort. I’ve been learning all the things. And you might have heard me talk about this on the podcast before that life is 50/50. That’s a concept that I learned from my coach Brooke. And what she means by that, and what I mean by that when I say it, is that life is 50% good and 50% bad, 50% amazing and 50% ass, as we like to say.

What that means is it might not always be a 50/50 split equally at the time, but that there are ebbs and flows to life. That sometimes it’s going to be pretty great and sometimes pretty not so great. And I’m always finding myself kind of amused by the 50/50 split.

So, I’m here. The last night that we’re all together every time I come to this event, we do it every six months, just like we do my mastermind every six months, we all get together on the last night, and I host a really big dinner. So last night, we had like 20 people who all got together and just had the most inspirational conversations and laughed and just had the best time.

And then, I came back to my hotel room, and I opened one of the closet doors… I was packing because I wanted to be organized to fly back to Detroit this morning, bright and early. I’m ready to go back to Detroit. I’m literally there for 16 hours, and then I fly out to Charleston for my live event, for The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. So, I wanted to be all packed and ready to go.

I opened, I guess I was shutting the door, I had already opened the closet door, and I was getting a pair of shoes out of the closet, and I went to shut the closet door. And it was just far enough off the ground that I ripped one of the toenails off my toe, which is like probably TMI, but it was excruciatingly painful.

It looked like a massacre in my hotel room. There was blood everywhere. And I’m just laughing; I’m bummed because it’s totally going to affect my shoe choices when I’m in Charleston with all of my amazing clients and students.

But life is 50/50; I had the most amazing evening. I went whale watching yesterday in the Pacific Ocean, which was just majestic. And then, I injured my foot pretty badly. So, walking through the airport today should be a little interesting. But life is 50/50, y’all, and if you are fighting that split, it is going to make for an unpleasant human experience. If you’re wanting it to be 100% amazing and 0% bad, you are in for a world of suffering because that is not the human experience.

Same thing if you want an 80/20 split, or a 75/25 split, or even a 60/40. Now, one of the things that I’ve heard people say before is that if you feel like life isn’t 50/50, if you actually feel like your life is 80/20, then your goals aren’t big enough. So, if that’s you, if you’re like, “Oh no, Olivia, I think you’re wrong,” I just want to challenge you to maybe think bigger than how you’re thinking right now.

All of this got me thinking, and I mentioned this in the episode from last week when I talked all about dread, that I wanted to do a separate episode just on the wars that we wage. The battles that we’re fighting with the way life is. Okay?

This is definitely one of the battles that I see people waging. They want to argue with the 50/50 split; they want it to be different than it is. And then they cause themselves so much unnecessary misery, so much disappointment, and so much frustration with the way the world is. They’re expecting things either be easier than they are or more comfortable than they are. They’re just not expecting things to go smoothly.

I actually talk to my dad about this a lot. He always thinks that things shouldn’t go wrong. And that’s not a thought that I think. We were talking about it one day. My dad owns a collision shop, so he repairs cars. And he thinks… It’s so funny. Every time I tell the story, people always laugh because they’re like, he would literally go out of business if people’s cars didn’t get damaged.

I don’t know that he thinks this about other people’s cars, but about our family’s cars, he definitely thinks this. I had someone back into my car a couple of years ago, and they broke one of my taillights. And I didn’t even notice it. But my dad just has an eye for these things because it’s the business that he’s in. And he was so; disgusted is a pretty strong word, but it probably fits here.

He was pretty disgusted that someone hit my car and that my taillight was broken. And I noticed his thought about it was, “That shouldn’t have happened.” And I don’t think that thought. My thought is, “Stuff like that is going to happen sometimes.” That is one of the risks you take when you have a car, and you drive it, and you’re driving around other people and your parking and parking lots.

I don’t like to be one of those people who park really far in the back of a parking lot. I like the convenience of being up close to the door. So, there’s higher traffic there, which means that there’s an increased likelihood that your car’s going to get hit.

It’s just fascinating to watch how people think about these things differently. My dad thinks that it shouldn’t happen. I think that, of course, it’s going to happen. And we have a completely different emotional experience based off of how we think about it. He’s frustrated and annoyed. And I am calm, cool, and collected. Very accepting, very understanding that these things happen in the world.

So, I want you to check in with yourself. And I’m going to give you a bunch of different examples in today’s episode about the different wars that you might be waging. The different battles that you’re having and engaged in with just the way that the world is. And I want you to start to see how being in those battles, by waging those wars, you’re causing your own emotional suffering.

I want to offer you the opportunity to just stop waging those wars. To just end the fight. To slip from resistance to acceptance of this is just the way the world is this is just how things work. And that’s okay.

So perhaps, the biggest battle that I see people engaged in, the biggest war that they wage, is against time. It’s something that I see so commonly with my clients; they want time to be different than it is. And one of the things that I really notice is that people are really underwhelmed with how much they can accomplish in a day. And this shows up in a couple of different ways.

One, they overplan their days. They try and shove 10# of potatoes into a 5# bag, so to speak. They plan their day very unrealistically because they want to get so much more done in a day than they can actually get done. And the reason that this is a problem is, when you’re in resistance to the way that time is, you always feel behind. You always feel overwhelmed, and you’re actually imposing this on yourself.

It’s not time imposing this on you. It’s your unrealistic expectation of what can be accomplished in a given time period. So, you plan 20 hours’ worth of work for seven hours. And at the end of the day, of course, you didn’t get through the 20 hours’ worth of work. Because you literally cannot get 20 hours’ worth of work done in seven hours. You need at least 20 hours of work to get 20 hours of work done.

Probably actually more, because as people love to forget, it takes time to human. Yes, that’s a verb, by the way. Humaning takes time. So, when you’re in resistance to it, you overplan your day. And then, you feel very underaccomplished at the end of the day because you set yourself up to fail. You can’t have accomplished everything that you set out to do when you set out to do too much, when the math doesn’t add up.

So, when you’re in this war, when you’re fighting this battle against time, you always feel behind, you always feel overwhelmed, you always feel inadequate; which feels terrible, right?

Now, when you accept time for being the way that time is, and you actually focus on step number two of managing your time, which is planning your schedule accurately, you make a list of the things that you have to do. You create a lot of awareness about how long it takes to human, and just do the things that are part of the human experience.

And then, you plan. You take your list of items to do, you estimate how long each one will take, and you plan only the amount that will fit in the time that you have available. And then, at the end of your day, you’re able to feel really accomplished. You’re able to feel very complete, very finished, very proud, which feels so good.

So, I want you to think about this. Are you in acceptance of time? Or are you in resistance to it? Where are you fighting a battle against the way that time is?

Now, like I talked about last week in the dread episode, another war that I see people wage is against the general human experience. That discomfort is part of the human experience. When you do things that get you closer towards the goals you want to accomplish, it’s going to be uncomfortable, right? So, you’re going to wake up in the morning and feel a sense of dread about getting started with your day; that’s part of the human experience.

You’re going to feel confused when you haven’t done something before; that’s part of the human experience. Sometimes you’re going to feel bored by sticking to a schedule; that’s part of the human experience. It’s going to be more delicious to watch Netflix or HBO all day. Or, go grab a snack or go have a cocktail; do all the things that bring us that instant gratification.

Part of the human experience is feeling uncomfortable: Needing to embrace pain or discomfort, avoiding instant gratification and pleasure, and expending energy rather than conserving it. All of that is part of accomplishing your goals. It’s part of the human experience. And when we’re in resistance to that, we stay in a state of comfort entitlement.

We don’t take intentional action; we stay where we’re at. It’s how we get ourselves stuck. Because we think that it shouldn’t be uncomfortable. Even though it should be uncomfortable because it is uncomfortable. That’s just how we’re hardwired as humans.

When you’re in resistance to it, you don’t show up, and you don’t take action, you don’t get things done. And that means you don’t get any closer to accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

When you’re in an acceptance model, instead of a resistance model, you take action in spite of, and despite the discomfort. You recognize that there’s going to be a particular flavor of negative emotion that you’re going to be forced to feel, in order to accomplish the result you want to accomplish.

And you’re willing to feel that feeling, regardless of it being uncomfortable. You embrace it. You breathe it in. You allow it to be there. You throw it in the passenger seat next to you and strap it in, or put it in the backseat in a car seat, and you go about your business, right? You get shit done.

So, I want you to check in with yourself. Ask yourself, where are you waging a war against that part of the human experience? I had a client recently tell me, “Olivia, I think this is really dumb. It shouldn’t be this way. We don’t have tails as human beings anymore. We’ve evolved out of having tails. We should have evolved out of having our primitive brains create and cultivate this discomfort that slips us into avoidant behavior.”

And hey, I’m with her. If I had the magic wand to do that, I would patent it, make lots of copies and send it to all of you. I’d become extremely wealthy in the process because everyone would like that to be the experience, right? To be able to do all these amazing, incredible things and have doing them be very comfortable. But unfortunately, that wand does not exist. I don’t have one. I don’t get to use it myself. And I don’t get to give it to all of you.

But when you’re at war with the fact that that’s just part of the way we’re hardwired, that’s just the way that it is, you don’t take action. You don’t show up in a really powerful, intentional way. Instead of accepting, that’s the way that it works. Just like we still have tonsils or an appendix, we also have this primitive conditioning, where our brain cultivates discomfort in order to keep us safe.

And if you accept that and you learn to work with it, rather than fight against it, you’re going to accomplish so much more in your life. You’re going to get so much further faster.

So, pay attention; where are you at war with the uncomfortable experience of being a human, accomplishing big things, achieving huge goals, and going after doing the things that get you closer to the life that you want? What would it look like for you to stop “should-ing” in a situation? Thinking that it should be different than it is, and just be in acceptance of it?

Another really common area where I see people wage a war that is unwinnable, and all of the wars that I’m talking about today are unwinnable wars, okay? I see people do this with food all the time. I remember once, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, I think. But when I was really working on losing weight, one of the thought errors or lies that I was telling myself, was that I wanted food to be easy.

And when I finally caught that thought… Which is why we do thought downloads. To create awareness around our thinking so we can see these thought errors. The lies that we tell ourselves that keep us getting results that we don’t want to be getting.

I did a thought download, and I found the thought, “I want food to be easy.” And then, I realized that wasn’t true. I didn’t want food to be easy. I wanted food to be exciting. I wanted it to be a source of entertainment. So, I was eating food that was not aligned with my weight loss goals, and I was at war with the way that food is.

Losing weight is not that challenging. You need to eat less than what you burn, right? You need to be at a calorie deficit. Now, if you go to the extreme, your body reacts negatively. It starts storing fat and holding on to everything that you eat because it goes into survival mode. But you can’t eat more than what your body burns. If you do, you’ll gain weight.

So, I watch people eat, and I don’t want to villainize food here, but quote unquote, badly, right? They eat food that isn’t aligned with a weight loss goal; for me, I love Oreos. Being at war with food would be to want to lose weight, but then also want to eat Oreos every night, lots of them. And for me to be frustrated and think that it’s unfair that I can’t eat Oreos and not gain weight.

Now, could I have one Oreo here and there very infrequently and be fine? For sure. But if I wanted to eat probably the number of Oreos that I’d like to eat at night, as a little snack, I’m going to gain weight because it flips my calorie deficit. The math just doesn’t work out, just like with time. Food is very similar; you have to make sure that the math works.

If one of your goals this year is to lose weight or to get in better shape, I want you to pay attention to where are you at war with the way food is.

Are you eating in a way that’s aligned with your goals? And if not, why not? It’s probably because you are also in this battle; you’re wishing that food was different than it is.

When you’re in resistance to the way that food is, you’ll be eating a lot of stuff that doesn’t support your goals. And you’ll be mad that you’re not getting the results that you want. Versus, being in acceptance of food being the way that it is.

And you’ve got a couple of options here. You can either eat what you want and potentially gain weight, depending on how much of it you eat, and be fine with that. Or, you can eat in a way that’s aligned with your weight loss goals and lose the weight, but you may have to feel deprived.

Right now, you’re probably making that deprivation a problem, but that part is optional. You get to accept the deprivation and eat in a way that is aligned with your goals. You also get to change your thoughts about the food that you’re eating so you don’t feel deprived. I just had a conversation with a friend of mine. Her name is Priyanka; she’s a weight loss coach.

We were talking about this exact concept. That you can change your thinking around the food that you consume, so you don’t even feel deprived in the first place, which is so fun.

I also see people wage a war against sleep. This was a big one for me back in the day when I was a chronic over-worker, and I really wished that I didn’t need sleep. If I could avoid it altogether, I would. And man, did I try my damnedest to avoid it. I would take Adderall to overperform and to stay up. I would drink a ton of caffeine. I would do whatever was in my power to avoid sleeping. If I could stay up and just work 24 hours a day, I would have done that.

