Category: Podcast

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 116. Today we’re talking all about working through confusion. You ready? Let’s go.

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

Hello, hello. How are we doing? So good to talk to you. I just got back from Palm Springs. I hosted my fifth in-person retreat, the Obsessed Retreat, and we had such a riot. 

But now that we have wrapped that up, and done all that incredible in-person work, I’m back to my regularly scheduled programming. I’m so excited about it. It’s been a busy few months over here, but things are finally calm, cool, and collected. Just in time for the holidays, right? I hope your holiday season is off to a good start, mine certainly is. 

I’ve got a little gift for you in today’s episode. I’m talking about one of my favorite topics. We’re talking about working through confusion. Now, there are several reasons why this is such an important topic to talk about. So I want to give you a little backstory or background here, okay? 

First and foremost, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a little while, you already know that I talk a lot on the podcast about the concept of gagging-and-going through discomfort. Okay? 

And all that means is that when you’re experiencing a negative emotion, it comes time to do something uncomfortable. Instead of resisting the emotion, avoiding the emotion, running for the hills and seeking instant gratification and temporary comfort, you need to gag-and-go through that discomfort. You have to feel your negative feelings on purpose and take intentional action in spite of and despite them. Okay? 

Now, one of the most common emotions that I see people avoid happens to be confusion. They start to feel confused and then they avoid it. I know this is true for myself as well. As I’ve studied myself … once I got into coaching, and I’ve continued to do that since 2017, since I first found this modality to help change my life … I started to pay attention to where I would indulge in inaction. Where I wouldn’t move forward. Where I’d freeze and hold myself back. 

And I started to discover I have patterns. We all have patterns. And those patterns come in the flavor of avoiding particular negative emotions. Now, a lot of us avoid similar emotions, but some people are more avoidant of certain emotions than others. This is definitely true for me. Like nervousness, I don’t avoid that much. I tend to work through that pretty easily. 

But confusion for me shuts me down, or it typically has in the past until I started to study myself. And now I know how to spot my patterns, my avoidant tendencies when I start to engage in them, and I’m able to interrupt the cycle very quickly. All right? 

So I know this is true for myself, that confusion has been a particular pain point for me when it comes to avoiding negative emotion and the impact that that has on the results that I create in my own life. Okay? I have a history of avoiding this feeling.

And the way that I avoid it is instead of working through what I’m confused about, I do something else that isn’t confusing to me. Right? So I’ll be sitting, thinking through something. It will get uncomfortable. I’ll begin to feel confused. I don’t like how that feeling feels in my body. And then I’ll pick up my cell phone and I’ll scroll on social media, or I’ll text a friend, or I’ll do something else work-related that isn’t confusing at all to me, that I have a lot of clarity and certainty around.

And that’s a really quick way for me to escape that negative emotional experience of feeling confused. Now, if you do this, you know that this just makes you stay confused because you don’t solve for what you’re actually confused about. So you jump to something else. The confusion about the original issue just continues on. It remains. 

So when you eventually come back around to that same problem, that same issue that you’re facing, you’re still just as confused as you were before. And you’re in exactly the same spot as you were before, just as confused as you were when you began, having made no progress, right? Because you haven’t worked through what you’re confused about. 

When you experience confusion, if you’re someone who experiences it similar to me, it shuts you down and you avoid it, instead of avoiding it you have to gag-and-go through the confusion. You’ve got to embrace it. But when I talk about gagging-and-going in certain instances, nervousness is a good example … it’s very clear to understand what gagging-and-going means in that situation … You just have to feel nervous and go do it anyway. 

Let’s say you don’t like public speaking. You feel nervous about doing it. In order to be someone who speaks publicly on stages, at conferences, even in work meetings, you have to gag-and-go through the nervousness. You’ve got to just get up and give your speech or make your statement regardless of how you feel. That’s what it means to gag-and-go.

But in a situation like feeling confused, it’s not as clear to people what it means to gag-and-go through the confusion. I really want to break it down for you even more and walk you through the process of working through your own confusion so you know what it looks like in practice. So this becomes something that you’re able to do for yourself. All right?

It’s really going to be a game changer for you. And the reason it’s a game changer is because when you work through your confusion, you end up making decisions more quickly. You don’t spin and obsess over things without moving forward and deciding. You’re able to stop second-guessing yourself and just move forward, take more action. Which, ultimately, produces better results faster. So it’s an all-around win, across the board. 

What I want you to do now, before I break down this process for you, is I want you to take a few seconds and identify something you’re confused about right now. You can even make a list of several things that you’re confused about if you want. Because you’ll be really surprised with how much clarity you can create for yourself in a really short time using the process that I’m going to teach you in this episode. 

So working through not just one thing, but that whole list that you create for yourself about things you’re currently confused about, it actually won’t take you very long to work your way through it. Go ahead, you can pause this episode. Take a few seconds to identify a couple things that you’re confused about right now. Now, you want to be as specific as you possibly can be when you’re identifying what it is you’re confused about. 

When this is happening in real time, unlike in this episode where you’re manufacturing a list about things you’ve been confused about up till now, when this is happening in the moment and you’re experiencing confusion, you want to get as specific as you possibly can when you’re experiencing that confusion. 

In this instance, as you’re going through this episode and completing this exercise with me, you want to get as specific about what you’ve been confused about. All right? If you keep it vague, it’s harder to work through the confusion.

So think of the issue that you’re confused about and ask yourself, what exactly is it that I’m confused about with regard to this situation? Make sure you really pinpoint it. 

Now, here’s what you’re going to do. Take the first thing on your confusion list, and instead of avoiding thinking about it, force yourself to think about it. Sit in the confusion instead of doing something to escape it. Don’t give yourself the distraction. 

When you do this, when you create space for yourself to think about the things you’re confused about … one thing at a time, by the way … you’re left with only two choices when you do this. The first choice is that you do absolutely nothing with the time. You just spin and stay confused. Okay? You let your brain wander. You’re going to bring it back, sort of like a meditation. But you don’t actually work through your confusion, you just spin. 

The second option, which is the option that I advise, is that you make use of that time that you’re giving yourself to think about the thing you’re confused about, and you force yourself to come up with answers to what it is that you’re confused about. Okay? 

Now, what you will notice when you do this and you are confronted with these two options, you will notice that confusion is certainly uncomfortable, but there is nothing more uncomfortable than doing nothing with your time. I love to say, and this is a quote that’s common for a reason, “the world abhors a vacuum.”

So if you give yourself empty space and time to think about the things you’re confused about, and you don’t give yourself a way out of the confusion, you just force yourself to sit in it and think through it and not distract yourself by doing something else that’s more comfortable in that instant, you will work through your confusion.

Because between wasting your time and working through the confusion, you will choose to do something more productive than just waste the time making absolutely zero progress. That is the most uncomfortable thing out of all of the options involved. So you will choose to work through the confusion. 

When you give yourself the space and time … and this doesn’t have to be a long time, just a matter of a couple minutes … but when you give yourself that space to think through the issues you’re confused about, one at a time, your brain will start to work through the confusion, offer you ideas, and will actually begin to solve for the confusion and create clarity for yourself instead. 

And once you have that clarity, you’re able to move forward. What you’ll notice here is that when you isolate your focus, you remove all those distractions, your brain will offer you ideas pretty quickly. Okay? And this is so exciting and so wonderful that our brains offer us this ability to come up with those ideas so quickly. But we have to give our brains the space in order to let that happen naturally. Okay? 

If you don’t give your brain the time and space to work through that process, it won’t engage in the process. So you’ve got to give it some room to breathe and think in order to offer you ideas.

Things to be on the lookout for as you’re going through this process; working through confusion, giving yourself some time and space to think through the things you’re confused about and let your brain offer you up answers. 

As you identify options, if you’re having a hard time choosing. Question, do you not like the options available to you? I always tell my clients, “You always have options. I just can’t promise you that you will always like them.” Sometimes we want there to be an option that’s not actually available to us. I call this a “false third option”. So check in with yourself.

If you’re spinning a lot, are you desiring a false third option? An option that’s not actually available to you? That may cause you to spin. What you need to do if that’s the case, is make peace with your dissatisfaction and just decide between the options you actually have available to you; all of which you don’t particularly love. That’s okay. Decide anyway. 

Are you frustrated about limitations impacting your decision? This is something I’ve been talking a lot about lately. Frustrated about things like limited resources or competing resources. Do you have multiple things vying for your time, attention, or money? Is that frustrating you? Do you wish that you had unlimited resources? 

The fact that that isn’t your reality is causing you to be frustrated and allowing you to stay stuck, frozen, and not make a decision and move forward because you’re arguing with reality. What do you need to accept in order to work through that frustration, so you can work through your confusion and make a decision? 

An example of this might be being frustrated that you don’t have the amount of money you want at your disposal to pay off all of your debt, invest financially the way you want to invest, and buy all of the things that you’d prefer to buy for pleasure, experiences or items that you want to purchase. Being frustrated about that might have you staying stuck, not moving forward, not making a decision about what to prioritize. 

Will you pay off the debt? Will you invest first? Will you spend your money on the things that bring you pleasure? You have to decide. You have to work through that confusion. 

Identify the options that are actually available to you. Make peace with your dissatisfaction with those options, if that’s how you’re feeling. And then force yourself to come up with clarity, and work your way out of that confusion by giving your brain the time and space, just a few minutes, to think through what it is you’re specifically confused about and come up with an answer. 

Another thing to be on the lookout for when you’re working through your confusion and making decisions is, are you worried about choosing the wrong option? If you are worried about that, that is a fear that so many people have when it comes to making decisions. Solve for that too. Solve for the worry.

What will you do if things don’t go the way that you want them to go? Force yourself to answer that question as well, so you can work through the worry as you work through your confusion. Get clear on what you’ll do if that “worst-case scenario”, or a not-great-case scenario happens. What will you do? How will you navigate that moment? 

As you create clarity there, you’re going to help yourself work through the confusion and the bigger picture overall, all right? 

Another hack you can add to your arsenal is that you can give yourself a time limit for making decisions as well. This is going to help prevent you from sinking unnecessary time into making decisions and indulging in confusion, all right? Time that doesn’t give you a positive return on your investment of that time. 

So you can give yourself a limit. You can cap the time you spend working through your confusion, making decisions, and hold yourself to that timeframe. That’s how you’re going to move forward and make decisions much more quickly, instead of indulging in that confusion. Which you probably have a habit of doing if this episode’s really resonating with you. 

Those are some tips that you can use as you work this process, as you work through your confusion. Now, let me walk you through a few examples so you can see what this looks like in practice.

Typically, when I’m coaching my clients, I’m the one that’s creating the time and space for their brains to work through their confusion. Because I ask them a question and then I shut up and just hold space. And force them … I don’t force them against their will … but by holding that space, by not jumping in, by not answering for them and just being quiet after I’ve posed the question, I hold space for their brain to offer them up ideas. 

And people typically feel more beholden in a two-person conversation to come up with an answer to someone else’s question. But this is an exercise that you can conduct with yourself, all by your lonesome, as well. All right? You can ask the question, you can hold space for yourself, and force yourself to come up with the answer by not distracting yourself with anything else. 

So let’s say you’re thinking about raising your rates but you’re feeling confused, confused about whether or not you should do it. And if you do decide to do it, confused about how much you should raise them. 

If this is you, and this is something that you’ve been thinking about and indulging in confusion around, indulging in that, spinning about the decision but not actually making it, not actually moving forward, pause this episode and take just a minute or two and think through this confusion. Work your way through it.

So let’s start with the first part. Do you want to raise your rates? Just take a second. Force yourself to come up with an answer to that question. You either want to or you don’t. Now, a lot of people will stay in confusion because they don’t want to do what comes next, which is to communicate the rate increase to their clients. 

As long as they stay confused about whether or not to increase the rates, they don’t have to do the other uncomfortable thing, which is have the difficult conversation, have that uncomfortable conversation. But postpone that. Separate that action from making the decision, first, and just force yourself to not distract yourself from this question, do you want to raise your rates? 

Things to look at might be, are you relatively full with clients? If you are, that’s a great time to raise your rates. Have you not raised them recently? Has it been a while? Would it allow you to make the money you want to make if you raised them? Would it serve your business? Would it allow you to better serve clients because you wouldn’t have to take on as much work in order to make the money that you want to make? All things to consider, all right?

Answer those questions for yourself and then force yourself to come up with an answer. Will you raise them? Will you not? If you decide to raise them, now force yourself to come up with the answer of how much. Give yourself only a minute or two to come up with this decision, to work through your confusion.

I guarantee, if you decided yes to the first question, should I raise my rates? And now you’re contemplating the second question, by how much? If you don’t distract yourself from that question, your brain will offer you an answer. Don’t question it. Go with that answer and move forward. 

If you come up with an answer that you don’t feel confident around, ask a better question. What’s the amount I could raise my rates and feel relatively comfortable communicating that new rate to my clients? This is what I meant by getting very specific about what you’re confused about. Because it illuminates the path forward. 

So what’s that number for you? Don’t let yourself off the hook. Just come up with a number. This is what I mean by working through your confusion. Create the time and space to answer these questions and force yourself to answer them.

Another example. I work with so many people who are focused on social media marketing for their law practices. Maybe they run other businesses and social media marketing is a component of how they generate revenue and income.

I consistently see people be confused about what they should write in their social media posts. If this is you, you’re just going to take a minute and you’re going to work through the confusion. Sit in your confusion and force yourself to come up with answers. What’s one thing you could write about today? It should only take you 30 seconds to come up with an answer, if not less time than that. 

Once you have an answer to that question, don’t worry about having the “right” answer. Get out of your perfectionism. Put it on the shelf for just a second. Allow yourself to guess. Allow yourself to come up with just one idea. It doesn’t have to be the best idea. You don’t have to identify all of the ideas. We just need to identify one. What’s one thing you can write about today? 

Then, once you answer that question, work through the confusion for tomorrow. What could you write about tomorrow? Identify a different thing to write about. It could be the same thing but in a different way. You get to decide. Trust yourself to have the capability of making that decision. 

Another example for working through confusion would be, maybe you’re confused about how to tackle a project. First, let’s get very specific. Are you confused about how to tackle the entire project? Is that something you actually even need to solve for right now? Or are you confused about simply how to start the project? 

Decide which confusion you want to solve. Either way, create some time and space for yourself and force yourself to come up with the answers. Give yourself permission to just guess. If I were going to start on this project, where could I start? Take a few seconds. Your brain, if you don’t distract it, will come up with an answer.

You can tackle mapping out the whole project. If I was going to tackle this project, how would I go about doing that? Start to finish. Hold some time and space for yourself. Force yourself to come up with some answers. 

I talked about this a little bit earlier on, but another example that I typically see people be confused about is what to do with the money that they have. Are we paying off debt? Are we investing in it? Are we spending it on things that we want to spend it on, outside of investing and paying off debt? 

And if you’re making those decisions, how will you go about doing it? What amounts will you devote to these different endeavors, to these different goals? What’s the schedule that you will go about paying off debt or investing? How frequently will you do these things? Where will the money go if you’re investing? 

Identify all of the different small, ancillary things that you’re confused about. All of the small decisions that you need to make in order to inch your way forward and make progress. Get as specific as you possibly can. 

And then check in with yourself. What is it that you want to do here? Now, you may have some frustration around competing or limited resources, wanting to do all of it all at once as fast as you possibly can. That’s not going to be available to you. You’re either going to have to spread your financial resources amongst different things, which will make all of your goals be achieved more slowly. That’s not a problem if you don’t think it is. 

If you want to achieve each goal as quickly as possible, you’re probably going to have to go one by one and prioritize. So which thing is most important to you? Again, there are no right or wrong answers here. You just have to work through your confusion and come up with an answer that works for you. 

Now, these are just a few examples. Maybe I identified some of the things you’re currently confused about. Maybe there’s something else. Whatever it is that you’re currently confused about, I want you to test this process out for yourself before going back to the normal course of business in your day. 

After you get done with this episode, I want you to take a second and pick something on that confusion list that you identified earlier in the episode and give yourself just two or three minutes to work through your confusion. Create that time and space for yourself. And force yourself to answer your own questions, just like you would feel compelled if we were in a two-person conversation; to come up with answers in response to my questions. 

Give yourself that space. Hold yourself accountable. Force yourself to come up with those answers, the answers that create clarity for you and allow yourself to move forward. You just need to give yourself space free from distractions, focused time, and your brain will solve what it is confused about. Our brains are so powerful. You just need to trust in yourself that you have the answers within you. And I promise you, you do. 

Whenever my clients tell me that they don’t have the answer to something … They tell me, “Olivia, I just don’t know.” And then I ask them, “Okay, but what if you did know? What if you just guessed? What if you just offered me the first thing that comes to your mind?” … they always come up with something.

Now, at that moment I’m holding them accountable. Because I’m not distracting them and I’m not letting them get distracted. I’m just holding silent space for them to come up with an answer. But they always come up with an answer when I do this. And this is something you can do for yourself as well.

Create the space by sitting in the confusion for a couple minutes. The world abhors a vacuum, so your brain will offer you answers if you give it the space to do so. If you face some resistance and you’re being a little indignant in that energy, force yourself to guess. Force yourself to come up with an answer. It doesn’t have to be the perfect answer. It doesn’t have to be the best answer. It doesn’t have to be the right answer. Just force yourself to come up with an answer. Okay? 

That’s how you work through your own confusion. Go give it a try and see for yourself how much more decisive you become. How much more progress you begin making as a result of that decisiveness. You’re absolutely going to get addicted to this process in the best way. You’re really going to love it. 

And you will have this skill set for life, once you start to practice and master it. Confusion will no longer be an obstacle for you, because you’ll know how to work your way out of it by working your way through it. All right? Have fun with this. 

That’s what I’ve got for you this week. I hope you have a beautiful week, and 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 115. Today, we’re talking all about what to do when you feel frustrated. You ready? Let’s go.

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

Hello, hello, hello. How are you? Long time no talk. I have been doing so many things over here, some for fun, some for work, but I am so excited to get back to talking to you and coming through your speakers. Whether you’re listening in the car or listening through your headphones, taking me with you on a walk, whatever it is, I’m so excited to get the opportunity to chat with you again every week. 

So to fill you in on what I’ve been up to since the last time I spoke to you. I took the most fabulous trip to Italy. I was gone for a couple of weeks in Italy with a group of friends, and I cannot tell you how perfect of a trip this was. 

We bopped all around Italy, but mostly spent time in Rome, Positano, and Ischia. Ischia was new for me. We really got to lounge and relax in tranquillity at the most amazing resort. And then our time in Rome was just absolutely incredible. We had the best time on the Amalfi Coast as well.

I just got to spend so much time with some of my closest friends, talking about life, talking about business. These are friends I actually met in a group coaching program. So if you’re thinking about joining a group coaching program, like either of the ones that I run, this is a little push and incentive to get you into a space where you’re surrounded by like-minded people. 

Being able to go on vacation with people who are working on the same things I’m working on, who have the same goals that I have, who share a similar way of looking at the world, it was just so delicious. 

And then, after my time in Italy, I got back, I was in Michigan for a hot second, and then I headed on down to Austin, Texas. I got to speak at ClioCon. And a lot of my clients were at ClioCon. I got to spend some juicy, amazing time with them in person and got to meet a whole host of new people as well.

If you’re tuning into the podcast for the first time because you met me at ClioCon, welcome. I’m so excited to have you here listening. And I’ve got a great episode for you this week.

So this is a framework that I came up with in a client session recently. I’ve thought about this for a while, but I hadn’t articulated it quite in the way that I’m about to articulate it for this episode. But today I want to talk about what you can do when you feel frustrated. How do you navigate your frustration? 