And even now, honestly, I realize how big of an impact sleep deprivation has on my ability to function. So, I am no longer at war with needing sleep. I recognize that it is a basic human need, and I build it into my schedule. I prioritize it. I treat it as though it is important because it is important.

But even now, despite having a very different relationship with sleep, if there was a magic pill I could take that actually didn’t have a negative consequence, like Adderall did for me, I would take it. I would read so many more books. I would get so much more accomplished at work. I’d probably make more money. I’d see my friends and family more often. I’d watch way more TV. I would do all the things more.

But it is an unwinnable battle. As human beings, we require sleep. Okay? We function so much more productively when we’re well-rested. When we’re getting enough sleep. I actually listened to a very famous TED Talk; I think it’s called “Sleep Is Your Superpower.” And it talks about how sleep deprivation, prolonged sleep deprivation, is actually carcinogenic, which was mind-blowing to me.

If you’re like I used to be, and you’re at war with needing sleep. You’re constantly pushing the limits on this. You’re constantly operating without having enough sleep. You’re pulling all-nighters. You’re staying up late, and waking up early. And your relationship with sleep and rest feels very punitive; I want you to check in with this.

Are you in a resistance model to needing sleep? How do you think about sleep? Is the way you’re thinking about sleep serving you? Or, do you want to change your thoughts around it?

You’re going to need to change your thoughts to be in an acceptance model around sleep. You’re also going to allow negative emotions; you’re going to have to do that in order to make sleep a priority. You’re going to have to feel unproductive, or irresponsible, or even lazy. Y’all know I don’t love the word lazy. I don’t think any of my clients are lazy. I think we get conditioned to believe that we are, and that is total B.S.

So, if that’s something you’re telling yourself, you get to put a pin in that; it’s optional to talk to yourself that way. I don’t believe that it’s ever true. But just pay attention, are you in a resistance model when it comes to sleep? Or, are you in an acceptance model?

Here’s another really common battle that people are engaged in on a daily basis. People fight and resist the truth that other people have free will. And that they literally get to exercise it, however they want. So, if you’re thinking a lot of “should” thoughts about other people, this is a war that you are waging.

And it is one that you will lose every single time because human beings have the free will to behave, how they want to behave, to do what they want to do, and to not do what they don’t want to do. They literally get to choose. And so many people are waging a war against this reality. They’re thinking that people should be different. They should do certain things that they’re not doing. They shouldn’t do certain things that they are doing.

And we cause ourselves so much unnecessary suffering and frustration when we’re waging this war. Ask yourself, where do you think people should be behaving differently than they are? What would it look like for you to accept that people get to show up however they want in the world?

Now, you get to make a lot of decisions based on how people show up. If you don’t like someone’s behavior, you get to not spend time with them, and you get to opt-out. You get to make yourself less available to those relationships, to those experiences, and that’s totally fine. You just literally cannot control another person’s behavior.

And when you try to, because you’re engaged in this unwinnable fight, you’re going to be so frustrated. You’re going to feel so resentful, so angry, and so disappointed all of the time because you’re wanting things to be different than they are.

When you accept people having free will, you become so much more grounded, so much more calm, and so much more at peace. Feeling accepting. Feeling very understanding. It is a completely different human experience to not engage in fighting this unwinnable fight.

The common thread, if you’re trying to figure out, do you do this? Essentially, the main thought that you think all the time about other people, is that they’re doing it wrong. You believe that there’s a right way to do things. That you know what it is, and that other people who are not doing things in that manner. You think they’re doing it wrong. So “should” thinking, they shouldn’t do this, they should do it this way, is just a variant of saying you think they’re doing it wrong.

Take a little bit of an inventory here. Who do you think is “doing it wrong” in your life? Where are you arguing with the fact, with the reality, that they have free will? And what would be better about your life, how much happier would you be, if you weren’t waging that war? If you were in acceptance of the fact that they have free will?

People often ask me, “Olivia, how are you so positive? You seem so much happier than the average bear. You seem so much more at peace and calm than the average person.” And this is one of the reasons that that is true; that I am so calm, that I am so understanding, that I am so at peace.

It’s because I am extremely good at discerning between what I can control and what I can’t. And I focus only on the former. I focus only on what is within my control. Other people’s behavior is not within my control, so I don’t spend any time trying to control it.

I let other people show up authentically as themselves. And then, I make really powerful decisions about how I want to spend my time and who I want to surround myself with, based on their decisions. I’m always just taking control and focusing on myself rather than focusing on other people and trying to control something that’s outside of my control.

Another common war that people wage is arguing with what has happened in the past. If this is you, I want you to be onto yourself. Being in resistance to what happened in the past, waging that war, fighting that battle, which is absolutely unwinnable because we literally don’t have time machines, so we cannot go back in time and change anything that happened.

You’re going to be very past-focused; you’re constantly going to be looking backward. You’re going to feel very frustrated, very disappointed, and maybe cheated or slighted. There’s a lot of negative emotion that comes up when people are past-focused. When you’re arguing with what happened, your life is going to feel very unfair.

And you’re also going to feel very out of control over it because you literally are out of control over changing what has happened in the past; it’s done, it’s over. It is fixed; the fix is in, as they like to say. You cannot change it.

Now, you can use the past to make better and more informed decisions going forward, to create a potentially different result moving forward, and that’s fine. Use your past and learn from it, and leverage that learning, to get better results in the future. But don’t weaponize the past against yourself. Okay?

When we’re in a battle with what has already happened, we spend so much time arguing with what is. As my coach Brooke likes to say, “When you argue with what happened in the past, you lose 100% of the time.” So, ask yourself, where are you arguing with what has already happened, with what took place in the past? And what would it look like instead for you to focus solely on what is within your control, what you do in this very moment, and what happens in the future?

Now, the reason people are so past-focused is because it is actually more comfortable to be past-focused. You don’t have to take any action. You don’t have to do anything that’s uncomfortable or scary in the moment when you’re focusing on the past; you just stay frozen, you just stay stuck.

So, it is a defense mechanism. It’s a safety creator for people, even though it still creates an unpleasant emotional experience. It is the safer option from recognizing the control that you do have in the moment and taking intentional action now.

But check in with yourself here. Where are you in resistance to ‘what happened in the past is what happened,’ just being accepting of it? And ask yourself why? What is being focused on in the past, in waging this war, on what has already taken place? What is it pretending to protect you from? I think that will really illuminate your underlying reasons why you’re so past-focused. And then, figure out, what do I have control over right now if I was accepting what happened in the past? What would be different moving forward? What would I be doing differently in this moment, right now, if I was at peace and accepting of what has already taken place?

Another, this is a much more a micro example, or a specific example, of a war that people wage. People are at war with how delegating operates. So, one of the common complaints I hear from my clients about delegating is that they’re frustrated that it doesn’t make their lives easier in the beginning.

And I always say to them, “Of course, it doesn’t; it’s not supposed to.” Delegating is something we do for long-term, sustained growth. To uplevel over a period of time. But if you’re delegating to create instant pressure relief, it’s not going to work. Because it is literally going to take more of your time, more of your attention, more of your focus, to give someone an assignment, to review it, to help correct the mistakes that they made, to coach them, and nurture them through this process, to support them in their learning.

All of that takes time, attention, focus, and intentionality, that is “more difficult” than if you just did it yourself. So, if you’re someone who’s delegating, and you tell yourself that you hate delegating because it’s hard work, or it’s harder than doing it yourself, you’re right; it is harder. It requires more of you than just doing something yourself.

The point isn’t for it to make your life easier right this second. The point is to free you up over a longer period of time. To do more meaningful work for you. To operate from your zone of genius, as they say. To focus on the 20% of the things that you can do, what only you can do very well, and to leave the other 80% to other people. That’s why we delegate.

If you’re at war with the way delegating is, you’re never going to do it. So, check in with yourself here. Are you in a resistance model when it comes to delegation, thinking that it should be different than it is? Or, are you operating in an acceptance model?

Another specific example is business development. People don’t like that it takes time. And I think this is such a great example of holding two things at once. Because business development does take time, but you can also get results really quickly. So, I want you to be able to have that intentional use of the word “and.” Business development takes time and amazing things can happen quite quickly.

But what I see, when people are waging a war against business development taking time, they start to take a little bit of action. And then, they don’t get the instant gratification, the immediate results that they want. And then they quit. They get frustrated, very discouraged, they feel very defeated, of course. Just because of the thoughts that they’re thinking, not because of the amount of time that it takes them to get results; it’s literally just their thinking.

Their thoughts become more negative and more negative as time goes on. And then, they feel more negative emotion, more negative emotion because of their thinking. And that negative emotion becomes too heavy to hold, so they ultimately start avoiding it by stopping showing up.

If this is you, if you’re in resistance to business development taking time, you’re going to take really inconsistent action. You’re going to start showing up and then stop. And then, you’re going to shame and guilt yourself to show up again. And then, you’re going to stop again; that’s what happens it becomes this cycle that just repeats itself. Rather than accepting that business development takes time.

And sticking with it no matter what, that was one of my favorite thoughts to think when I was developing my business. I said I was going to do it, no matter how long it took me. No matter what happened, I just wasn’t going to quit. You can accomplish a lot by not quitting.

One of my friends, Shari, and I talk about that all the time. When you own a business and start a business, and you run it for several years, one of the things that you see is… Because you tend to run in entrepreneurial circles, you see a lot of other people start businesses, too; they embark on business ventures.

And you’ll watch them be really enthusiastic in the beginning. And when the excitement wears off, you are just left with needing to take uncomfortable action intentionally and operate in spite of and despite the discomfort. In spite of and despite the confusion, the frustration, or the disappointment, or the discouragement, of not getting results as fast as you would like to get them.

You can so clearly see when people avoid those feelings, they quit. They stop showing up. And they probably do it right before they would have started seeing success, which is so sad to me. You can watch people get excited, begin to take action, and then peter out over time. And they probably would have been successful if they would have just stayed with it. If they would have been in that acceptance model, that business development just takes time.

So, if you’re someone who wants to develop business this year, if that’s one of your big 2023 goals, and you tend to start and stop, begin, and quit very frequently, and you take that inconsistent action. Or, you’re not even in the cycle; you’ve just done it once, and you’re in the quitting part right now; you’ve quit, you’re not showing up, you’ve stopped showing up to do this work to develop the business.

Ask yourself, what would it look like, what results might you be able to create if you were in acceptance that business development takes time, and you were willing to stay the course and stick it out?

Two more battles that I see people engaged in. This one is super important. It’s the battle that people fight wishing that they could do everything all at once. This is like the FOMO battle, waging a war against not being able to do more things than you can do. And it’s sort of like the first one that I mentioned about time management.

I want you to think about the reality that you can’t pursue a million different goals all at the same time. You can attempt to; you’re just not going to get very far. It’s going to be really difficult to sustain the energy and the momentum pursuing that many different things all at once. You’re going to make very slow progress because your attention is going to be split between so many different things.

What I see people do is that when you’re in resistance to not being able to do everything all at once, two things happen; one of two things happens. Either you attempt to do everything all at once, and you make very little progress. And you probably start and then quit because it just requires too much intentionality, too much discipline, and becomes too heavy, and it gets much more easy to just quit, to stop showing up.

The other thing that I see, is if that doesn’t feel like you, if you’re like, “No, no. I don’t start pursuing a million different goals all at the same time. Instead, I freeze, because I’m worried about choosing the wrong goal. I’m worried about missing out on one thing, for the sake of pursuing something else. So, I don’t pursue anything.” Which, of course, is super counterintuitive to accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

But this is very common; I see it all the time. People wanting to accomplish more than they can, wanting to pursue more than they can in any given moment. So, they don’t pursue anything at all because they’re afraid of experiencing FOMO.

If this is you, find where you’re in resistance to this; where are you trying to do all the things at once? Or, where are you just frozen, not taking any action? And what would it look like for you to accept that you can’t do everything all at once?

What would happen is that you would start picking and constraining to one thing, and making a lot of incredible progress on that one goal; you’d get so much further faster. I teach my clients to practice constraint, for this very reason. You want to pick one. One of my coaches teaches you can pick three things. I honestly don’t love that.

I like picking one thing and pouring all of my attention into it and just starting there. And then, when I accomplish that one thing, then I can focus on the next thing. I refer to this often, as goal stacking; we can do all the things, just not all at the same time.

So, if you’re in resistance to that truth, that you can’t do everything all at once, figure out where that’s showing up for you. What specifically it looks like in your life, and then decide, do you want to stay operating in that resistance model? Or, do you want to accept that you can’t do everything all at once? Focus on one thing to constrain your efforts, to get a lot further faster.

Last but not least, this came up for me recently, after my grandmother passed away. I realized that this is actually a war that I am engaged in sometimes. It’s a battle that I’m fighting, and of course, it’s an unwinnable battle; that life is finite. You know, I’m going to be really honest with you, I kind of think that sucks. I have a really good friend, and he and I joke… And not everyone is like this, by the way. It is so fascinating to ask people this question and to see where they fall, to see what their answer is because it’s normally very different than mine.