I want you to think about something that you might be feeling frustrated about right now. Get really clear on that in your mind. What’s the situation that you’re encountering where that frustration is coming up for you? Now the first thing you want to do when you’re feeling frustrated is just get clear as to what’s causing your frustration.

Remember, your thoughts are what cause you to feel frustrated. So check in with yourself. What are you thinking? And the reason that I want to really explore frustration today is because I want you to see why frustration is a problem and how you typically respond to it. So we’re going to walk through just creating awareness to begin with. All right?

So there’s a situation that you’re feeling frustrated about. Maybe there’s a lot of situations that you’re feeling frustrated about. I tend to find that people who feel frustrated typically feel frustrated pretty frequently. So think of one or a handful of situations that you’re experiencing frustration with right now and then get clear.

We always start by separating out the facts. What are the facts? What happened? What’s the scenario that you’re experiencing that you’re encountering right now? What did someone do or what did they say or what didn’t they do or what didn’t they say? What are the facts? Get as clear on those as you possibly can.

Then get really clear on the thoughts that you are thinking about those facts. Those are the thoughts that are making you feel frustrated. Now my guess is your thoughts are going to contain a lot of “should” thinking. “They shouldn’t be doing this. They should be handling this differently. I wouldn’t do this if I were them.” That’s a big one when we’re expecting ourselves from other people. 

“I can’t believe that they’re doing this.” That normally makes me feel a little more outraged than frustrated, but that might be what’s coming to mind for you in this situation. “It shouldn’t be happening this way. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.” That might be another thought that you’re thinking when you’re encountering this situation. But there’s probably a lot of “should” thinking coming up for you based on how you’re feeling at the moment. 

Now before you work on changing your thoughts, which is going to be something that I ask you to do in a second, I want you to see why frustration is a problem for you. The way we can see that it presents as a problem is based on how we respond when we’re feeling frustrated. What do you do when you feel frustrated? How do you show up? What’s your typical course of action when you’re feeling this way? 

I find that my clients typically dwell a lot. They end up arguing with reality, meaning they argue with the experience that they’re encountering. They argue with other people’s behavior. You focus on what other people are doing and you think that they should be doing things differently, which is what I mean by arguing with reality.

And you devote a lot of energy to wishing that the person would do something different than they are. You really do take issue with their behavior. 

You probably end up stewing a lot. Maybe you complain internally. But you’re just devoting way too much time to what another person is doing, how they’re showing up, how they’re behaving. 

You might also, in addition to dwelling and stewing and just spending time mulling it over and vacillating on it, you might also respond negatively. Maybe you react when you’re feeling frustrated and you lash out. You actually take your frustration out on other people. 

Maybe you complain to them or to other people, but probably to them. You tell them what they should do instead. You try to control their behavior. Maybe you end up giving them ultimatums or making threats. You tell them what they’re doing wrong. You argue with them. You criticize. Maybe you are mean back.

Ultimately, through all of these different actions, you end up showing up in a way that’s really not aligned with how you’d probably prefer to show up in your relationships with other people or in the exchanges that you’re dealing with day in and day out. 

And you can think about the different situations that you might be experiencing frustration in right now, all right? Maybe it’s in your professional life. Maybe you’re feeling frustrated with someone you supervise. How do you show up when you’re feeling frustrated with them? Maybe it’s with opposing counsel. How do you show up when you’re feeling frustrated with them? 

Maybe it’s with a boss or a supervisor. How do you show up when you’re feeling frustrated with them? Do you dwell on it? Do you stew? Do you vacillate? Do you spend a lot of energy? Do you take it home with you after work? Do you let it impact your personal life, this frustration? Do you take it out on them? Do you withdraw, or are you mean back? 

Do you criticize them? Are you short with them? Are you passive aggressive? How are you showing up in these moments? Does it impact how you negotiate? Do you not keep a level head? Do you make rash decisions? Do you let your temper get the best of you? Think about how you show up in these moments.

And then also think about your personal life. Who are you frustrated with right now? How do you show up in your personal relationships when you’re feeling frustrated? Do you take it out on the other person? Are you harsh with them? Do you criticize them? Do you complain? Do you nitpick? Do you nag? Are you mean back? Are you short-tempered? Are you passive aggressive? Think about how you show up. 

Is that how you want to show up in these relationships? I’m going to do a whole podcast episode specifically on how you show up in your relationships and how to show up better. But for this episode, I really want you to focus on why frustration is a problem. 

It’s because you end up not showing up and spending your time the way you want to be spending it and being intentional with your responses when you’re feeling frustrated, okay? 

So now that you can see that your frustration probably is not serving you well, what are we going to do about it? Well, like I said a moment ago, the first thing you always want to do is just check in with yourself. What am I thinking in this given situation that’s making me feel frustrated? Get clear on your thoughts. 

And can you change the way that you think? If you change the way that you think, you’ll very quickly change the way that you feel. You’ll dial down your own frustration. 

So a thought that I tend to think is that I can’t control other people’s behavior. Other people have free will. They quite literally get to do whatever it is that they want to do. Now that’s not going to make me feel overjoyed in that situation, but it is going to help me get to accepting or understanding. I might also ask myself, “I wonder why this person’s doing whatever it is that they’re doing?” 

Normally we ask that question in a rhetorical way, sort of in a snarky or a sassy way, “Why are they even doing this?” Which is not going to be very helpful to get you to shift out of your frustration. But when you can tap into sincerity, and answer that question really candidly and honestly and from the most sincere place that you can muster, you will answer that question in a much more productive manner. 

So why is this person doing whatever it is that they’ve just done? And you’ll get access to a whole host of different answers that, again, are going to help you tap into feeling more understanding, feeling more accepting, feeling more compassionate.

Now you don’t have to condone their behavior or whatever activities that they’re engaging in or whatever they’ve done or said. You don’t have to condone it, but you can exercise a little bit more compassion around their behavior when you answer, “I wonder why they did that?” And you can come up with an answer from that sincere place. 

So those are just some quick hacks to start to shift your thinking right away. Another hack, just to give you one more, is to ask yourself, “What might be a reason I would do this?” And that might be a little challenging for you if you’re really stuck in that mentality of ‘well, I would never do this.’ But if you can push yourself to really think outside the box here, you might be able to come up with a situation where you would do it too. 

So we’ll use the example of being late. Maybe someone was late to meet you and you’re feeling really frustrated about it. And you’re thinking, “Man, I would never do that to them.” Push yourself to think of an instance where you might actually be late, all right? Maybe a situation where you feel like something’s outside of your control. 

Now you might be looking at the situation thinking very much so that their situation was in their control and they could have handled it differently. But maybe they were thinking about it differently and they were actually thinking that it was outside of their control, okay? So that might give you a different perspective and help you dial down your frustration. 

But the main focus of this episode is not to talk about shifting our thinking, all right? The main focus of this episode is to help you understand your frustration at a deeper level. Because I deeply believe that our frustration is a defense mechanism, and this manifests itself in two different ways.

I want to talk about what those two different ways are so you can create some greater awareness as to why your brain might be serving you up the opportunity to feel frustrated, because it actually protects you from two different experiences. 

So the first experience is when you’re feeling frustrated, I want to challenge you to dig a little bit deeper. If you think of your frustration as a secondary emotion, and that there’s actually a more vulnerable emotional experience taking place, I want to challenge you to find that more vulnerable emotional experience.

If you can ask yourself, “What’s the most vulnerable emotion I’m experiencing at this moment? And how is my frustration protecting me from it?” So frustration, very much like anger, tends to be a response that we go to when we’re feeling a weaker negative emotion. And this doesn’t mean that you’re weak as a person. I just think of it as a softer, more vulnerable emotional experience. Something that feels a little less comfortable for us than frustration.

Not that frustration is a positive emotional experience, it’s not. But it tends to be a little bit more empowered, or empowering, because it’s a more powerful emotion to be in. Normally we feel sort of large and big and more commanding when we’re feeling frustrated than whatever vulnerable emotional experience we’re encountering in that moment.

So maybe you’re feeling dismissed and frustration is the way that you escape feeling dismissed, okay? So you feel frustrated instead of tapping into that more vulnerable emotional experience. Maybe you feel neglected or ignored or insignificant or maybe not valued or not respected, and you feel frustrated instead. It’s easier and more comfortable for you to access your frustration than to really sit in that negative, weaker emotional experience, that more vulnerable emotional experience.

Maybe you feel sad or hurt and it’s easier for you to access frustration, and to spend time feeling frustrated, than it is to access that sadness or that hurt state of being, all right? 

Maybe you also feel out of control. I know this is true for me. When I’m wishing that a situation was different, I often feel very out of control. Because I quite literally am out of control. I want someone else to behave differently and they’re not, and I don’t control that. 

I don’t love acknowledging my lack of control in a situation, because I tend to feel powerless, sort of helpless, if you will. So it’s easier and more comfortable to feel frustrated than to acknowledge my lack of control in that given moment.

Now what’s powerful about taking some time and acknowledging and accessing the more vulnerable emotional experience that’s going on for you, is that you can really just learn to sit with your negative emotion rather than indulging in feeling frustrated and then reacting unintentionally and negatively from that place of frustration. 

You can just hold space for yourself and acknowledge, “This is what’s coming up for me in this moment. This is how I’m feeling. There’s nothing wrong with this emotion. I’m allowed to sit with it and hold space for it and make room for it. I don’t have to do anything. Nothing’s required of me in response to this emotional experience. I can just let it be here. I can just sit with these feelings and acknowledge them as part of the human experience. This is how I’m feeling right now.”

I find it’s a much more effective avenue to try and shift out of the thoughts that are causing you to feel those more vulnerable emotions, but also to just embrace them. You don’t have to, when you’re working on your mindset, eliminate every negative emotion you experience. You can just hold space for the human experience and that part of the human experience involves feeling negative feelings some of the time. 