You know how people always say, or ask the question, “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?” Some people want to be invisible. Some people wish they could read minds. Some people wish they could time travel or teleport, right? The list goes on and on.

And for me, honestly, I think I wish I could live forever. And so many people do not wish that. They are like, that doesn’t sound like fun to me at all. Now, I would like to maintain my youthful good looks. I don’t want to age and be very, very old. I want to be the age that I am now and stay this way forever. And just keep enjoying life. I don’t want to miss out on any life experience.

And one of the facts of life is that life is finite. And that you are going to go through life, you’re going to do as much as you possibly can, but at the end of your life, whenever that time comes, there’s going to be unfinished business. There are going to be things that you wanted to accomplish that you didn’t accomplish.

Now, my goal in life is to make that list as short as possible, but I’m a big dreamer. And there are going to be parts of the world that I haven’t seen because we literally just don’t get to see all of it. We get to make our best effort to see as much of it as we want, as much of it as we can, depending on the resources we have available to us. But we’re not going to be able to see every single morsel of Earth, every inch of space on the planet.

There are going to be experiences that we don’t get; we just miss out on them. If you want to learn every language under the sun, you’re probably not going to be able to do that in your lifetime. And be able to do all of the other things that you want to do, as well.

I am working on accepting this. I’m working on getting out of my resistance model because, just like when you’re fighting the battle, you’re waging the war, and you can’t do everything all at once. When you’re waging the war against life being finite, you’re normally in a state of paralysis. Not taking action, freezing, being stuck, staying confused about what you want to focus on, about what you want to accomplish. Because you’re wishing you could be doing more at once. Okay?

You also tend to not be present in the moment. So, if you want to be someone who is more present, you have to accept that life is finite; you only get this moment, one time. What does it look like for you to accept that reality?

Okay, those are the common wars that I see people waging. I’m sure there are more of them. I could probably go on and on; I will spare you a war and peace podcast episode. But if you come up with other wars that you wage, reach out to me on social media; I would love to hear about them.

Maybe I’ll do a Part 2 at some point down the road, to talk about other wars that I see. I’ll keep a running list in my head. Not really in my head; it’s in the Notes app on my iPhone. But I’m going to keep a list because I think it’s really important to become aware of the fact that you are waging these wars. That you’re engaged in these unwinnable battles.

Once you’re onto yourself, you get to make a decision, do I want to put down the fight? Do I want to stop waging this war? Do I want to no longer be engaged in an unwinnable battle? Hopefully, for you, the answer is yes. You will save yourself so much heartache, so much emotional suffering, so much unnecessary pain, and disappointment when you stop fighting unwinnable wars.

Figure out what unwinnable wars you’re fighting, and make the decision today to stop. That decision is completely available to you. When you step out of your resistance model and into your acceptance model, what becomes available to you? What changes? What improves? How will your life be different? I promise you; it’ll blow your mind.

All right, my friends. That’s what I have for you this week. I can’t wait to be in Charleston with all of the amazing masterminds next week. I can’t wait to record that podcast, live from Charleston. I’ll fill you all in on how incredible the experience is. And in the meantime, 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 45. Today, we’re talking all about dread. 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. How are you? I hope your week is going well. It’s the weekend when I’m recording this. It is a pretty busy weekend over here, my friends. I am packing and have to run a ton of errands today. So, I am excited to record this and then get things rolling as far as my errand running goes. I’ve got a ton of stuff to prep for Cabo. I’ve got to get all packed. I have a very early flight, which is typically out of character for me, but it’s the only direct flight from Detroit to Cabo, so I opted for it.

I’ve got to run some errands. And then, in addition to prepping for Cabo, I’ve got to get everything finalized for the mastermind in Charleston, which is literally the week after I get back from Cabo. I’m in Cabo for a week; I fly home on Sunday. And then, I leave Monday morning to head to Charleston. It’s wild; I feel like every six months, I end up planning a wedding, so to speak, just with the hotel arrangements and the dinner arrangements and the flowers and all of that stuff.

I’m putting the final touches on that. It’s a busy weekend. It was a busy week. It really was jam-packed. I even worked on MLK Day because I’m going to be off for my one-on-one sessions for a few weeks, so I wanted to make sure I got in a little extra client time after being off for the holidays.

Something actually happened on MLK Day that inspired this episode. If you know me, well, you know that I absolutely love my job. I think I have the best job on the face of the earth; I truly do. I tell people all the time that I became an attorney because I really wanted to help people. And I finally feel like I do that now as a coach.

I get so excited to wake up every day and meet with my clients on Zoom, talk to them about what they’re struggling with, and coach them to help them through it. It is my favorite thing, truly. And with that being said, I woke up Monday in my new condo.

You guys, I don’t know what kind of bed this is; I’m trying to track it down; I’m asking the owners. It is the best mattress I think I’ve ever slept on. It’s very dark in my condo because I’m in a loft, so there aren’t any windows in my bedroom.

There are windows across my loft, but not really anywhere I sleep, so it’s very, very dark. Even after the sun rises and it’s sunny out, you can’t really get a ton of sunlight in my bedroom, so it is ultra-cozy. And I’m using this weighted blanket; it is just like the most divine sleeping situation of my life.

Okay. It’s MLK Day, I had sessions on the books, and my alarm goes off. I opened my eyes. I was sitting there, and I scrolled on my phone for a little bit. But it finally came time when I was supposed to get out of bed, out of this luxurious, comfortable, warm, cozy bed and this dark chamber that I’m sleeping in, right? And I had this sense of dread.

I dreaded getting out of bed. I noticed the dread, and then I breathed it in; I let it be there. I talked to myself and said, “Yep, that’s okay. There is no problem to be solved here. It’s fine for you to feel full of dread, to experience dread. Go about your day anyways. We don’t have to do anything about the dread; you can just go about your business.”

And with that, while feeling a sense of dread, I flipped back the covers, and I put my two feet on the ground. I walked across my room, and I started getting ready for my day, for my client calls. I did it while feeling dreadful. And this got me thinking because one of the emotions that I coach on the most with my clients is the feeling of dread.

Most people, when they experience dread, do not do what I just described to you; that’s not how they talk to themselves. That’s not how they act. Instead, they go immediately into a resistant or an avoidant pattern. Right? They don’t go about their day, they don’t go about their business, and they don’t follow through and take the intentional action that they plan on taking. Instead, they make their dread a problem.

They try and solve for it by escaping it, by getting out of it, and by avoiding it, which leads to a really unintentional day. It leads to a really unintentional behavior. Behavior that will not produce the results that you want in your life. So, I wanted to spend some time specifically talking about dread.

I know that I’ve talked about comfort entitlement, discomfort avoidance, and following through on the podcast before, but I really wanted to highlight dread. Because so much of what we do brings a sense of dread with it. And a lot of us don’t ever question this.

We think that dread’s a problem, that we shouldn’t have to experience dread. And then, when dread makes an appearance, as it is going to do, that’s just part of the human experience. We think something’s gone wrong. And we don’t follow through; we don’t take the action that we planned to take because we’re consumed with taking issue with the dread that arises. Your dread is normal, though.

So, take a second and think about where dread comes up for you. I’m going to give you some examples in a second that are really common with my clients, so maybe you can start to spot dread yourself. But one of the things that you want to do when you’re allowing a negative emotion, which is what you want to do with dread, instead of resisting and avoiding it, you want to allow it.

The way that I describe allowing a negative emotion like dread is think about letting it ride shotgun with you in the car. Or, you strap it into the car seat in the back rather than letting dread dictate what you do, which would be letting your dread drive. And in that case, that’s when you resist it and avoid it, and you don’t follow through and take that intentional action. You just want to allow dread to come along with you.

And I want you to think about what dread feels like in your body. Whenever you’re allowing a negative emotion, you always want to understand what it feels like inside of you. Remember, all of the emotions that we experience are just vibrations that we experience in our bodies.

So, there’s going to be a specific vibration that you experience when you feel a feeling like embarrassed or a specific vibration when you feel bored. Or, when you feel anxious, or when you feel nervous or scared or angry, right? There’s a specific vibration in your body.

I’m not super woo-woo, but I do really encourage you to spend some time and find it in your body. Even if this feels silly to you, it’s so important to understand what the vibration feels like because that is literally all that’s happening.

When you’re experiencing an emotion, you’re experiencing this vibration; nothing else is happening. Nothing else is going wrong; you just feel this little vibration in your body. And you can proceed in spite of and despite it. You don’t have to do anything about the little vibration; you can just let it be there.

So, for me, dread feels like a heavy blanket. Not like the delicious, weighted blanket that I’m using to sleep with. But like an X-ray blanket that you kind of drape over your shoulders. It’s just this general heaviness; it feels like lead. Right? That’s what dread feels like for me. And I feel it in my shoulders, and kind of on my torso, and it just weighs me down a little bit. And that’s all that’s happening when I’m experiencing dread.

I want you to think about what happens when you experience dread. What do you do? How does it feel? What’s that vibration feel like? You want to be acutely aware of it because once you’re acutely aware of it, you dismantle and take away so much of the power of experiencing that emotion. If it just feels like wearing an X-ray blanket or a weighted blanket, what’s the big deal? It’s just carrying around a little extra weight with you.

You can go about everything that you planned to do today while feeling that vibration. Just like I had to feel it, feel a little weighed down by my dread, while I flipped back the covers, got out of bed, and started getting ready for my day. Okay? That’s all that’s happening here.

Now, why are you experiencing that feeling of dread? It’s just your primitive brain doing what it’s designed to do. Our primitive brains are always attempting to get us to seek instant pleasure, avoid instantaneous discomfort, and conserve energy in the most immediate moment.

Long-term, avoiding dread, escaping dread, and getting out of dread don’t serve you, and it probably makes your life more challenging, more difficult, and more uncomfortable. But not in the short term. That primitive part of your brain is really only logical in like two-minute increments; it’s just thinking about what’s right around the corner, what’s right in front of us.

And in that moment, what’s right in front of you is going to be avoiding the dread; that’s going to be the most comfortable thing. That’s going to be the way that you can serve the most energy. If I were to avoid the dread, I’d get to stay in my comfy, warm, cozy bed and not expend the energy of getting ready for the day, going to work, meeting with my clients, and coaching their brains, right?

So, the primitive part of my brain that’s always trying to keep me comfortable, because comfort is safe, at least to that primitive part of your brain it is, the primitive part of my brain that’s trying to keep me comfortable is going to conjure up and cultivate that sense of dread to get me to stay comfy-cozy.

It’s doing the same thing in your life, right? Wherever you’re experiencing dread, that dread’s bubbling up to the surface, so you seek instantaneous gratification and comfort. So you avoid that instant discomfort. So, you conserve energy in the most immediate moment.

Now, I just had a client tell me that she thinks that this is really unfair. She was like, “Olivia, I don’t understand. Why have we not evolved past this primitive tendency to seek pleasure, avoid discomfort, and conserve energy?” And if you’re listening to this, and you feel the same way, listen, I get it. It can be frustrating, right?

Obviously, frustrated is a feeling that we cause with our thinking. But it’s easy to think thoughts that cause us to feel frustrated about this. It’d be so much “easier” if we didn’t have to constantly be in battle with this primitive conditioning. With our primitive brains that are constantly creating this discomfort, so we seek pleasure and conserve energy.

Now, if I had a magic wand and could get rid of this primitive conditioning, I would do that. And I would sell you all copies; I’d be very wealthy if that were the case. Because this is really everyone’s battle, constantly fighting against this primitive conditioning and this tendency to avoid immediate discomfort.

But this is what we are dealt with as humans. These are the cards that we’re dealt, and you get to decide what to do with that. I’m actually going to record an entire podcast episode about fighting battles you can’t win. This is one of those battles that you cannot win.

You can be at war with the fact that it is uncomfortable to do the things that create the results that you want. Or, you can stop being in that argument. You can stop being at war with the way that you were conditioned as a human, with the way that you’re built as a human being, and you can just accept it.

Do you know what happens when you get out of your resistance model and into an acceptance model? You’re able to be so much more productive. You’re able to get so much more done because you’re not expending energy arguing with something that you cannot change, arguing with something that you cannot fix, right?

So, I highly encourage you to take stock and take an audit of all the areas that you’re making an argument against something that you cannot fix, like your human conditioning. When you move past arguing with the way that you’re created, with the way that you’re made, then you can just get to work with so much less struggle, with so much less discomfort. Because you’re not in an argument that you cannot win.

So take a second and give this some thought. What would your life look like, what would be different, what would be easier about your life if you accepted that dread is going to come along for the ride? And a lot of the action that you take that’s just part of the way that it works being a human and getting stuff done and accomplishing tasks and achieving your goals?