Are they caused by our thoughts? Yes. But does that mean we need to eliminate every negative emotional experience we encounter? No, we don’t have to. We can just hold space for how we’re feeling and acknowledge it and recognize we don’t really need to do anything about it. We can just let it be. 

But that gets you out of the frustration when you can acknowledge and identify the more vulnerable, the more raw emotions that are coming up for you. Okay? And just sit with them. Just let them be there.

So that’s the first thing you can do: Create deeper awareness, then sit with those emotions, and recognize you don’t need to indulge in frustration as a way to escape them. 

Notice that your frustration is protecting you from feeling those deeper, more vulnerable, more intimate negative emotions. Then recognize you don’t need to indulge in the frustration in order to escape them. You can just give yourself permission to feel them on purpose all the way through. Okay?

The second thing that I want you to be aware of is that frustration can also be a defense mechanism from doing what you need to do in order to remedy a situation. What I see with people is they will often indulge in feeling frustration because they’re in a situation where one of two things can happen. 

They can try and control another person’s behavior, which is very ineffective, right? But they’re hoping that the other person will take a different course of action, because if the other person behaves differently, then it saves them from having to do the uncomfortable thing that really is their work to do. Like setting a boundary, for instance. 

We will often take issue with another person’s behavior and think that they need to behave differently because so long as we take issue with their actions and think they need to do something differently, we don’t have to address what we need to do, the action that we need to take, which is setting a boundary, saying no, protecting ourselves. Focusing on what’s within our control and spending our attention and energy there. 

That’s the uncomfortable stuff. That’s where rubber meets the road when it comes to practicing the gag-and-go, right? You might have to feel guilty and take a particular course of action because it creates the situation that you ultimately want to create. And it’s the only way to do it within your control. Because, like I said earlier, we can’t control other people’s behavior.

It’d be amazing if we could. We simply can’t though. So you can want other people to be different, and that’s going to keep getting you a negative result. Because people aren’t going to behave differently, because we can’t control them. They’re going to do whatever it is that they want to do. And people tend to act in conformity with the way that they typically act. 

So if it’s how someone typically behaves, you can expect more of that from them. Expecting them to behave differently is sort of the definition of insanity here, right? But we’ll keep arguing with their behavior because it is a distraction from us focusing on what we really need to do, which is focus on our own behavior. Focus on what’s within our control, and then take that course of action, which, again, is uncomfortable.

Maybe you have to feel worried that they won’t respond favorably. Maybe you have to feel sad because you’re going to walk away from a particular situation. Maybe you have to feel the fear of missing out, that FOMO, by taking a particular course of action. Maybe you have to feel selfish that you’re putting yourself first and you really don’t want to do that. Or afraid that there’s going to be some negative ramification by you taking the action that’s within your control. 

So go back to that issue that you’re encountering where you’re experiencing frustration right now and check in with yourself. It could be a combination of these two things or it’s one or the other. But is your frustration protecting you from a more vulnerable emotional experience? If so, what is that? 

And can you just sit with that more vulnerable emotional experience, that more intimate emotional experience, and just let it be there? Can you create additional awareness and compassion for yourself that that’s what’s coming up for you? That that’s what’s going on? 

And then, the second leg of this, are you taking issue with someone else’s behavior? Because so long as you focus and take issue with their behavior, you really don’t have to focus on your own behavior and on doing the uncomfortable thing that’s actually within your control.

Now, is it uncomfortable to gag-and-go and do what is within your control? Yes, but it’s also more empowering to focus your energy there. So being in a state of frustration is really disempowering. You can see it’s disempowering because you don’t show up with intentionality. It’s also disempowering because you’re focusing on something that’s outside of your control.

So it will always be more empowering to focus on what is within your control. Even if it’s uncomfortable to do what’s within your control, it will be a more empowering experience moving forward for you, which is what I want for you. That’s my goal for you, by you listening to this podcast and me teaching you the things that I teach you in the course of these episodes, I want to empower you. 

And the way that we empower ourselves is to focus on what’s within our control, and to take action in furtherance of those issues, what’s within our control, putting that into practice and moving forward from that place. 

So check in: Is it the first one? Is it the second one? Is it a combination of the two? How will you navigate your frustration moving forward? Will you, number one, just allow yourself to experience those more vulnerable emotions and be at peace with them, accept them, embrace them as part of your human experience? 

Or will you recognize your frustration’s protecting you from doing the uncomfortable thing? Will you resist the urge to indulge in frustration as a defense mechanism from doing the uncomfortable thing? Will you identify what it is you need to do? 

Identify the negative emotion you need to embrace, then gag-and-go your way through it by taking that intentional action, feeling the discomfort that comes with it, and moving forward on your own terms by controlling what you control, which is always just yourself. All right? 

This is a way to really understand and navigate your frustration and move forward in a more intentional and a more healthy manner. I hope this helps you with whatever situation you’re encountering, that you’re experiencing frustration around right now. 

Go put this into practice. Make a decision on which one you will do; path one or path two, or a combination of the both. And see how it changes how you handle your frustration moving forward. This is going to be a game changer for you.

All right, my friends, that’s what I’ve got for you this week. I hope this helps you. I hope you have a beautiful week, and 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 114. Today, we’re talking all about when something bad happens. 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 fulfilment. 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 today? I hope your week is off to a good start. I am really excited to talk to you about today’s topic, when something bad happens.

And if you will notice, the title of this podcast episode, “bad” is in quotation marks because I want you to remember that “bad” is subjective. It’s a thought. It’s not a fact that something “bad” happens to you.

There are the facts of what happened and then there’s your opinion about it, that it’s something that is bad. But there are things that will happen to us in our lives that we will want to think is bad, or are bad, okay? There are going to be circumstances that we’re not going to want to think are good. 

The point of coaching isn’t for you to think that everything is positive, to think that everything is amazing 100% of the time. That’s not realistic. There’s plenty that goes on in the world that I want to think negative thoughts about. 

But you have a choice to make when you encounter something “bad”, when you experience it. And that’s what I want to talk about in today’s episode. This came up recently. I was coaching one of my clients and we were talking about a situation that this client was experiencing, and I noticed that this person had a choice. 

They could continue to argue with the situation and wish that it was different. Really just arguing with reality, and when we do that nothing gets better because we can’t change how someone else behaves, or what someone else does. We don’t have control over another person. All we can control is ourselves.

So when something bad happens to you, I want to give you a framework for how you can navigate these moments. The first step is when something “bad” happens, when you encounter a circumstance that you don’t like, that you think negative thoughts about, what I want you to do from the get go, right off the bat, is decide who you want to be in this situation.

How do you want to respond to it? And you really have one of two choices. The first option is to just dwell on it and to argue with reality and to keep arguing with the situation, the facts as they’ve already unfolded, and you’re just going to stay stuck in your negativity, in the negative story that you’ve immersed yourself in. Nothing is going to get better. All right? 

You’re just going to stay there feeling all of the negative emotion that you’re creating for yourself with your thinking; because facts don’t cause our feelings. Our thoughts about the facts do. And you’re just going to stay stuck in that negative experience. You’re not going to do anything differently. You’re not going to do anything to pull yourself out of it, to move forward. You’re just going to stay stuck. 

So that’s the first option. You can dwell and keep arguing with what has already happened and believe that it should be different than it is. All right? I don’t recommend choosing that option. 

The second option is for you to check into problem solving mode. Okay? And this is going to be focusing on what is within your control. You’re going to do whatever is within your ability to do, and you’re going to move forward. Those are your two options. So I highly recommend you pick the second option. 

Now, if you take me up on this suggestion, and you pick option number two, you encounter a “bad” situation, something “bad” happens, and you decide, “I’m not going to dwell on this. I’m not going to argue with what is, with what’s already come to pass. I’m going to focus on what’s within my control and move forward.”

Then here’s what you’re going to do. The first thing that you’re going to do, after you make the decision of who you want to be in this moment, is separate the facts from the story you’re telling about them. All right? And this is going to help you gain a different perspective. 

So you want to find the circumstance, the true circumstance, just the facts, which are totally neutral until you think your negative thoughts about them. Okay? So you’re going to separate the facts from the story that you’re telling about it. 

And then you’re going to go through the list of thoughts, which that’s all the story you’re thinking about the factual situation, and you’re going to make intentional decisions about which thoughts you want to keep and which ones you want to replace. 

Sometimes we’re going to choose to continue thinking some negative thoughts. We don’t want to see the situation any differently. But other times we’re not going to want to keep choosing to think the negative thoughts. Okay? 

So you’re going to go through, separate the facts from the story you’re telling about them, and then be very intentional with choosing to keep certain negative thoughts and then replace other ones. 

And you can, as you write this out, circle the ones you want to keep and cross out the ones you want to replace. And I think it’s really effective for you to, just in that moment, go through and write out what you could choose to think instead of the negative thought that you want to replace. What’s a slightly better thought you could choose to think. Okay? 

From there, now that you’ve gotten a different perspective on the situation that you’re facing, we can start to move forward. So the first thing you’re going to do after you’ve done that thought work, you’re going to make a list of the things that are within your control. And then you’re going to make a second list of everything that’s outside of your control in this given situation. 

So things that are within your control: How you think about the situation. How you feel about the situation. And then all of the things that you do in response to the situation. And I want you to get very specific. What are all of the things that you can do that you have complete control over? What are all of the actions that you can take, steps you can take to move forward, decisions you can make? List out all of the things that are within your control. 

And then you’re going to go through and make a comprehensive list of the things that aren’t within your control: What other people say. How other people feel. What other people do. Wow, other people think. None of that’s within your control. Anything that’s already happened that you can’t change, that’s not within your control. So you want to get really clear on the things that aren’t within your control. 

And the last step is you’re going to make an action plan for what you’re going to do to move forward. So this is when you tap into problem-solving mode. Based on what’s within your control, focusing all of your energy and attention there, what are you going to do to move forward? Make your game plan and then go execute it. 

When you approach “bad” situations from this perspective, walking through this framework, it’s going to keep you out of victim mode. Out of that victim mentality where you’re really indulging in self-pity. When you’re dwelling and arguing with reality and just immersing yourself in the negative story that you’re telling yourself about the situation that you’re facing. 

You’re really feeling sorry for yourself. It’s very, “woe is me,” thinking that it shouldn’t be happening the way that it’s happening and then just continuing to take issue with how it’s happened. 

You’re not going to get to a better place if that’s how you approach these “negative” situations. All right? Do you want to be a dweller, or do you want to be a problem solver? If you want to be a problem solver, then you’ve got to approach this by going through getting your mindset right, first and foremost. 

By separating fact from the story you’re telling about it, eliminating the thoughts that aren’t serving you, and then making that list of what’s within your control and what’s not within your control. That’s going to help you release your attachment to trying to control things that you don’t have any control over. Which may sound disempowering, but it’s actually not. 

It’s so much more empowering for you to be crystal clear on what’s within your control and what’s not within your control, and for you to spend absolutely no time trying to control something that you don’t have control over, and focusing all of your energy and attention to what you do have control over. 

And then, because you’ve made the decision to be a problem solver, you’re going to move forward and actually engage in problem solving by doing what you can do to make the situation better. To move forward. To get to a better place.

So let’s walk through a few examples so you can see how this framework applies. All right? The first example we’re going to use is that you’re working for a client and out of the blue, they reach out to you and they let you know that they don’t want to work with you anymore. They want to hire another attorney. They want to hire someone else. They want to go in a different direction.

Do you feel all of this negative emotion come up? Maybe you’re feeling resentful. You’re feeling really rejected, disappointed, offended, angry, hurt. Identify your emotions. Get really clear on what’s coming up, but then see how you’re likely to respond when you’re in all of that negative emotion. 

Are you arguing with reality? Are you dwelling on it? Are you thinking that they shouldn’t have done that? That it’s so unfair? That they should be treating you differently than they are? If you’re dwelling, and you’re arguing with what has already happened, and you’re thinking that they’re doing everything wrong, and that it shouldn’t be unfolding this way, this is where you have to make the first decision. 

Decide who you want to be in this situation. Do you want to be someone who dwells and feels sorry for themselves, takes issue with what’s already happened, and argues with reality and fights the facts? Or do you want to empower yourself? Focus only on what’s within your control, problem solve, and move forward? 

Like I said earlier, I highly recommend you pick option number two. It’s way more empowering. From there, what you’re going to do is separate the facts from the story you’re telling about them. All right?

So the fact is they either said, “I don’t want to work with you anymore,” or they emailed you and said, “I decided to hire a different attorney instead.” Whatever the circumstances, you want to identify that.

Then make a list of all of the thoughts that you’re thinking about those facts. What are you making it mean that they fired you? That they hired someone else to handle their matter, to represent them? 

You might be making it mean that you’re not going to hit your revenue targets, or that you’re not going to be successful, or that it’s going to be harder to hit your income goals, or that they shouldn’t have done this. That it’s really unfair, that they didn’t appreciate you, they didn’t value you, that they’re being disrespectful. Or they’re not being courteous or thoughtful, that you deserve better than this. 

Make a list of all the thoughts, and then you’re going to go through and decide which ones do you want to keep and which ones do you want to replace? You might want to feel hurt. You might choose to feel hurt, and that comes from thinking that what they did was mean, or what they did was hurtful.

Or that after all of the hard work, you’re surprised that they went in this direction. That might not make you feel hurt, that might make you feel more shocked or surprised or caught off guard. But those might be emotions and thoughts that you want to keep. 

But thinking that it shouldn’t have happened or that it’s not fair, those might be thoughts that you’re willing to get rid of. Especially thinking, “It shouldn’t happen,” if it already did happen. I highly recommend getting rid of any of those thoughts. Or that bad things are going to come in the future, that you’re not going to hit the revenue that you want to hit. 

You don’t know that. Just because a client fires you doesn’t mean that you can’t hit your goals. So like I said, go through and identify which thoughts you want to keep, if any, and then which thoughts you want to get rid of. And figure out what you can choose to think instead about the situation that might make you feel a little bit better about that. 

From there, go through and make a list. What’s within your control? What’s outside of your control? You can control how you market going forward. You can control signing new clients; going out networking and developing business. You can control continuing to do work for your other clients so you don’t have a billing deficit. That’s within your control.

You can control how you respond to this particular client. You can get angry with them and argue with them, or you can just release them and let them move on. What’s not within your control? The client’s decision. They get to do what they want to do because they have free will, all right? 

So you can’t control what this individual client does. You can just control what you do. So from that place, make the decision to focus only on what’s within your control and make a plan for how you’re going to move forward.

How are you going to release this client? What will you say in response? How will you wrap up handling their matter? And then, how will you devote your time moving forward in order to tap into that problem-solving energy and focus on bridging perhaps the revenue gap? Moving forward, developing new business, continuing to represent your other clients. 

Make your game plan for how you’re going to proceed and then go execute it. All right?

Example number two. Let’s say a client asks you to write off some of your time. When this happens, decide who you want to be in this moment, in this situation, all right? You can dwell on it, and you can argue with the fact that they asked you to write off some of your time. And you can think, “They shouldn’t have done this. This is so disrespectful. I can’t believe that they did this.” 

Or you can focus on what’s within your control and decide to tap into your problem-solving energy and move forward. Okay? Like I said, I recommend you pick option number two. 

From there, you’re going to separate facts from story. They simply asked you to write off some of your time, that’s the facts. What’s the story you’re telling about it? Some of those thoughts that I just mentioned a moment ago. 

So you’re going to go through and list out all of your thoughts that you’re thinking about this fact. And then you’re going to decide which negative thoughts do you want to keep and which ones do you want to replace? I highly recommend getting rid of the thought, “I can’t believe they asked for this.” 

I would choose to think, “Clients get to ask for whatever they want and it’s my job to set and honor my own boundaries.” Just because someone asks me for something it doesn’t mean I have to oblige. It doesn’t mean I have to give it to them. All right? They’re welcome to ask, and I’m welcome to say no. 

I actually can believe it. I think people like to test the limits, push the envelope, and see what discounts they can get. I think that’s all normal, well and good. It’s not a problem for me. It’s my job to just simply respond and say, “No, I’m not willing to do that.” And then I get to decide if I want to keep working with someone who asks me to write off my time moving forward. 

Now one thought you might be thinking is, “I wouldn’t ask someone else to do this.” That might be a negative thought that you want to keep, because you don’t want to change how you would approach a situation like this if you were the client, not the service provider. All right? So that might be a thought that you want to keep. But there are other thoughts that you can replace. 

So you’re going to go through, make your list of all the thoughts you’re thinking, gain a different perspective, and shift your thinking where it makes sense to shift it. From there, you’re going to make a list… Again, to get some additional perspective… What’s within your control? What’s not within your control? 

You are not able to control whether a client asks you to write off some of your time. What’s within your control is whether or not you grant the request, how you communicate your boundary to the client moving forward, and whether you continue to do work for this client. All right? All of that’s within your control.

From that list of what’s within your control, you’re going to make a game plan for how you’re going to move forward. Maybe you decide to deny the request. To communicate to your client you don’t write off your time, and then set a boundary. 

“If this comes up again, I will conclude representing you. I’ll wrap up the matter, and you can happily go work with someone else. I totally understand if you want to work with someone who doesn’t charge as much as me. That’s definitely within your power, within your right to do so. But this is what I charge, and it’s not open for discussion. If you continue to keep raising it, I’m going to choose to conclude my representation of you.” 

That’s something that’s within your control. So make your game plan for how you’re going to proceed. All right? 

Example number three. You go out for a promotion, or you’re going out for a new job, and you don’t get it. That’s the “bad” thing that happens to you. At this moment, when you get the no, when you get the answer that you didn’t get the promotion or the job that you were hoping to get, decide who you want to be in this moment. 

Do you want to dwell? Do you want to argue with what has just happened, with the news you just received? Or do you want to tap into your problem-solving abilities and focus on what’s within your control and move forward? 

If you choose option number two, and you get out of the “woe is me”, and you’re willing to take action and focus on what’s within your control, then you’re going to separate fact from story. There’s the fact you did not get the promotion. Maybe you didn’t make partner, you didn’t get a raise, you didn’t get a job. Whatever the case may be, find the facts. 

And then, what’s the story you’re telling yourself about them? “I deserved that. I should have got it. This isn’t fair. I have to start all over.” These are all thoughts people think in these situations. So you’re going to go through and decide which negative thoughts you want to keep and which ones you want to get rid of. 

I’ve done an episode on thoughts that have the word “deserving” in them, or “deserve”. I think those are problematic thoughts. I might focus on the fact that I think that I am qualified for a position. That might help me shift out of some of the negative energy that comes from believing I deserve something that I didn’t get and feeling slighted or cheated. Okay? 

I might choose to think, “Instead of believing that it should have happened differently than it did, that it happened for me, even if I can’t see the reasoning why yet, I believe that anything “bad” that happens to me is happening for me.” All right? 

Instead of thinking that you have to start all over, think that you’re not starting from scratch. That you’re able to go after this goal again, but this time with more information. If you evaluate what you did this last time, that didn’t get you the result that you wanted, you can leverage the learning that you get from the evaluation and apply that learning moving forward so you’re actually a step ahead of the game. All right? 

Now, you may choose to keep the thought, “That it isn’t fair.” Whenever thoughts around the concept of fairness come up, I just remind myself that life isn’t fair. Which isn’t a super positive thought, but it is a thought in “bad” situations that I may choose to keep and think intentionally because, like I said, the point of coaching isn’t to think all positive thoughts all the time. 

You get to keep your negative thoughts if you want to. You just want to be really intentional about which ones you choose to keep thinking and make sure they’re not hindering you too severely. Okay? 

Thinking that something’s not fair, if you can also add in and remind yourself that life doesn’t need to be fair and that it often is not fair, that isn’t that bad. Okay? That’s not arguing with reality in the same way that thinking that something should have happened differently than it did, which is really going to keep you stuck in this loop where you’re not moving forward. 