Dread is going to be a part of it. What would be different if you just accepted that? And instead of waging war against that reality, if you were just willing to feel that heavy, weighted, lead X-ray blanket and go about your business, what would be different? I promise you everything would be different.

Your experience, each day, would be different. You would accomplish so much more. How exciting is that? How exciting is it to think about your life, where you’re in less of a struggle, where you’re in less of a battle, where you’re experiencing so much less resistance because you stop resisting reality? That’s this amazing gift that you get to give yourself. Alright?

So, let’s talk about some examples of when dread makes an appearance in your life, and how you probably typically respond to it, and how you want to respond to it instead.

Okay, the first example is getting up in the morning. And I want to put an extra caveat here because when I worked in big law, and I was really in a state of burnout, I had dread. But it was like to the 400th degree of what I’m talking about now. Now, I love my job, truly. And I still feel a sense of dread in the morning.

When I hated what I did, I was paralyzed and crippled by anxiety in the morning. All of the stress and the overwhelm that I was experiencing. And really, in a state of burnout from not sleeping properly and overworking. This was a very different experience; it felt almost impossible to work through. I eventually did get up and get going; it just took a lot longer.

I have since learned the tools that I teach my clients now. So, I want you to be really honest with yourself, are you dreading something that you like doing? Are you dreading something that you hate doing? And if you’re dreading something that you hate doing, you want to check in with yourself and ask yourself, why are you choosing to do it?

Now, when you dread getting up in the morning, and you want to get up because you want to go about your day and accomplish things, and you don’t hate your job, you just want to notice the dread. Instead of avoiding it and staying in bed, and maybe scrolling on social media or hitting the snooze button, right? It’s okay for you to feel dread and get up anyways.

I think another great example of this would be working out, right? So many people dread working out, myself included. And that’s a great way to distinguish between your work dread, whether it’s a normal amount of dread or whether it’s, “I absolutely hate this; this is something that I don’t enjoy doing at all. It’s totally out of alignment for the life that I want to live.”

A lot of us want to be the people that work out, but we still dread it, or, and we still dread it. I think “and” is a really intentional word to use here; we want to work out, and we still dread it. It’s okay to feel that sense of dread and go and work out anyway, right? Working out serves us, for sure. It helps us maintain a healthy lifestyle. But you might not always feel like doing it.

Now, maybe you’re in the minority here, and you love to work out; amazing. Then you don’t have dread that comes along for the ride with you on this one. You might have dread in some other area of your life. But if you’re like me and you dread working out, you want to understand that dread’s just going to be a part of this experience.

I just had a client say she wanted to start going for walks in the morning. And the part of the world that she lives in, it’s cold in the morning, just like it is where I live right now. It’s really cold in Detroit; I don’t know that I’d be too inclined to go for a walk. But if you want to walk in the morning, regardless of what the weather is, and you know it’s going to be colder than you might like it to be, you’re going to feel a sense of dread. You’re going to wake up and feel dread.

Then you get to decide what you do with it, what you do in response to it. You can let the dread deter you, and you can stay in bed, you can sleep in, you can not go for your walk. Or, you can expect the dread to be there.

Now, my client wasn’t expecting the dread to be there. One of the things that she asked me was, “Olivia, how do I get myself motivated to go for a walk outside when it’s cold out?” I said, “You don’t get yourself motivated to do it. You just have to do it while feeling full of dread.”

You’re going to feel dread. You want to expect there to be dread there. If you don’t expect there to be dread there, you’re really going to be caught off-guard when it makes an appearance, right? So, you want to be on the lookout for it; you want to know that it’s coming.

If you don’t enjoy going for walks when it’s cold out, dread is going to come along as you get up and start to go about preparing for that walk. And you have to be okay with dread being a part of this practice, being a part of this process. So, you’re going to wake up, and you’re going to have a sense of dread with you. And then, you’re going to have to get up feeling a little weighed down by that dread.

And you’re going to have to go put on the clothes that you want to go for a walk in while feeling full of dread. And you’re going to have to lace up your tennis shoes while feeling full of dread. And then, you’re going to have to walk through your house and out your front door while feeling full of dread.

Now, right around the time that you get started walking, it’s going to start to shift. You’re going to start to feel a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment because you’re doing the thing that you planned to do. You’ll be actively in the process of following through, and that’s going to feel good. You’re going to be able to gain access to a lot of really positive thoughts about yourself as you’re following your plan. But right up until that point, you’re going to feel dread. You have to be okay with that. You have to accept it and just allow it to be there.

In the work context, think about where dread comes up for you. There are a ton of my clients that if they’re responsible for entering their billable hours, they have a ton of dread when it comes to that task. And what they tend to do when they experience dread around entering their time, they tend to avoid it by avoiding entering their time.

And they end up creating a world of hurt for themselves because they normally wait all month, and then they have to play catch-up at the end of the month, or the first day of the new month, in order to get all of their time in. It creates a total disaster.

I know this firsthand because I used to do this all the time. And every month, I swore that it would be different. But it never was different because I never learned how to process and allow myself to experience that feeling of dread. Every single day I would dread putting my time in, and then I’d avoid the dread and not put it in.

Instead, what you want to do is expect to feel dread when it comes to entering your time and put it in anyways. Right? Same thing happens when people are working on a big drafting project. Whether you’re typing up a contract or typing up a brief, if it’s something that feels big and heavy for you, you’re going to have a lot of dread associated with completing that task.

You just want to expect it to be there. If you make not feeling dread a requirement to getting started, you’re not going to get started. You’re going to keep avoiding it. You’re going to keep procrastinating. So, you want to accept the dread on the front end. That’s how you’re going to get started.

You’re going to feel a sense of dread starting on the project, and you’re going to start anyways, in spite of and despite that sense of dread, that vibration in your body, that heavy lead feeling, or whatever dread feels like to you. I want you to really practice identifying dread the next time it comes up for you.

And describe the vibration in your body, so you know what it feels like. So, the next time you feel it, you’re like, “Oh, this is dread. I remember this vibration. I know what this feels like. I remember this. I can feel this vibration and take the intentional action that produces my desired results.”

Okay, so when it comes to big projects, and obviously, “big” is a thought here, right? Whether something’s “big or small” is a subjective opinion. It probably doesn’t serve you to think of projects as “really big” projects because you’re just going to dial up your resistance to them. But if that’s a thought that feels really inescapable, it’s fine to think that the project’s “big.”

Just know that you’re going to have resistance to doing it. You’re going to experience a sense of dread. And you can get started while feeling dreadful.

Anyways, I also see people experience a ton of dread when it comes to marketing themselves. However you choose to do this, for most people, it’s marketing on social media these days or it’s attending in-person networking events.

You know, for me, I do a monthly webinar series; I record my weekly podcast. And I’m going to be honest with you, I love talking to you guys each week and coming at you through your speakers, but I have a sense of dread every time I record this podcast or right before I record this podcast. It weighs on me; I have some resistance to doing it. I just have to feel the dread and get started on it anyways.

And I noticed, just like going for that walk, as soon as I get started recording it, as soon as I record the intro, the dread starts to dissipate, and I get into it. I’m able to get through the recording and send it out to my podcast publishers, the people who edit this and produce this for me. And it is okay that I feel dread. It doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t record a podcast or that I shouldn’t do a webinar.

So many people experience dread when it comes to business development, and then they don’t develop a business. They don’t network; they don’t market it; they don’t publish content. And then, they don’t produce results of business developed, right? So, you just want to expect that dread is going to come along for the ride. And you want to allow it instead of resist or avoid it by procrastinating, by putting off the action that you want or need to take to produce the results that you want.

Another super random anecdote. I always dread weddings. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t say I don’t know; I do know why. I have negative thoughts about the weddings. And then, my brain, because of those thoughts, conjures up a sense of dread. And I always go and have the best time.

I’m really working on changing my thoughts about this. That instead of telling myself I don’t like going to weddings, I tell myself now that I do like going to weddings, so that’s helped the dread dissipate a bit, but I know I really dread going to them.

Maybe you’re like this too, especially for any introverts listening. You might tell yourself that you don’t like leaving the house, or you don’t like making plans, or you don’t like being in groups of people, right? The more you tell yourself things you don’t like, the more dread you’re going to experience. And then, you’re going to create so much more resistance to doing any of those activities.

What would it look like for you to tell yourself that you actually do like them? And to find evidence that it’s true that you like them, you’ll create such a different emotional experience for yourself. If you do that, again, the main reminder here, the main takeaway for you, is that you don’t need to solve for the dread. If dread arises, if you start to experience that vibration in your body, you start to feel that feeling; you don’t have to solve it. It isn’t a problem. You just got to let it come along for the ride.

You want to pay attention when you experience this feeling. And then, you want to pay attention to how you talk to yourself when dread makes its appearance. That’s the other big thing that I notice is different between me and some of my clients who really struggle with allowing themselves to experience dread. The pep talk they give themselves when they experience dread is totally different from the pep talk that I give myself.

So, you want to make sure that you’re talking to yourself in a way that allows you to move through the dread. Allows you and facilitates you taking action in spite of and despite dread being there. Okay? When I experience dread, I’m telling myself that “Nothing’s gone wrong. This isn’t a problem we need to solve for. This isn’t a reason to not take action. It’s not a reason to avoid and procrastinate. That I can still get up and go about my business.”

Are you saying that to yourself? And if you’re not, you get to start right now. The next time dread makes an appearance in your life, you get to give yourself that type of pep talk rather than saying that you should stay in bed.

Or, you should not do the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable, that it’s better to do it later. That you have all the time in the world. That you can do it tomorrow. That you’ll get to it in an hour, right? That you don’t feel like it right now. And that you need to be motivated or feel focused in order to get started.

None of that’s true. What is true is that you can absolutely get started right now while feeling full of dread.

And maybe you’re not full of dread; maybe you’re, like, half-full of dread. Whatever amount of dread you’re experiencing, you can get started with it in your body right this second, okay?

And remember, your primitive brain creates dread because it thinks it’s protecting you. Like my client said, “I wish this wasn’t the case. I wish we would have evolved out of this, but we haven’t.” So, you want to expect your brain to create dread, to drive you to instant gratification and pleasure, to drive you to conserve energy and not take action. This is very normal. It’s just part of the human experience, and it’s never going away.

Now, the more you take action, in spite of and despite your dread, the more practice you get at allowing your dread to be there and doing the intentional things you plan to do in spite of it, the more your dread will lessen over time. It will become a smaller monster, a smaller beast for you to deal with. But it’s never going away. It’s always going to be there. And you want to make sure that you know that and anticipate that.

So, when it makes an appearance, you’re like, “Oh, hello, Dread. Right on schedule. I expected you. I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been all this time?” And then, you and dread can get in the car. Dread can be in the passenger seat, and you can go about doing what you want to do. All right?

You get to decide. You can consider your dread a problem, or you can make peace with it and let it come along with you as you go about accomplishing whatever it is you want to accomplish. I strongly, strongly suggest you choose the latter option. You’ll be so thankful you did.

Alright, my friends, that’s what I have for you this week. One more thing before I sign off. If you haven’t already, would you pretty, pretty, please do me a favor and, first of all, subscribe to the podcast, so you don’t miss a single episode. I make these episodes as valuable as possible. I give away all the goodies in these episodes.

So, make sure you don’t miss a beat; subscribe. And then, if you would love, love, love me, which I hope you do, please leave me a rating and a review. It helps me get this really helpful information in the hands of more people. I’m on a mission to change the way lawyers practice law, so if you could leave me a rating and review and let me know what you think of the podcast, it would mean the absolute world to me.

Also, if you’ve got friends, share the wealth; y’all shoot this episode to a friend of yours. Say, “Hey, I listened to this; it helped me. I think it’ll help you, too.” And give them a little bit of this wisdom. Share the wealth, all right? Don’t gatekeep; we don’t want that.

If you found this podcast helpful, I bet someone else in your life will find it helpful, too, so shoot it to them. Let them give it a listen. And maybe they’ll be so kind as to leave me a rating and review, too. It’s like you’re doing me a double favor and doing them a double favor. Everyone wins, and you get to feel good in the process.

All right, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week. Thank you so much for listening, and 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 44. Today, we’re talking all about the energy you bring with you and zero-dollar conversations. 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.

Hi, how are you? I hope you are doing well. I hope that your new year is still off to a good start. We’re about halfway into the first month, maybe a little bit more by the time you listen to this. Hopefully things are going well for you. A little life update from me, things have been pretty busy over here.

As the year’s gotten off to a start, I finished the enrollment for The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. And now, I’m finalizing all the fun arrangements for that. I’m going to be in Charleston in a couple of weeks, with everyone, and I cannot wait. I love planning everything that goes along with this event, the menus, the venues. I didn’t mean to make that rhyme, but there you go. Just all of the little, small details that make it a special experience for people.

I’ve been up to that, and I also, am preparing for quite a bit of travel. I’m getting ready to go to Cabo, again, with my business coach. I’ll be in Cabo the week before I’m in Charleston for my mastermind. Quite a bit of travel coming up.

And, I posted about this on social media, so if you follow me there you might have seen this already. I recently lost my last living grandparent. My grandmother passed away in the beginning of January. It’s been a while, knock on wood, that I’ve lost what I would consider an immediate family member. I forgot how much goes into all of that; the funeral, the viewing, everything. So, that really consumed a lot of me, a lot of my attention, a lot of focus.

One of the things I will say, it’s really great whenever I get to see family. Since my paternal grandfather passed away, who I was actually really close with, I don’t see my family a ton. It’s normally at like weddings or funerals that we’re all in the same place, that we all get together. And, family is super important to me. Contrary to what that might sound like, because I don’t see people as often as I might like to, but it is nice to get together.

That being said, something happened while I was with everyone, and it inspired today’s episode. So, I don’t know if this is something that resonates with you, but recently, having this opportunity to be around family members that I hadn’t seen in a while, it’s pretty wild when you engage again with people you haven’t seen. And, when you’ve changed a lot in between now and the last time you’ve seen them, right?

For a lot of people in my life, I’m like a wildly different person because of coaching. Not just what has changed in my life, you know, externally. Meaning, I don’t practice law anymore. I transitioned careers. I started my own business. A lot of people that I saw at the funeral I haven’t seen since before the pandemic. So, my life looks completely different from the outside. I live in a different place. So much has changed, in that manner.

But I’m also a completely different person on the inside. I guess I shouldn’t say completely. There are some core attributes about me that are always going to be the same; things that I love about myself that I haven’t changed. But a lot of stuff is different. And, it’s because of coaching.

So, when I say different, I definitely mean better, here. I am such a positive person now, and I don’t let things get to me. I was always pretty non-judgmental, but I’ve taken it to the nth degree through coaching. And I’m always looking for the silver lining and on the bright side. I’m never in a state of blame. And, man, I used to be the biggest complainer at work, in my personal life, just because that’s what a lot of normal people do; they complain. And, I’m not like that anymore.

I don’t see the value in it. I see a lot of those conversations as what I call “zero-dollar conversations.” Meaning, they don’t add any value to your life. They don’t have any positive contribution. And what I noticed being around some of my family members that I hadn’t seen in a long time, was the energy that they bring with them to conversations.

You know, people say to me very frequently, “Olivia, you’re like the most positive person I know.” And the energy I bring with me, in any room that I walk into, is really high, it’s really positive, it’s really motivating, it’s infectious. People feel better when they’re around me when they spend time with me.

I’m really conscious about that. I mean, it’s the default setting for me now, so it doesn’t require that much work. But I always want to be a value add, wherever I am, whoever I’m with. But not everyone is like that.

And in being around some people I haven’t seen in a long time, I noticed the big difference between how I interact with people, and how I carry myself, and how I operate in the world, and how I think about things. And how they operate in the world, and how they think about things, and the energy they bring with them, and how they spend their time; the types of conversations they have.

So, it really got me thinking. And I’m sure this is true for you, too, if you just take a second to think about it. A lot of the people in your life are probably pretty negative. Most people are, our brain has a negativity bias, so we automatically go there. And, you have to learn how to interrupt it and course correct and change your thoughts.

This is exactly what I teach my clients, through the thought work that I do with them, through coaching. And you also have to be able to understand that circumstances are neutral, right? I talk about that a ton on the podcast. That any situation that you’re encountering in your life, the facts of it don’t have an emotional charge; they’re not positive, they’re not negative; they’re simply neutral.

And you get to decide what you think and how you feel about them. Now, most people in the world are never taught that. And, they don’t know that, so they treat most situations as negative. They complain a lot.

Now, I encourage you to start paying attention to this. It’s a little bit like, if you’ve ever seen the show, How I Met Your Mother, they did an episode on people pointing things out to one another. And it’s like, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s like the glass shatters, and there’s no going back. This is kind of like that.

So, I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I do think it’s really important to notice how negative people are, because it will also help you identify how negative you might be. And the more you notice it, you’re going to also start to notice how you feel when you’re around people when they’re being negative. When people are complaining about other people, or talking shit about other people.

I’m going to go into a list of examples of what this looks like in practice, and the different ways, you know, bringing negative energy with you manifests itself in your conversations and your daily interactions with people. But I want you to pay attention to how you feel after these negative conversations or these negative interactions. Do you feel energized and optimistic and motivated and uplifted? Or, do you feel depleted and drained and pessimistic and discouraged? Right?

For me, when I’m having conversations with people and they’re complaining, it’s such an energy drain for me. It’s definitely not how I like to feel. I walk away from a conversation feeling worse than when I started it. That’s not fun for me. Also, being engaged in really negative conversations isn’t in alignment with the kind of person that I want to be in this world, right?

So, take a second think about like: Who do you want to be in this world? Are the conversations that you’re having with people aligned with that? Is the energy that you’re bringing with you, to all of your situations and encounters in your life, aligned with that?

One of the things that I believe very strongly is that we’re all responsible for the energy that we bring with us. So, that’s why I wanted to talk about this today. I want you to start to take an audit, or an inventory, of the energy that you bring with you.

I think it’s really compelling and powerful to think about: What if everyone did this? What if everyone took a moral inventory, and did an audit of the energy that they bring with them, to every encounter, to every conversation?

And if you became aware that you’re not bringing the best energy with you, and you decided to make a change, what would the compound impact of that be? What would that look like? How would that ripple across our society? It’s really wild to think of that. So today, we’re going to talk about the energy that you bring with you, and we’re going to do this inventory together.

So, the first question I want you to ask yourself is, do you complain? Now, the obvious answer is probably going to be yes, right? We all complain to some extent. That being said, you want to gain some awareness as to how often you complain, and what you complain about. Take a second and think about those two questions. What do you complain about? And, how often do you do it?

Now, I want you to ask yourself, why do you complain? And, be really honest here. Does it serve you? I work with so many clients that actually do believe that complaining does serve them. Because complaining often feels good. It feels cathartic. But it really does not serve you.

Again, you’re normally complaining to someone else, so you’re using your time and theirs. And, you’re not searching for a solution when you’re complaining, right? Problem solving and complaining are very, very different. I’m fine with noting that there’s a problem and then going right into solution mode; that serves you, that works.

But complaining just for the sake of complaining, really doesn’t have any purpose. Now, again, it feels good because you normally get to feel righteous or justified. I always describe those emotions like dark chocolate-covered caramel, they just tend to be a little delicious.

We also complain as a form of buffering. To avoid something else that we don’t want to do, or to avoid some other emotion that we don’t want to feel. For instance, if you’re feeling really powerless or out of control, complaining is a great way to feel better. But again, it’s one of those actions you have to pay attention to.

Because even though you feel much more powerful, and better than the weaker emotion that you’re experiencing, the results you produce from complaining don’t serve you; they’re not going to be good ones. So, does it really make sense for you to do it?

Also, this is a little bit of like a tough love wake-up call for people: Are you complaining because it makes you feel good? And if you are, if that’s what it is, do you like that as your reason? One of the things that I talk about a lot is, what would be different about your life, if instead of complaining about it, about the things that you didn’t like or other people’s behavior, you went to work on changing it or fixing it?

Now, the reason people don’t do this is because that actually takes hard work. It’s really easy to complain. It’s much harder to change things, or focus on yourself. What I also find fascinating is when people complain about other people, when they have absolutely no control over the other person.

Like, you always get to choose whether you spend time with someone, whether you engage with them, whether you don’t. Whether they’re colleagues or family members or friends, you always get to choose. And, that may not seem true to you. But you can leave your job if you hate the people you work with. You can stop talking to really close family members, if you don’t think that they add value to your life, and you don’t enjoy your relationship with them.

Everything is on the table. You get to make all of these choices and all of these decisions, and you get to change your mind, anytime you want. But what would be different about your life if you didn’t complain? If instead of focusing on things that are outside of your control, you put all of that energy, all of that mental capacity into focusing on what is in your control, and going to work on making your life better, right?

Again, heavier lift. I’m not going to say that it’s not. But your life would be monumentally better. It’d be significantly different. You’d have so much more of the things that you would want. You would feel so much better on a daily basis.

So, I highly encourage you to take an inventory of how often you’re complaining. People complain all day long, it’s wild. When you start to become aware of this, you will notice that it tends to be people’s favorite pastime, is to complain.

Now, a variant of complaining, is talking badly about other people. So, I want you to think for a second, do you do this as well? And again, I think the answer is probably yes, for everyone to some degree. But I want you to be honest with yourself, are you doing it in excess?

A lot of people do this. It’s one of the things that I noticed, in being around some friends and family members that I hadn’t seen in a really long time. I noticed how they spoke about other people. And, I’m sure some of my family members are listening to this. Sure, they’re probably not going to love this episode, but I think it’s so important to talk about.

I’m talking about this issue from a place of love and really deep, sincere concern, because I want y’all to have better lives. And it’s really hard to have a better life when you’re constantly introducing negativity into your day-to-day life. Into your day-to-day conversations, and into every interaction that you have.

Remember, all of the action that you take is driven and determined by the feelings that you feel. And, you’re not going to feel great when you’re complaining and you’re looking for the worst in people, and you’re talking badly about them; you’re going to feel bad.

Now, I want you, just like we did with complaining, I want you to answer the question, why do you talk badly about other people? Really give that some thought for a second, alright? The answer, I’m going to give it to you, or at least one of the reasons, the main reason; is that you feel significant when you talk badly about other people.

If you’ve never listened to Tony Robbins’ TED Talk on the “Six Human Needs,” it’s phenomenal. Listening to it absolutely changed my life. And, I’ll link it in the show notes. But if you haven’t listened to that, go give it a listen. One of the six basic human needs… We all have all six, but we all prefer two out of the six.

And one of those needs is the need to feel significant, or the need to feel needed. A lot of people operate with that being their top need. And you can totally tell when people prioritize that need, because they’re the ones who are complaining all of the time. They’re the ones who are talking badly about other people.

There’s a couple of different ways to feel significant: You can do really impressive things, and you can build yourself up and make yourself a success. He explains it, to where you build the tallest house on the block, right? Or the other way to have the tallest house on the block, is to tear everyone else down.

So, people, normally, people who are feeling really insecure about themselves, tend to default to criticizing or judging or talking badly about others. Also, if you think that you’re not feeling insecure, you might do this because, again, it feels really good to feel righteous, or to feel like you’re better than other people.

I get this is not a glamorous way to think about yourself, right? Probably, none of us who do this is proud of the fact that they do this. A lot of people aren’t even aware of how much they do this. So, I want you to start slowing yourself down and paying attention. Do you talk badly about other people? What are you saying? And, why are you saying it? I love asking ourselves the simple question of, why it is that we do something? You gain so much intel when you just ask and answer the question, why?

In taking inventory of the energy that you bring with you, I also just want you to pay attention to how negative you are. Are you really negative? You know, are you a person that if someone suggests something, you’re like a knee jerk, no. That’s what I call it. You just automatically default to, no. You think, “That won’t work. We can’t do that. That’ll never happen.”

You’re just really pessimistic. Or, you’re always looking for the downside, or the reason that something won’t work. Be honest, are you a bit of a Negative Nelly or a Debbie Downer, right? I also, for the record, hate that all of those phrases always use women’s names. So, we’re going to have to come up with some gender neutral options.

Another thing to take into consideration, or to ask yourself, is do you think you’re better than people? And, be really honest here. One of the ways that I see this manifest for people, that’s really subtle, is do you think that everyone else is doing it wrong?

I’ve talked about “should” thinking before, on the podcast. Do you think they should be doing it differently than they are? Do you think that the way that they’re operating isn’t the right way to do things? And that you know the right way, if only they just listened to you? Or, followed what you believe is the best way to operate, everything would be better, right?

If that’s you, you’re probably pretty negative. And, you probably complain a lot. And, you probably talk badly about other people. Again, I love you guys. And I get that this is a sensitive conversation because none of us wants to think that we’re like this. But a lot of people are like this; you probably know plenty of people.

This is a little bit different than, you know how they say, if you can’t identify out of your friend group who a specific person is, then that person’s probably you? This is different than that. This is probably people in your friend group. I don’t want you to think that it’s not you, also, if you can identify other people in your social circles who are like this.

This is a behavior that is pretty contagious. So, if your friends are like this, you’re probably also like this. One of the things that I love so much about having so many friends who are coaches, is that they’re really not negative people. We don’t like to talk shit about other people. We don’t like to be pessimistic. We’re so optimistic. We’re so full of possibility.

We’re having, you know, million dollar conversations instead of zero-dollar conversations. We’re constantly supporting each other; no one’s tearing one another down. We just really don’t tolerate it. It kind of like gets suffocated if anyone’s negative. I can’t even think of someone who’s negative.