From there, you’ve separated fact from story. You’ve figured out which thoughts are going to keep, which thoughts you want to replace, and you’ve replaced them. Go ahead and make a list of what’s within your control and what’s not within your control.

What’s within your control is whether you go for a promotion or that raise or another job again. You can control how you interview. You can control gathering more information to figure out where you might not have met certain qualifications. How you can approach the situation differently next time, in order to make your case stronger for why you are worthy or deserve that position. Why you’re qualified to have it and fill that role.

You can also just not give up. That’s within your control. Just keep going after it. All right? Working on it, and figuring out where you can improve along the way. You can control your thoughts about it, how you feel about it, refusing to quit, just taking quitting off the table entirely, all of that’s within your control. Which jobs you apply for, how many jobs you apply for, which positions you go after, all of that’s within your control. 

What’s not within your control is whether a particular individual or organization hires you or gives you the money that you’ve requested. You can’t control their decision making. All right? Now you can figure out how they make decisions, what factors they take into consideration, and you can work to bolster your resume, bolster your experience and your background, to better qualify for something. 

But ultimately, you are not in control of their individual decision making. So that’s something you’ve got to release control over because it’s not within your control to begin with.

From there, focusing solely on what’s within your control, you’re going to make an action plan for how you will move forward, how you will solve this problem. What are you going to do that you have complete control over? And then go execute, go implement that action plan. 

Last but not least, I want to talk about when something “bad” happens in your personal life. Okay? When something bad happens in your personal life, the process is exactly the same. 

Let’s say a family member gets sick, or maybe your spouse asks you for a divorce. Decide who you want to be in this situation. You can dwell and you can argue with reality, take issue with what’s happened, think that it should be happening differently than it is. Or you can decide to focus solely on what’s within your control and move forward. 

So separate facts from the story you’re telling about them. Figure out what thoughts you want to keep and what thoughts you want to replace. Make a list of them. Go through one by one. 

If a family member of mine gets sick, I’m going to want to think negative thoughts about this. I’m going to want to feel sad. I’m an only child. One of my greatest fears is my parents getting sick and my parents passing. I don’t want to think happy thoughts if either of those things happen. And I’ve had to work on accepting that I lack control over how my parents age and what their health is like as they get older. 

That’s not something I have control over, so that makes me feel pretty powerless. But that’s a thought that I’m going to choose to keep. Because it is something that’s outside of my control, I don’t get to control how they age. I don’t get to control what they do that factors into how they age, because they’re their own human beings and they’ve got their own free will. All right? 

So I’m going to figure out what thoughts I want to keep, what thoughts I want to replace, and from there I’m going to make a list so I gain some greater perspective over how I can move forward. 

What’s within my control? What’s not within my control in this instance? I’ve worked with clients before who have gotten divorced and they really didn’t anticipate getting divorced. It wasn’t in their game plan. They thought that they were going to be with their partner forever. 

And I can relate to that myself, having not expected certain relationships to unfold the way that they did in my own life. I’ve had to go through this process of figuring out who do I want to be in this situation, and then separating facts from the story I’m telling about them. Figuring out what thoughts are super painful that I want to replace and what thoughts that are negative that I’m willing to keep.

And from there, figuring out what I have control over and what I don’t. I can control how I move forward, what I choose to think about a situation, what emotions I choose to allow and process and sit with, what positive emotions or more neutral emotions I want to cultivate for myself. What I can’t control is what my partner does.

I don’t have control over them, what they ask for, what they want for their own life. Whether we want the same things or not, I don’t have control over that. So in either of these instances, or in whatever situation you’re currently dealing with that you perceive to be “bad”, go through, figure out what’s within your control, what’s not within your control, and then make a game plan for how you’re going to move forward.

How you will problem solve what you will do, that’s only within your control. And then release any attachment to what’s not within your control. This is how you’re going to help yourself feel really productive, even in situations where you feel pretty powerless. Okay? 

You’re going to focus your attention on what’s within your control, make a game plan that focuses solely on that, and then go implement that game plan.

Maybe you can offer some emotional support to a struggling family member. Maybe you can listen to them when they talk about their health concerns or their troubles or their own frustrations. Maybe you can be a caregiver some of the time. Maybe you can pay for some aid. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that these are the “right” things to do. There is no right thing to do, there’s just what you’re able to do. Okay? So focus on what’s within your control and only do that.

If you don’t have the ability to offer caregiving support, that’s okay. If you don’t have the ability to offer financial assistance, that’s okay. If it’s the end of a relationship dynamic instead of the sick family member dynamic, what’s within your control? 

Whether you fight someone, how you fight them going through the process, whether you acquiesce, that’s within your control. What you ask for, what you seek, what you don’t ask for, what you don’t seek, those are things that are within your control. 

Whether you choose to move forward and date or you don’t, you give yourself just time to heal, that’s within your control. Totally up to you. But focus on what you have control over and release your attachment to the stuff that you don’t.

We really want to get you out of that energy where you’re dwelling and you’re arguing with what has already happened, or with what will happen moving forward. That’s outside of your control. Because if anything’s going to make you feel powerless, it’s focusing on trying to control what you don’t have control over. 

That’s really my game plan for you, or my goal for you, is to get you out of that state of mind and that focus, and focus instead on what’s within your power, in your control, and spending your time and energy there. All right? I hope this helps, when “bad” stuff happens, moving forward. Apply this framework. I think it will bring you a lot of peace, and it will be a much more productive use of your time, however you choose to spend that time.

That’s what I’ve got for you this week, my friends. I hope you find it helpful. I hope you have a beautiful week, and 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 113. Today, we’re talking all about the displeasure of instant gratification. 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 good start. I know that you know, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, that I love to have episodes that are inspired by recent coaching sessions.

And this came up on one of my weekly coaching calls. Actually, monthly coaching calls. We do monthly coaching calls inside my Obsessed Retreat community. You get to attend the retreats, and then after the retreats you get lifetime access to monthly group coaching calls.

So I get to meet with that group of individuals once a month, and we coach on literally all the things. Anything that you struggle with in life comes up on our calls. And we had such a robust call. They’re 90 minutes long, so we have a ton of time to get into different topics. We really covered everything.

And one of the things that came up was a topic around one client struggling both with time management and weight loss. So I wanted to share with you something we discussed in that call because I think you will find it really helpful.

It actually may not seem like it, but one of the things that I have noticed and learned both in working through these issues in my own life and with helping my clients with this stuff is that time management and weight loss are essentially the exact same issue.

Now, you’re working towards different goals, I understand that. But the thoughts that you’re thinking and the feelings that you’re avoiding tend to be really similar in both situations. And the actions that you need to take in order to create your desired result are also pretty similar.

So you have to feel deprived of instant gratification, because we’re typically doing something in the short term that’s more pleasurable than what would serve us in the long run. We pick that temporary pleasure over the activity that sets us up for long term success. And if you want to manage your time or lose weight, you need to do the opposite.

You need to forego the instant gratification and do the thing that sets you up for that long term success, right? It’s probably going to be the thing that’s more uncomfortable in the short term, like starting on the task that you planned or eating the healthy option rather than having cinnamon rolls for dinner or anything like that.

You have to forego the more immediate pleasure and embrace the discomfort of doing the “right” thing that gets you your desired result. But so many people find that so hard because they love the pleasure that they get from the activity that they take in the short term. So if you struggle with following through on your plan for the day, you do something else instead of what you planned to do. And whatever you choose to do instead brings you more instant gratification and immediate pleasure.

If you forego eating the egg white omelette, or the salad for lunch, and you’re having a Reuben sandwich or a cheeseburger or pizza or something like that, you’re getting that instant gratification from whatever it is that you’re consuming. If it’s with managing your time, you might be getting instant gratification from scrolling Instagram or LinkedIn or shopping online instead of starting on that work project.

If you need to respond to an email but you pick up your phone and text a friend instead, you’re seeking that instant gratification. And so many people have such a hard time foregoing that instant gratification because they think they derive so much pleasure out of what they do instead of the activity that would set them up for success.

So today I want to talk about the displeasure of instant gratification because I want to give you a different way to think about that temporary pleasure that you think you’re getting when you forego the activity that sets you up for long term success and you choose the more instantly gratifying action.

You’ve probably heard me say this before on the podcast, but your brain loves to lie to you. So when it’s taunting you to try and get you to pick that instantly gratifying activity, it’s telling you how amazing it’s going to be when you make that choice. And then if you make that choice, your brain’s looking for all of the things that are great about that decision; all of the rewards that you’re getting.

And it might be that your brain’s releasing dopamine because you’re getting entertainment or you’re getting sugar or processed flour. You’re getting something that you think feels good and then your brain wants more of it. It’s focusing on the goodness of it, not on the negative aspect of it. So when you’re choosing, or about to choose, instant gratification over that action that sets you up for long term success, what I want you to do is zoom out.

Because your brain is not focused on the full story. You have to intentionally direct it to see the complete picture. There’s going to be pleasure in instant gratification, but there is also displeasure in it. And if you focus on the displeasure, you’re going to be much less likely to opt for that path of instant gratification and temporary pleasure, because it’s going to be less pleasurable to you because you’re looking at the full picture.

So let me explain what I mean. Okay, for instance, I remember when I used to procrastinate my go-tos. I used to scroll Instagram, and at the time I smoked cigarettes. I don’t anymore, but I would smoke cigarettes and scroll Instagram. And sometimes when I was really in a procrastination spiral, I would play games on my phone.

Every so often I would also sit down to eat dinner, and I would know that I would need to work later, but I would turn on the TV and watch an episode of something while I would eat. And then I’d watch another episode and another episode and another episode. So those were a lot of my go-to ways that I would buffer and procrastinate to avoid the work that I was doing.

And yes, part of doing those activities was more enjoyable than doing the work that I was dreading and actively avoiding. But if I’m being completely honest, doing those activities, buffering in those ways, it wasn’t a 100% positive experience because I couldn’t completely put the work out of my mind, right?