And it’s intoxicating to be in friend groups or in social circles like that. Candidly, it’s one of the reasons that I love joining personal development groups like masterminds. Kind of like, The Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. Or, I’m in a mastermind with my business coach.

And my other coach, Brooke Castillo, she has a lot of in-person group events. And I love going to those, because I just love being surrounded by people who are so positive. It makes me more positive. I’m already pretty positive to begin with, but I love surrounding myself with that kind of energy.

Now, if you don’t have access to that, guess what? You can create access to that. You may have to pay for it, right? I pay to be in the masterminds and the groups that I’m in. And it is money well spent, because I can’t force the people in my personal life to be any different than they are.

But instead of spending more time with those people, I choose to spend less time with them. Because I don’t like how I feel when I’m around them. And, you get to make the exact same decision. I also think it’s really important for you to think about this; would you want to be around you? It’s a really powerful thing to think about.

Would you want to be friends with you? Would you want to spend time with you? Would you want to engage in conversations with you? If you’re someone who always complains and you judge other people, and you’re critical and you tear them down, and you belittle what they’re doing, and you’re just full of judgment and have nothing nice to say, would you want to be around you? The answer is probably no.

I really think one of the missions that we can all be striving for, is to be versions of ourselves that we would want to be around.

All right let’s talk about a couple of different examples of what it looks like to bring negative energy with you into your daily interactions. I used to be famous for this. So, this is definitely me calling myself out here. I don’t do it anymore, by any means. But I see a lot of people complain in their offices, right?

You sneak into a coworkers office, and maybe everyone’s doing this on like, direct messages through whatever platform your firm uses, or Jabber; that’s what we used when I was in big law. But you’re complaining to people, right? You slide into someone’s office, you close the door, and you’re with your colleagues and you’re talking shit. You’re talking shit about your boss, or a colleague, or your assistant, or clients, or whatever, right? You’re just complaining.

I love when people do this; they also complain about not having enough time. Because it’s like, if you’d just spend the time that you spent complaining, actually doing your work, you’d be in a completely different world. I used to do this. I used to complain with other people in my office, all the time. Whether it was when I was in big law, or when I was working at the boutique firm. And, I wouldn’t get work done.

So, I was definitely not setting myself up for success in that way. I would have been much better served to put that time to better use. So, is that you? And is this the kind of colleague you want to be? Is this the kind of employee you want to be? I look back on how I spent a lot of my time complaining when I was someone’s employee. And man, it just makes me cringe.

I’m like, “I wouldn’t want to employ someone like that.” I also think it’s really important to be aware of how your behavior contributes to the overall culture of a workplace. If people see you complain, they’re going to be more likely to complain, because complaining is contagious. You’re giving people permission, and a green light, and letting them know that that behavior is acceptable, or that it’s welcomed, or really, that it’s encouraged. Right?

So, are you like that? Do you complain to other people? And what are you giving other people a permission slip to do themselves? Also, do you want to work at a place that’s really negative? Probably not. So, check in with yourself, are you doing this?

You know, how do you show up in meetings? This is another great area where I see people bring a lot of negative energy with them. They show up, they sit down in the conference room. Maybe, they come in late because they’re pissed that they have to be there in the first place. Because they think the meeting’s really stupid, and they sit down kind of disrupting what’s going on.

They’re on their phone, they’re really not paying attention, they’re kind of annoyed, they’re rolling their eyes at a lot of the suggestions that are made, they think everything’s so stupid, right? Now, be honest, are you this person? And if you are… You know, I think a lot of people do this because they want to be in the cool kids club. And it feels pretty cool to, you know, not give a fuck.

But it isn’t cool. I think the cool thing, is when you give a fuck, when you actually care. Now, I don’t mean care so much that you take everything personally, to your own detriment. But like, there is nothing that’s not admirable about caring, and about being present, and about being fully bought in to whatever it is that you’re working on, whatever the team’s mission is.

And if you really do have some negative feedback to give or some constructive criticism, by all means, do that. Before you do that, go listen to the feedback episode series that I did, so you know that you’re giving feedback in the most productive way possible. But you definitely get to dissent and voice an opinion.

But how are you doing it? Are you doing it in a way that you consider respectful? Or, are you doing it in a way, that if we’re being really honest, isn’t all that respectful?

I also watch people check-out, either because they’re bored, or we do this when we’re overwhelmed, right? You’re scrolling on your phone, you’re responding to emails, you’re not giving the people that you’re in the room with your full attention. And, that has an energy to it. I want you to be really conscious of that.

I watch a lot of people multitask, and I think it’s really disruptive to meetings, to planning sessions, to work that gets done. You’re not fully focused. And I think you do everyone, including yourself, a disservice when you do this. So, be aware of this and work on being more present.

This is one of the things that I teach people when they work with me, is how to be more present. If you know this is an area that you need some work in, being meaningful… I should probably do a whole podcast episode just on how to be more present because people really do struggle with that. But note that this is an area that you want to improve on.

Another example, is think about the phone calls and text messages that you have with friends of yours or family members, right? Are they really negative? Do you call up your best friend and just complain? I used to do this with one of my friends, who I used to work with. We would talk every morning, after she switched to a different firm. And man, we spent almost every morning on the phone with one another complaining.

What a way to start your day, right? How terrible. And again, I know complaining can feel cathartic, but we would just talk shit about a whole bunch of different people. And that’s how you get your day rolling, right? Everything else that follows is pretty much going to follow suit; you already have your negativity hat on.

Are you spending time on the phone, or via text, just criticizing other people, making fun of them, judging them, saying mean things about them, picking them apart? I see a lot of people do this because I’m in a lot of entrepreneurs circles. And the entrepreneurs who aren’t coaches tend to do this with other people. Whether they’re in competition with other people or whatever, they are really critical, and they’re really judgy.

I think those are zero-dollar conversations; no one’s benefiting when you’re picking apart someone else. So, you can always take inventory and audit: When am I doing that? Where am I doing that? And, how can I do less of it?

What would I replace that with? Talk to your friends about, you know, strategy or problem solving, instead of talking about other people. A good litmus test for this, if you lack some awareness on whether or not you’re doing this; be honest with yourself: Would you want people to overhear or read your conversations?

You know, as a criminal defense attorney we used to have, in discovery, everyone’s text messages. It was always mortifying what people would write in their text messages. Think about if people could read your text messages, or overhear your phone calls, would you be proud?

Or, would you be embarrassed and mortified and really ashamed of how you carry yourself? If you would be the latter emotions in that instance, be cognizant of the energy that you’re bringing with you to the conversations that you engage in.

Another way that you can start to pay attention to whether or not you’re being negative and bringing negative energy with you, is figuring out; do you dwell? Dwelling is so unproductive. We used to have this rule, when I practiced criminal defense, we had the 24-Hour Rule. So, if you got a bad ruling from a judge or a really unfortunate verdict, you had 24 hours to be as upset as you wanted about it. But then, after 24 hours, you had to get over it and get back to work, and you couldn’t dwell.

I’ve taken that rule that 24-Hour Rule, and I’ve brought it with me into the rest of my life. So, you get 24 hours to be as upset as you want. And then, you’ve got to move on; you can’t sit in it, you can’t dwell, you can’t stew. It’s so unproductive; it doesn’t serve you. And, who wants to be around someone who’s constantly stewing and dwelling; not fun, right?

Now, this isn’t to say that you need to pretend to be fine all the time, I’m not suggesting that. But like the 24-Hour Rule, you can acknowledge your negative emotions, whether it’s disappointment, or frustration, or hurt, or anger. Now, no one else is causing those feelings, you’re causing them with your thoughts. But you get to choose negative thoughts sometimes, and you get to choose to feel negative feelings.

If that’s the case, you’re allowed to experience that emotion. But I don’t want you to do more than acknowledge them, be present with them, let them be there, and then move on. I don’t want you to sit in them. And I also don’t want you to react negatively to them. Most people feel negative emotions, and then they react negatively. You want to interrupt that process and not do that.

Now, if you bring negative energy with you, if you’re engaged in a lot of zero-dollar conversations that don’t serve anyone, that don’t add any extra value to the world, and you want to change this, you have to first become aware of the fact that you’re doing this.

So, you get to answer the questions that I asked you in today’s episode. If you really struggle to see your own negativity, I want you to do one of two things, all right? I want you to ask someone you trust, and ask them to be honest with you, whether or not they think you’re a negative person or a positive person, okay? And if they’re honest with you, and they say that you are negative, you cannot get mad at them. All right? Only ask this if you’re really comfortable accepting an honest answer.

Another thing you can do is rather than polling anyone about what they think, just ask someone that you trust to point it out to you when you are negative. I’ve started doing this with my mom, much to her chagrin, I’m sure. But she is really negative when she drives.

She gets very mad at other drivers. And, I have some thoughts and feelings about her behavior in the car. And instead of yelling at her or telling her she’s doing it wrong, I’ve just decided that I think she doesn’t have awareness as to how negative she is. So, I started to point it out to her.

You can also tally this yourself. Again, it requires a little bit more self-awareness. But I have a relationship with someone who is very challenging for me. And I ended up being more negative in those interactions with this person, than I typically am with anyone else. I don’t like to be that way.

So, one of the things that I started doing when I interact with that person, is I keep note of the comments that I make that I’m not proud of. I keep a little tally. And when you keep a little tally, you’re like, “Oh, I made two comments. I don’t want to make another one. I made three, and I want to stop there.”

You just become so much more cognizant of what you say, and the impact it has on people, and whether or not you’re acting in accordance with the type of person you want to be, or whether you’re out of alignment.

Okay, I highly encourage you to start to become aware of the energy that you bring with you, and do an audit. You can do this every day. Did I have zero-dollar conversations today? If I did, why did I do it? If I brought negative energy with me, why did I do it? Did it serve me? How else could I show up differently?

Asking yourself, and answering these questions, will be life changing, I promise. There is nothing better than bringing incredible infectious, contagious, positive energy with you, when you engage with people in the world. I want you to be proud of yourself, and how you show up with other people. You’re in charge and responsible for your own energy. Make sure you choose wisely. All right?

That’s what I have 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 43. Today, we’re talking all about how to quit your job. 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, how are you doing? I hope you are doing well. I am enjoying the last few days of my couple of weeks off for the end of the year. And, it has been marvelous. I’ve been doing a little bit more behind the scenes work than I necessarily planned to do, but that’s okay. I have a ton of big, exciting stuff coming up in the beginning of 2023, and I want to make sure that I’m ready for it.

I hope you’ve been enjoying the end of year, and maybe wrapping things up and getting prepared. I actually just had something come up on my Timehop, or like the memories on Facebook, and it reminded me that exactly four years ago today, I quit my job in big law. So, that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

I want to talk about how to quit your job, or really, anything else for that matter. Maybe, it’s a relationship that you want to quit. Whatever the case may be, I want to walk you through the process that I teach my clients to follow, in order to quit from a clean space. Now, what does quitting from a clean space mean? All right, there’s two ways to quit: You can quit from a clean space, or you can quit with a messy mind.

I feel like this episode is particularly timely, because it’s the end of the year, and I know after bonus season a lot of people plan to leave their jobs. Especially with the great resignation that we’ve been witnessing. So, if you’re planning to make a move, I hope this episode’s coming at exactly the right time for you. So, let’s dive in.

When you quit with a messy mind, you’re quitting from a state of victimhood. You’re normally carrying with you a really negative story about your experience, and you’re probably in a state of blame. Now, here are some examples of what your thoughts will specifically look like, if you’ve got a messy mind and you’re quitting from that space.

You’re going to be saying things to yourself, or to other people, along the lines of, “I can’t believe they’re like this. They can’t do it this way. They should be doing it differently than how they’re doing it. They’re doing it wrong.”

You’ll be thinking things like, “This is so unfair. I deserve better than this.” And that’s not to say what you do or don’t deserve, I just want to tell you that when you’re thinking the thought, “I deserve better than this,” normally, that thought feels terrible in your body. So, if you’re in a state of victimhood and in a state of blame, and you’re thinking, “I deserve better than this,” you’re probably not leaving from a clean space.

If that’s something you think, check in with yourself, and ask yourself; what’s the feeling I feel when I think the thought, “I deserve better than this?” If it feels calm and grounded, and loving and trusting, that is a place that you want to be operating from. But if it doesn’t feel like that, and my guess is that it does not.

If it’s coming from outrage, or righteousness, or frustration, or feeling disrespected, stuff like that, you’re quitting from a messy place. You’ll also be thinking thoughts like, “This place is the worst. These people are the worst. I hate it here.” And when you’re thinking this way, you’re going to be feeling emotions along the lines of feeling resentful, righteous, outraged, disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed, very angry.

You might even feel undervalued, disrespected, and unappreciated. Okay, now when you’re feeling those feelings, remember that the typical way we respond to negative emotions like that, is we respond negatively. And if you’re contemplating quitting a job while you’ve got this messy mind and you’re in an unclean space, then you’re going to be reacting to these feelings rather than taking really intentional, thoughtful action and moving forward towards something you want.

You’re going to be running away from these feelings, running away from this negative experience. And when you do that, you tend to take very unintentional action, so you end up with more of what you don’t want in the long run. This is also a really victimy story to be operating within. And if you’re the victim of your own story, guess what? You can’t be your own hero.

So, if you’ve got his thought process going through your mind as you’re contemplating leaving, I really want to empower you to step out of it, and to reclaim the power that you have in this situation and to leave from a place of strength, not from a place of weakness.

Lastly, and I mean this part with love, I promise. The story that you’re telling yourself, if it sounds a lot like the story that I just rehearsed for you, it’s very, very dramatic, okay? And I want to encourage you, or challenge you all, to have a lot less drama in your life this year in 2023. Okay? Drama is a total energy drain.

So, if you’ve got a really dramatic story that you’re telling yourself about your experience, you’re gonna find yourself emotionally exhausted. And there are so many other things that you could be devoting that energy to; like finding a new job, or thriving in a new position, or just enjoying your time off. Rather than devoting this energy to this negative story that you’re telling yourself.

I want to encourage you, and invite you, to dial down the drama when it comes to leaving your job. You can do it from a clean space. Now, I want to give you a little backstory… You guys know I love a good backstory… On how I created this framework.

I was actually taught by my coach, Brooke, that you’re not supposed to leave anything until you get yourself to a place where you can say that you love it. So, you gotta love it before you leave it; that’s what I was taught. And of all of the things that I’ve learned from her; she’s an amazing coach, and I love like, 99% of what she teaches. But I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around this concept: You’ve got to love it before you leave it. You’ve got to love it before you leave it.

Because if you really loved it, would you actually leave it? The answer is probably, no. Right? So, I really struggled with that. I was in one of her group programs, and it was actually the only time that I think I ever raised my hand to get coached live by her. It was to get coached on this issue, as to whether or not I should leave my job.

She gave me the same coaching that she teaches people, which is you have to love it before you leave it. And I was in such a state of burnout, that that just wasn’t attainable for me, to get to a place where I could love it before I left it. I’ve thought long and hard about this. I eventually got myself to the point where I made the decision to leave.

I created this framework, while I was leaving, because I was trying to rework the ‘love it before you leave it’ concept. I didn’t want to leave from a state of victimhood, or from a state of outrage, or from a state of blame. I knew that that wouldn’t serve me. I was already introduced to thought work. I had already become a certified coach when I was leaving big law, so I already had these mind management tools to get myself to what we call in coaching “a clean space.”

So, I ended up creating this framework. As a result of that, I knew I couldn’t get myself reasonably to a place where I loved my job before I decided to leave it, but I could get myself here. So, I walked myself through a three-step process. And this is the exact same process that I now teach my clients to follow, so that they can leave situations from clean space, as well.

Step one is that you need to accept the situation for what it is. Step two is that you need to own your part in creating a situation that didn’t work. And three, you want to appreciate the good that came from the situation. I’m going to walk you through the exact analysis that I did following this leaving from a clean space process, when I left my last two jobs. The first one is leaving big law. And then the second one is leaving the last law firm that I ever worked at.

So, let’s start with big law. Now, I worked as an associate in an Am Law 200 firm, in Detroit. And I didn’t like it; it was not for me. Okay? But that does not mean that there was anything inherently wrong with the firm. Big law gets a bad rap, but there are plenty of people who work in big law and enjoy it. Or, they value what that environment offers versus other people who don’t value what it offers.

When you’re completing step one of ‘the leaving and quitting from a clean space process,’ you want to accept the situation for what it is, and you want to accept it in the most neutral way possible. So, you’re going through and you’re really auditing your experience, auditing the environment that you’re working in. And, you’re doing it free of any judgments.

A good example of this, a judgment that I had of the firm that I worked at when I was in big law, was that it wasn’t very collaborative. So, that would violate step one of this process, that’s my own judgment; that’s not accepting the situation for what it is. The way that I would describe the firm in the most neutral way possible would be how many hours each day I spent alone in my office, on average.

And most days, I would spend at least eight hours by myself, because the job really involved just a lot of solo research and writing. Now, my opinion of that fact was that it wasn’t a very collaborative environment. But I worked with an amazing non-equity partner, and he actually thought that the firm was extremely collaborative.

He had worked as a law clerk to a federal judge for several years; I think he did two clerkships. So, he clerked for a total of four years. And during his time clerking, he experienced a much less “collaborative” environment than the one that we had been working in, in big law. So, he thought the firm was very collaborative.

Where I had come from a criminal defense firm, that was like an all hands on deck environment. We spent a lot of time working together, with one another, in the conference room. So, to me, that’s how I defined collaborative. It’s just a difference of opinion here, right? You want to make sure you’re describing the situation for what it is, in the most neutral way possible. So, one way would be for me to describe how much time I spent by myself.

Now, I also was not fond of how we staffed cases. I had come from a firm where we were an all hands on deck; everyone was equal kind of approach. And when I worked in big law, we staffed matters based on a hierarchy. Now, that’s just not my preference. I work with plenty of clients who actually love staffing matters based on a hierarchy, because they have a ton of clarity about who assigns what and who answers to whom. So, they really like the structure that staffing matters in that way provides.

Okay? Again, there’s nothing inherently right or wrong with staffing a matter based on a hierarchy structure, it’s just your preference. It turns out it’s not my preference, but that’s okay. In accepting the firm, and my employment within the firm for what it was, what was also true, is that I was at an associate level. So, I answered to people. That, again, ties into that whole hierarchy concept.

And, that I worked on a certain type of case. You know, I did complex commercial litigation, that was the practice group that I was assigned to. Now, my preference was not in line with that. I wanted to be doing criminal defense work, and I really wasn’t able to do that type of work where I was, working at the firm that I was at. We just didn’t handle the types of criminal defense matters that I liked to handle.

I tend to call them like, blue-collar crime rather than white-collar crime. And I really didn’t have much access to a lot of white-collar crime, which the firm did do. So, in making a very neutral assessment of what my experience was like at the firm, I would just describe the types of cases that I was working on.

Some of the facts that I was accepting were that I was handling complex commercial litigation matters. The firm staffed based on a hierarchy. I spent X number of hours working by myself each day.

We would also be able to go through accepting the job for what it is, that I worked in Detroit. Now, that was actually something that I liked about where I worked. And that I made X amount of dollars as my salary, and that my average bonus was a certain amount. Those were also factual things that we would accept, in step one of ‘the leaving from a clean space process.’

Do you see how calm that assessment is? It’s just very matter of fact; you look at the situation for what it is. And then from there, you get to decide if it is in alignment with your preferences or not, okay? For me, it wasn’t in alignment with my preferences. But that doesn’t make anything inherently wrong with the job.

Other people might see the same exact facts and decide that they are comfortable with accepting the job for what it is. So, you just want to make sure you’re accepting it for what it is. That’s the only thing that you’re doing in step one; accepting the job in the most neutral way possible.

Now, step two; you want to take ownership over your role in creating a bad situation. You’re probably leaving because the situation is less than ideal, right? It’s not falling in line with your preferences. But rather than being in that state of victimhood and blaming everyone else around you, including the firm itself, for your bad situation, I want you to take ownership over the role you’ve played in creating your current situation.

For me, if I was getting really honest with myself, when I was completing my analysis for step two of ‘the leaving from a clean space process,’ I had to own my bad habits that contributed to a less than ideal situation when I was working in big law.

So, I had found coaching, but it came a little too late at the time. I have since mastered the concepts that I teach my clients; like how to manage my time, and how to set boundaries, and how to have difficult conversations with people, and to speak up and advocate for myself and say no. But it took me a little while to master those concepts. And, I certainly hadn’t mastered them, yet.

When I was still working in big law, I had been introduced to them, but it took me some time. So, in the years since I’ve mastered these concepts, I’ve incorporated them into my life, and I now use them to be very intentional with how I spend my time.

But at the time, when I was struggling, I was still a people pleaser. I was over-promising and under-delivering. I was really struggling to manage my time. I was a horrific procrastinator. Because I had not yet learned how to take uncomfortable action and stick to and follow through with a game plan, in spite of the discomfort that comes from sticking to it.

I’ve had to learn and teach myself all of that stuff. It’s now the stuff that I have mastered, and I teach to my clients, but I had yet to really hone these skills when I was working in big law, and when it was coming time for me to leave that job. So, rather than being in a state of blame, I wanted to own the bad habits that I had, that had led to me having a less than ideal experience, right?

When you manage your time poorly, if you’re someone who manages your time poorly, you know that other people don’t love being on the receiving end of that situation. So, it leads to unnecessary conflict. It leads to a negative impact on your work relationships with your colleagues because people can’t rely on you. They can’t trust you in the way that you want to be able to have people rely on you and trust you.

You know, I would slip into really avoidant patterns with people. I wouldn’t want to communicate the bad news that I wasn’t gonna finish something on time. Or, I just wouldn’t know that I wasn’t going to finish it on time, because I was so bad at estimating how long things would take me. And I drastically underestimated how long something would take.

So, I wouldn’t communicate properly. Or, if I finally got the idea that it was going to take me longer than I thought it was going to, and I was going to turn something in late, I would just hide. I was really not skilled at having uncomfortable conversations with my colleagues, with my supervisors. I would just put my head down, and try and finish an assignment as quickly as possible. And, I wouldn’t communicate the bad news.

Now, in hindsight, I fully understand that this is not the way to go about handling this situation. I understand that what people crave, more than anything, is certainty. So, in the best-case scenario, you’d make a promise to deliver something, and you would deliver it, when you say you’re going to deliver it.

But if that’s not going to happen, instead of putting your head down and hiding, and just trying to get it done and turning it in late. Thinking that turning something in late is better than communicating bad news; when you have no work to turn in. I now know, that if you create certainty for people, that that is what people crave. Rather than getting something late, and you’re making them experience all of that uncertainty while they’re waiting.

So, these were all the things that I was doing in my role as a big law associate, that really led to me having a less than desirable experience. Now, if you’re in this spot right now, I want to encourage you just make this list from a place of curiosity, not from a place of judgment. All right? You don’t need to use this as an exercise to beat yourself up.

I could sit here, still to this day, and have a ton of shame over how I showed up in that job. But I don’t, because I recognize that I was really lacking the skills that I needed to thrive in that environment. I’ve since learned the skills that are necessary to thrive in that environment. I just didn’t have a lot of the tools that you needed, in order to do that job really well.

Now, that doesn’t make me wrong or bad for lacking them. And I’m so glad that I was able to find those tools and harness them, and learn them and master them, so I can thrive doing what it is that I do now. In fact, they’re probably even more necessary now because I work for myself.

So, you have to be able to hold yourself accountable, and be disciplined and follow through, because you don’t have the threat of someone, you know, laying down the law, or you know, coming down hard on you with a hammer, in order to keep you accountable. You don’t have fear as a motivating force, you just have to be disciplined.

I’ve since gone on to learn all of these skills and these tools, and that’s what I teach my clients to master. Now, hopefully they come to me and it won’t be too late for them. They’re able to turn it around faster than I was able to just doing this, when left to my own devices having to teach myself.

I say all of this, though, to say that you can tell this story, and you can assess your role and take ownership over the parts that you’ve created, that have led to a less than desirable situation without all the self-blame, and the self-criticizing, and really beating yourself up, and coming down hard on yourself and making yourself feel terrible. All of that’s optional.

You could just take ownership over the role that you’ve played, that you’ve had in creating a less than ideal situation. And the reason you want to do this is to be a truth teller. Because when you’re in a state of victimhood, when you’re in that state of blame, you’re normally only giving lip service to one side of the equation, right? You’re not telling both sides of the story.

I don’t want you to do that; I want you to be a truth teller. I want you to own the parts that you’ve played in creating a less than ideal environment for yourself. That led to you not loving where you’re at, and lead to you wanting to leave, alright?

There’s nothing that’s gone wrong, necessarily, you’re just owning the role that you’ve played. It’s not all “their fault.” You’ve played a part, as well. It’s okay for you to own it, alright?

And then step three, is appreciate. Appreciate what the position offered you. Maybe, it’s the salary that you received. Right? That was a big one for me. I was so appreciative of earning a really significant amount of money.

Well, at least at the time, for me it was very significant. It was much more than I would have ever made doing criminal defense work right out of law school, especially at the firm that I had been at. So, I was very grateful for that, and very appreciative of the salary.

I was very appreciative of the learning that I was able to do in this role. It was practicing law at such an advanced level, so it really made me a much better researcher, a much better writer. I worked on matters that I had never worked on before. I learned complete areas of law that were wholly new to me.