It was still there lurking around the corner, hiding beneath the surface. It was still there. It was like that angel and devil on my shoulder. So the angel on my shoulder was reminding me that there was work that I was supposed to be doing, that I was neglecting and avoiding. And that voice wouldn’t go away. It was always there whispering to me.

So even while I was doing the activity that was providing me with that instant gratification that I was doing in order to avoid my work, there was a lot of negative emotion. Even though I was getting the instant gratification of completing or participating in that activity.

I would feel guilty while I was scrolling Instagram, or while I was having a cigarette. I would feel pressure while I was scrolling Instagram, or while I was playing a game on my phone, or while I was watching a TV episode. I would feel ashamed that I was avoiding my work and I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing.

So we’ve got the negative emotion that you’re experiencing while you’re avoiding the work, while you’re procrastinating, while you’re indulging in that instant gratification. And then, when it finally comes time to work on the work that you’ve been avoiding, you also have more negative emotion, stress, anxiety, more shame, more guilt for working on something late, more pressure, that sense of “behind” because now you’re late on whatever it is that you were working on.

And this is what I want you to start to focus on. All right? I want you to start to focus on the negative aspect of avoiding the work you say you’re going to do. Okay? So instead of focusing on the pleasure that you get when you’re procrastinating, and the enjoyability of doing the more entertaining activity, I want you to focus on the displeasure of choosing instant gratification. Because it’s definitely there, it’s part of the equation.

So how do you feel when you’re avoiding the work that you said you would do? It’s 50/50 at best. You feel 50% good because you’re doing something that’s more enjoyable than the work that you’re supposed to be doing. But you also feel 50% bad because you are avoiding the work you’re supposed to be doing.

And there’s negative emotion that comes from that because you’re going to be thinking negative thoughts about avoiding the work, about you not doing what you said you were going to do. So it’s only a 50/50 experience at best. It’s not all upside.

And then check in with yourself. How are you going to feel after? How do you feel after? You also feel terrible. So you can feel 50% terrible now and completely terrible later on, when you’re avoiding the task, and you choose to do something else in the moment and then you have to do it later. So 50% terrible now, 50% distracted and entertained, and then completely terrible later on.

Or you can just gag-and-go through the immediate discomfort of tackling that uncomfortable task. So it’s going to be 50% negative; you don’t want to do it. You have to experience the dread and whatever negative emotion you’re avoiding associated with doing the work.

But you’re also going to feel proud of yourself while you’re working on it. And then you’re going to feel completely amazing after it’s done. You’re going to feel proud, accomplished, responsible, dedicated; all those positive emotions that come when you complete an activity. And you’re going to get that delayed and the lasting gratification that comes from accomplishing what you planned to do.

So the choice is really yours. Do you want 50-50 negative at first, and then all negative afterwards? Or do you want 50-50 negative and positive up front, and completely positive afterwards? The choice is up to you. Which one sounds better?

If you’re asking my opinion, I think the second option is by far the better choice. I’d rather feel better about myself and get more done, even if that means gagging and going through a little bit of discomfort on the front end.

This is what I focus on when I’m tempted to avoid something that I’ve told myself that I would do. Because I’m a human, I’m just like you, my brain offers me excuses and reasons why I should choose instant gratification and temporary pleasure over doing what I said I would do all the time. This still comes up for me.

You will never be immune from your brain offering you these tempting distractions, tempting opportunities to choose instant gratification. The thing that I’ve gotten better at is talking myself through those urges. Through those moments where my brain wants me to choose instant gratification and temporary pleasure, and I’m able to course correct and make the more responsible choice, the one that sets me up for long term success. So this is what I do when I’m in those moments.

Instead of just focusing on the instant gratification that I will get from doing the activity that would be buffering, the avoidant activity that my brain’s telling me that I should do, I zoom out and I don’t just focus on the temporary pleasure that I would get from doing that thing, I look at all of the negative emotion I’m going to have to experience if I make that choice, if I choose to prioritize that instant gratification and temporary pleasure. And it makes choosing that option so much less attractive.

I focus on how am I going to feel while I’m avoiding doing what I said I would do. It’s going to eat at me. It’s going to nag me. It’s not going to go away. I’m going to know the entire time I’m avoiding what I said I was going to do. That I should be doing what I said I was going to do. That isn’t going to escape me. I’m going to be constantly reminded of it.

And I hate that feeling, that sense that something’s hanging over my head, that I’m ignoring something that I told myself I would complete.

I also think about how it’s going to feel working on it after I promised myself that I’d have it done. It’s going to feel terrible I know. I remind myself that the only way out of all of that negative emotion… and it’s completely within my control. It’s completely within my ability to avoid all of the negativity of that experience… The only way out of that though, is to go through the process of doing the work that I said I would complete.

I really want you to remember this phrase, “The only way out is through.” So if you’re feeling dread around doing something, the only way out is through. You’ve got to work on what you said you were going to work on, and then the dread will end.

As you’re avoiding it, the dread is going to be there. It’s going to linger. It’s going to hang over your head. If you’re feeling guilty about not working on something, that guilt is going to last for as long as your avoidant behavior lasts. The only way out of it is through.

If you’re feeling confused about how to work on something, how to complete it, the only way out is through. The only way out of your confusion is to sit down, work through your confusion, complete the work, figure out how to do it, and then complete the task.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed because you have so much work on your plate, you’re going to continue to feel overwhelmed while you’re procrastinating, while you’re avoiding, while you’re buffering. The only way out of your overwhelm is to sit down, do the work, and to get through it. The only way out is through.

The same exact thing applies when it comes to weight loss. It really is true. Weight loss is so simple. I used to think that losing weight was so hard, and then I recognized that’s just a thought that we tell ourselves. It’s actually really easy.

The only two reasons that you don’t weigh what you want is because you’re eating the wrong stuff or you’re eating too much of it. It’s one of the two things. You’re eating too much food. Even if it’s good stuff, you’re eating too much of it, or you’re eating the wrong stuff. It’s really easy to evaluate. You get to conduct experiments every single day.

And if you weigh more, then you know what you consumed the day before didn’t set you up for success. You can normally pinpoint what you ate or how much of what you ate, where the issue was. One of the reasons why we eat the wrong stuff that doesn’t support our body goals, or we eat too much of the stuff that doesn’t support our body goals, is because we want the instant gratification of having what we want, and we don’t want to feel deprived.

We get so entitled to that instant gratification. And instead of choosing what’s necessary to have the body and the health that we want in the long term, we choose that temporary pleasure time and time again.

Check in with yourself. What are your thoughts? You’re probably thinking, “I want this. This is so good. This is amazing. I love eating this. I love food.” You love the pleasure that you get from food. Your brain releases a ton of dopamine when you’re eating things that don’t support your long-term goals.

And you’re thinking negative thoughts about the things that you need to be eating that support your long-term goals. “That doesn’t sound good. That’s not as enjoyable. I don’t want to eat that,” those are your thoughts. And then, when you think about not having the food that you’re telling yourself you want so badly, it brings up so much deprivation for you.

We focus on all of the pleasure that we derive when we’re eating the things that we want in the short term, that bring us that temporary pleasure and that instant gratification. But again, I want you to zoom out instead of just focusing myopically on that pleasure.

I want you to focus on the entire picture. And more specifically, on the displeasure of choosing that instant gratification. Because it’s not all upside. Pay attention. How do you feel when you’re eating something that you shouldn’t be eating to achieve the goals that you want to achieve with your body and your health?

You’re going to feel good because you might think that it’s delicious, and you’re feeling entertained by your eating experience. But that’s not the entire picture. You’re also going to feel bad. You’re going to feel guilty. You’re going to feel ashamed because you’re eating something that doesn’t support your long-term goals.

Now move the timeline down a little bit. After you’ve finished eating either the wrong stuff, the stuff that doesn’t support your body goals, or too much stuff, how do you feel after you ate it? Probably regretful. Deprived in a different way. Deprived of the body that you want. Deprived of the health that you want.

And also really disappointed. Maybe ashamed again. There’s a lot of negative emotion in choosing that instant gratification. It’s not that pleasurable of an experience.

So I want you to focus on the bad parts. I also want you to slow yourself down while you’re consuming it. This is something I learned from one of my coaches. Really pay attention to the experience.

Sometimes we start eating something, and we’re bought into the lie that we just love it so much and it’s so, so good. But if you slow yourself down and you really describe it to yourself, do you love the texture? Do you love the flavor? What does it taste like? Is it a little too sweet? Is it a little too greasy? Does it leave grease or residue on your hands? Does that kind of gross you out?

The feeling of it on your fingers, the feeling of it in your body, how do you feel while you’re eating it? How do you feel after you’re eating it? Do you feel energized? Do you feel tired? Do you feel a little nauseous?

I just ate some junk food on a road trip. We stopped at a gas station on our way down to Louisville from Detroit, and we grabbed a couple of things from the gas station. I normally don’t eat stuff like that, stuff that is packaged and processed like that. And I paid attention. I didn’t have a lot of it, but I had a few bites. I paid attention to how I felt the rest of the day.

I had heartburn. I felt kind of nauseous. My body really didn’t like eating it. So people focus on all the things that are delicious about it, but they don’t focus on the downside. If you overeat, do you feel overly full? Do you feel heavy or kind of tired after? Do you want to take a nap? Does it not support you moving your body later?

Focus on the bad parts. What are all the downsides that come from choosing that instant gratification? This is really the trick. It’s to bring into focus the displeasure of choosing instant gratification and temporary pleasure. And when you focus on the displeasure of making that choice, it makes the choice so much less sexy.

That’s really what we want to do here. Because when your brain is selling you “snake oil” to get you to choose instant gratification and temporary pleasure, it’s focused solely on the upside. It’s ignoring all of the bad parts. But because we have control over what our brain focuses on, we can direct it to zoom out and focus on the full picture.