I actually still nerd out on some of the stuff that I did when I was working in big law. I created my own little special practice in FOIA law, Freedom of Information Act requests, and the litigation that goes around it. I was really young at the time, but I was like the firm’s foremost expert in that area. And it was so amazing to be able to craft an expertise in something, even being very young in my career.

I also got to work on data breach incident responses, and that was so fun. I loved how short those matters were. They have a really quick turnaround; you’re normally only dealing with them for a month or two. Unlike what you see a lot in complex commercial litigation, which is working on a matter for years and years and years. So, I got to specialize in those two areas.

And I would have never learned anything about those, had I only ever done criminal defense at the firm that I practiced in prior to coming to big law. I also got the opportunity to experience working at a big firm. And that is relevant to me now, for a couple different reasons: Number one, I understand what it’s like to work in a boutique space. I understand what it’s like to work in big law.

So, it helps me relate to my clients now, so much better than I would be able to relate to them had I not had that experience. I’m just able to speak the language. It also introduced me to transactional law, which I had never experienced before. I really don’t think law school gives you that much of an idea of what transactional work is like.

I’m able to relate to my clients that are transactional attorneys, in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to relate to them had I not worked in big law. I also got introduced to coaching when I worked in big law. Had I not gone to big law, I would have never gone down the path of learning about life coaching.

And, learning the impact that it can have on your life. Applying the coaching concepts that I learned from my coaches to my own life, and making those changes. And seeing that other people around me were struggling in the same ways that I had struggled. I would have never been inspired to go get certified and become a coach, so I wouldn’t even have the career that I have now, had it not been for me working in big law.

I also am so grateful to the people that I met while I was there. I still get invited to go to our firm’s alumni event every year, and that’s such a treat for me. I truly don’t have really anything bad to say about the firm, I think it’s a great firm. I recommend, people that reach out to me and talk to me about working there, I recommend that they go there all the time. It just wasn’t an ideal place for me. And, that’s okay.

I’m so grateful I got to meet the people that I got to meet while I worked there. I’ve stayed in touch with many of them; I look forward to seeing them every year. And I’m really grateful for the woman who runs the attorney development department within the firm.

She’s the one who really sat me down and said, “Hey, Olivia, I think you’re really unhappy here. And you know, you don’t have to stay if you’re really unhappy.” It was the first time that I had ever really acknowledged how unhappy I was. And I’m so grateful for her, just showing me what I was having a hard time seeing myself, because I was so in the trenches trying to succeed. Trying to prove something both to myself, and other people.

I was so really wrapped up in being concerned about what other people thought of me, that I wasn’t able to see my own experience there. And to see that I didn’t really love it, and to see that it wasn’t what I wanted. So, I’m so grateful that I had some really amazing people in my corner supporting me, to help encourage me to make the decision that was right for me.

Now, once I did this assessment, once I went through and accepted the experience and the environment for what it was, and I took ownership over my role in creating a bad or less than ideal situation, and I appreciated all of the amazing things that the job offered me, I was ready to leave from a clean space.

And, that’s exactly what I did. I made a really great decision. It was the decision that was right for me; to go back to the law firm that I had worked at during law school. I wanted to go back and practice criminal defense. I wanted to return and be part of the team that I had spent years with when I was a law clerk prior to graduating from law school and passing the bar exam. And, I was so excited to go back there and really thrive.

That was the right decision for me at that time. I also knew that I wanted to start this business. And, at the time I was a little delusional, I thought that I would be able to easily do both. It turns out that trial work and starting your own business don’t really go hand-in-hand with one another. That was just another learning opportunity for me.

And I’m going to talk about how I completed the same process for that next firm, in just a second. But I did get myself to a place where I wasn’t able to love it before I left it, but I was able to get myself to a clean space where I didn’t leave from a state of victimhood, a ‘woe is me’ mentality. I was able to just accept, own, and appreciate, and move on. Okay?

That’s what I want you to do. So, if you’re thinking about leaving, I want you to walk through this exact same process: Accept the job for what it is. Accept the experience for what it is. Describe it in the most neutral way possible. No opinions, no judgments, just describe the facts. Then, take ownership over the part you played in creating the experience you had. All right? You don’t have to beat yourself up when you do this, but you just want to be really honest. What were the things that you did that contributed to a less than ideal situation? Just take ownership of those. And then lastly, appreciate what was good about the experience. That’s how you leave from clean space.

All right, I’m going to walk through one more example. When I left my last law firm, very candidly, up until the point that I decided to leave from a clean space, I was in quite a state of outrage. I wasn’t getting paid on time. And as you can imagine, that was really impacting my livelihood and my ability to provide for myself. I’m a single gal, so there’s no one else over here footing the bill for my life, other than me. So, things were really rocky.

I had gone back to work at the criminal defense firm, after I worked in big law, with the impression that I was going to have a bigger stake in running things. And, I ultimately did. I thought I was going to have more autonomy than I ultimately had. I thought I was going to be able to be in control of more things, and make bigger decisions that would change and impact how the firm ultimately was run.

It turns out, when I got back there, that wasn’t really the case. So, I had a lot less authority than what I had envisioned having. And, I had some pretty strong opinions on how the firm was being managed. I worked for a really phenomenal trial attorney, but he’s not the best business owner. And I still love him and care about him deeply, it’s just not his strong suit. That’s okay.

If you are in a position where you’re less reliant on really consistent, reliable income, then you get to work there and have a ton of fun and work on the best cases. And if you’re able to weather that storm a little bit differently than I was able to, it’s really not that big of a deal.

Leading up to my ultimate decision to leave, I was in a state of outrage. I wasn’t coaching myself. I had many of the thoughts that I mentioned to you at the beginning of this episode; like, you can’t run a business this way, this is totally unfair, I don’t deserve this, I deserve x, y, and z instead. And it led to me feeling really outraged and frustrated, and slighted and all of these negative emotions.

And then finally, one day, I caught my thought error. And the thought error was that I was telling myself, “You can’t run a business like that.” It turns out, you absolutely can run a business like that, because he did run a business like that. And, he had run a business like that for a long time. So, this wasn’t really news to me. I knew to expect it to be a bit rocky when I was returning there, I just had underestimated my ability to tolerate the rockiness.

So, I went through this process, and I realized what was true. And what was true in that moment, was that he gets to run his business however he wants to, and I get to choose what I tolerate. I made the decision that I didn’t want to tolerate it anymore, and I decided to walk through. Rather than leave in a state of victimhood, I got myself to clean space.

I went through and I accepted the situation for what it was, which was that I would always get paid, but not on time. And for me, that didn’t work. That didn’t work to support the lifestyle that I wanted to live. And, I wanted more financial stability than that.

Now, I also appreciated that my decision was going to be to leave and to start my own business. And that it was going to probably be a much rockier road starting my business, in the short term, than if I just stayed put and relied on another person to pay me a salary, like I had been when I was working there. So, even though the income wasn’t dependable, it did always come through.

Whereas going off and working for myself, like there are a lot of unknowns there. I don’t believe that now, I believe that it’s very certain; I’ve built a business that is very stable and very consistent. But at the time, I didn’t realize how possible that was. Now, I went through, and I accepted that I wasn’t the sole decision maker. I wasn’t the main decision maker. That it was someone else’s firm. That they get to make and set rules and institute policies that I might not necessarily agree with.

But that is what it is, because it’s not my business. And if I wanted to be the rule maker and the sole decision maker, then I could absolutely do that. But I would need to work for myself in order to create that reality.

I also accepted the pay for what it was. So, I had agreed to take a pretty significant pay cut when I left big law, to go back and work at the firm that I wanted to work at. And I thought I was going to be more okay with taking the pay cut than I ultimately was. So, I accepted that that there was just a certain salary that went along with that job, and it wasn’t in line with my preference to work for that amount of money. I wanted to make more than that.

I saw working for myself is the clear way to do that. So, again, you can see how I go through this. I accept the situation in the most neutral way possible. Right? I did get paid, but not on time. I made X amount. And, I didn’t have the authority to be the final say on decisions about how the firm was run, how the business side of things was administered. So, I couldn’t control firm overhead. I couldn’t control firm spending or budgeting. I couldn’t control any of that; that just was true. That is what it is.

Then from there, I took ownership. In addition to the facts that I just laid out for you, there was also a decent amount of tension. Because while I had been away, I had been learning these coaching tools; I had learned how to speak up for myself. I had learned how to be less of a people pleaser, and how to set boundaries, and say no, and advocate for the things that I believed in.

So, I had come back to an environment that really had expected me to be like I had once been to be a people pleaser, to be the person who had no boundaries. And, I wasn’t the same person anymore. So, it created a decent amount of tension, right? They wanted me to be one way, the way that they had known me to be when I worked there previously. And, I was just a completely different person.

There was tension, there was some friction, as a result of that. And I recognized that I had created that. I had shown up and been different in this role upon my return, than I had been when I worked there originally. And, I wasn’t going to apologize for that. And, I certainly wasn’t going to change it.

I wasn’t going to go back to the old way of doing things, where I was martyring myself, and self-sacrificing, and abandoning myself, and people pleasing, and taking care of everyone else, and making myself my last priority. I wasn’t going to go back to that. But I did recognize that it was different than what they probably expected from me, and that it led to increased tension.

So, that was the part that I had to own in the scenario. I also needed to own that I made some decisions about cases that weren’t wise, as far as financial firm decisions go, and that that also contributed to the firm not being as financially successful. I worked on, essentially two pro bono cases while I was working there, over the course of the year that I was back.

And had I been making sounder business decisions, I would have turned those two cases down. I wouldn’t have done friends of mine favors and agreed to take them on. I would have been focused, specifically on the numbers. So, just like I wanted other people to be specifically focused on the numbers, I should have been willing to walk the walk of that, myself.

And, I hadn’t been. I had done things as favors, to be nice, to be agreeable. It was really the same behavior that other people were exhibiting, and I was complaining about that, and yet I was doing it myself. So, I had to take ownership of that.

Now, step three; appreciate the experience for what it offered you. I’m so, so grateful I was able to leave big law and go back to the firm that really felt like my home. I’ve had so many people tell me that it was a mistake for me to go back there, and I fundamentally disagree with them on that. I was really struggling with Adderall addiction when I worked in big law, in order to pull all-nighters and work around the clock, and stay on top of my work. Which, spoiler alert, I’ll tell you, it didn’t work. It didn’t help me stay on top of my work. It really led to me underperforming in a lot of ways. But I was really struggling with Adderall addiction at the time that I left, and it was so amazing to be able to go back to a place that I felt comfortable with. A place that knew me. A place that supported me.

And ultimately, the first person that I ever had a very honest conversation about struggling with Adderall addiction, I had that conversation with my boss at the small criminal defense firm. I trusted him enough to be honest with him about it. I am so grateful that I went back home to a firm that allowed me to show up as myself, even the messy parts, even the flawed parts.

I’m so grateful that I had an employer, and honestly a friend, who cared about me enough to have a really uncomfortable conversation with me. And I am certain, that it is one of the things that served as a catalyst to me overcoming that addiction. I also think, if we were being really honest, I probably knew that I wanted to just be a coach. But I wasn’t ready to completely shed my identity as a lawyer.

I think had I gone straight from working in big law to life coaching, I would have always had that question in the back of my mind; should I have gone back to work at this firm? Should I have tried a little bit harder? Should I have not given up so easily?

I don’t see myself as having given up, now. But it’s really because I gave myself the opportunity to go back there and practice criminal law as an attorney, not just as a law clerk. And to work on another amazing homicide case, with one of my best friends from law school, and an amazing trial team. I had so much fun working on that case with them. And, I really feel like I got what I wanted to get out of that career.

Both, when I was doing it in law school and after law school, I feel like I experienced the highs of doing trial work. And, I prefer what I’m doing now over that. I loved it when I did it, but I don’t have any regrets about switching to become a full-time coach and a full-time entrepreneur, outside of the legal industry.

I feel like I was able to do everything that I wanted to do, and I feel so confident that I’m in the right position. And, that’s only because I went back. So, I’m so appreciative that I had the opportunity to check that box and see for myself, and then leave from a clean space, and make a decision that was ultimately right for me.

That’s how you do it, my friends. That’s how you leave from clean space:  Go through, accept the situation for what it is, in the most neutral way possible; no judgments, no opinions, just the facts. Decide whether or not it’s your preference. If it’s not your preference, take ownership over the parts that you contributed to, that led to it being a less than ideal experience. And then ultimately, appreciate what it offered you while you were there. Okay?

Following this process, completing this three-part analysis will get you to a clean space. That way you can move on without all the resentment, frustration, victimhood, and blame, that will keep holding you back in the next role. All right? And it’ll have you running away from something you don’t want, instead of running towards something you do.

I hope this helps you with whatever it is you’re quitting; whether it’s a job, or relationship, or whatever the case may be. Follow these three steps, and you’ll leave from a clean place.

All right. That’s what I have for you this week. My friends, 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.