When you have the full picture in your mind, making the decision that supports your long-term success looks so much more attractive. And by doing this, what you’ll realize is that it works so much better than you trying to “should yourself” to do the right thing.

Because when you’re “should-ing yourself,” what you’re really telling yourself is, “This supports my long-term success. But it’s going to completely suck for me to choose this in the short term.” But it’s not going to completely suck for you to choose it in the short term. There’s going to be a good side to choosing it in the short term as well.

And there’s all long-term upside and vice versa. There’s not 100% pleasure that comes from choosing the instant gratification in the short term. There’s some pleasure and there’s some displeasure, and then there’s all downside afterwards.

So if you’re focusing on the full picture, it’s going to be so much easier to make the choice that supports your long-term success. When you’re honest with yourself, and choosing instant gratification only gets you 50% pleasure at best… And I’d say less than that, because there’s displeasure in the moment and there’s displeasure after.

So if you were breaking both pleasure in the moment and pleasure afterwards into two different segments, you’re really only getting 25% pleasure in the moment, 25% displeasure in the moment, and then 100% displeasure afterwards. That’s only 25% pleasure out of all of the pleasure available to you.

Where, when you choose to gag-and-go through the instant gratification, temporary discomfort, you forego all of that and you gag-and-go through the discomfort of just getting started, you’ve got 25% discomfort up front. 25% comfort or pleasure up front, because you’re doing the right thing, and then all upside later on.

So 50% afterwards, because you just get all of the relief and all of the accomplishment. I think it makes it such a clear choice on what to choose. That’s the thing. Our brains want to tell us that the more attractive option is choosing instant gratification and temporary pleasure.

But when you really iron it all out, the more attractive option is just doing what you said you would do. Doing the thing that aligns with your long-term goals and sets you up for long-term success. Thinking of it this way, you will have such an easier time choosing to do the “right” thing, the thing that supports your long-term success.

This is what I want you to do. Zoom out and then focus on the displeasure of instant gratification. It’s really going to put a bad taste in your mouth, pun intended with the weight loss stuff, about choosing that temporary pleasure and instant gratification. And when you focus less on how enjoyable it is to choose avoidant behavior and you focus on how unpleasant it is to choose avoidant behavior, you’ll have a much easier time making the choice that aligns with your long-term goals.

So go out there, zoom out, and really focus on how bad it feels to choose the thing that feels good in the short term. Okay?

All right, my friends, that’s what I’ve got for you this week. I hope you have a beautiful week, and 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 112. Today, we’re talking all about making your decisions right. 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 fulfilment. 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 this week? I hope you are good. I just had the best night. This is just a friendly segue reminder to do things that bring you joy. I just went to dinner with my dad. I don’t often go out during the week. I normally like to stay home during weeknights and then I use my weekends to go out to dinner, but my dad loves this place in downtown Detroit and since I’m back in Michigan for the summer, we’ve been making it a point to get to spend time together since I was gone all winter long down south and he loves this place in Detroit. It’s like our spot we go to to have dinner and it was just one of those perfect summer nights. We walked to get ice cream. I got to show him some parts of downtown that he wasn’t super familiar with and it was just a really lovely evening. 

And one of the things, this is, again, just totally a side note to this episode, but I made it a point a couple years ago to have better conversations with the people in my life, and I really made that my mission. And I just want to tell you, that has been one of the most meaningful, worthwhile endeavors that I’ve undertaken in as long as I can remember. I’ve really focused on being intentional about what I talk to people about, sharing more about what’s going on in my life rather than just having surface level conversations. And we had just the greatest conversation at dinner. So I’m coming off a really great night. And now I’m excited to talk to you about what we’re going to talk about in this episode and make it an even better night, kind of a nice nightcap, if you will. 

So let’s dive into today’s topic, making your decisions right. This has come up on a bunch of my coaching calls lately and I found myself repeating it over and over again. And whenever that happens, I think to myself, ooh, this would make a great topic for a podcast. And I’ve talked a little bit on the podcast before about making decisions, but I really wanted to cover this specifically because like I said, it’s something I’ve been talking about quite a lot recently. 

So one of the biggest misconceptions that people face when it comes to making decisions is that they believe that there’s a right decision to make. And when you tell yourself that there’s a right decision to make when you’re presented with a choice. Maybe you’re just choosing between two things or you have a lot of different options that might even lead to more overwhelm. But when you’re telling yourself that there’s a right choice and then you’re telling yourself you need to make that right choice, you create a lot of pressure for yourself. You also create a ton of worry because you’re worried on the front end about how you’ll feel on the back end of the decision and you’re really afraid that you’re going to feel regretful once you’ve made the decision and you’ve seen how it played out. 

Now, I talked about this a little bit in the episode that I did on the sliding doors fallacy because what we really want is to be able to see how every option plays out and then choose our choice based on having all that information. And that’s just not how the human experience works. We have to make the decision without having all of the information. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to think about that, that’s just the way that these decisions work. But what I want you to think about, we’re really going to challenge today in this episode the concept of making right decisions, all right? 

And maybe you don’t use that language. You don’t focus on making the right decision. Instead, you might think to yourself, I want to make the best decision I possibly can. And I’ve talked about this on the podcast before as well, especially in the episode that I did on perfectionist tendencies. If you’re using the phrase or the term best, I really want you to be on the lookout for that. That’s a big pink flag, okay? When you use that language, you want to spot it for what it is. It’s your perfectionism in sheep’s clothing. It doesn’t sound like perfectionism because you’re not using the word perfect. You’re not saying I want to make a perfect choice, a perfect decision. You’re just using the word best. But most oftentimes, people don’t define best and they’re really just using best as a synonym for perfect. 

So that’s probably what’s happening here when you’re thinking about making a decision and you want to make the best decision possible, you really want to get it right. You want it to be perfect, all right? So you prevent yourself from experiencing any of that regret. You don’t want to experience FOMO. You don’t want to experience that worry. You don’t want to experience any of that discomfort. 

Now, when this happens, what I want you to do is come back to what I’m going to teach you in this episode. I want you to remind yourself that there is no such thing as a right decision, okay? Thinking that something is right will always be an opinion. It’s never going to be a fact. I know that seems counterintuitive because we’re so used to academia and in school, there is a right answer to a question, but life isn’t like school. And I see that come up in a lot of different ways. I’ve talked about that with wanting to be done with everything and finish your to-do list, get to the bottom of it, because we’re craving that sense of completion. That’s a carryover from academia. This is too, thinking that there are right answers to things. In life, there aren’t right answers. There are just different answers, okay? 

So it’s always going to be an opinion that something was a right decision or a wrong decision, and you get to choose to just not think that you made a wrong decision. Instead of believing that there’s a right decision and pressuring yourself into making that right decision, what I want you to do is flip it. Instead of focusing on making the right decision on the front end, instead, you’re going to make a decision and then make your decision right, all right? Making it right is a choice by how you treat yourself after you’ve decided. You can decide, and then you can second guess, and you can question your choice, and you can beat yourself up, and you can look for all of the reasons that you made the wrong choice. That’s making your decision wrong, not making your decision right. 

Instead, what I want you to do is after you’ve decided something, sell yourself on it. Continue to sell yourself on it every single day. Another way to think about this is you continue to choose your choice day in and day out after you’ve made it. You don’t just make the choice once, you keep choosing it over and over and over again. You keep making it right for yourself. 

So I want to walk you through a couple different examples so you can see how this plays out. This came up today on our lawyers only call. Someone was contemplating making a career change. So if you’re contemplating making a career change, you might be creating a lot of pressure yourself telling yourself you need to make the right decision. Should I stay in my current job or should I make the switch? Should I quit my job and go do something else? And you’re worried about making the right decision. There is no right decision here, okay? 

Now there may be a decision that is more in line with your preferences, and I highly recommend that you spend time exploring what are your preferences, answering that question, figuring out what you prefer, what you like and what you dislike and seeing which decision, which choice more closely aligns with those preferences. But you may come up with a list of pros and cons that support you choosing either option or any of the options that are available to you. In this instance, when there’s not a clear winner, all you have left to do is decide you want to be thoughtful about your decision. That’s always the standard that I use myself. And then you’re going to make your decision right. 

And that means you’re going to focus, after you’ve made the decision, on all of the reasons why you chose it in the first place. So if you’re deciding to go to a new firm, what are all of the reasons that you’re going to make that decision? And then, once you’ve made that decision, remind yourself those were all the reasons that you made the decision. It was the right decision for you because you liked the reasons you made it when you made it. 

Instead, what a lot of people do is they make the change, they decide to quit their job, they go to a new job, and they focus on all of the things at the new job that they don’t like. And then they make their decision wrong after the fact, which is really a lose-lose scenario, right? Because you can’t go back in time and unmake the decision. You may be able to go back to the previous job, that’s something that’s available to you, but the ground’s going to shift a little bit while you’ve been gone, so you’re not going back to the exact same situation. Now that may be okay, that may not be okay, depending on how things shift while you’re away. But instead of beating yourself up and creating all of this regret for yourself, remember, regret is a feeling, so it’s going to be caused by your thinking. It’s not something that happens to you against your will. It’s an experience you create for yourself by the thoughts you choose to think. And you can prevent yourself from experiencing regret by choosing not to think those thoughts, by selling yourself after you’ve made the decision on why it was the “right” decision for you, even though there is no such thing as a right decision factually. You just believe for yourself that it was right and it was right because you liked your reasons for making it, you knew what those reasons were, you were thoughtful about it, and then you went ahead and executed. 

Maybe you’re new in your legal career and you’re trying to decide what type of law you’d like to practice, and you’re really worried about making the wrong choice. You want to pick the right practice to focus on. Again, there is no right choice here. There are a lot of different options available to you, and you get to just choose the one that you prefer the most. And then you make that choice right, moving forward, by not setting yourself up for failure second-guessing it, by focusing on the things you like about the practice area, by recommitting to it, by choosing it day in and day out rather than second-guessing it and fantasizing about doing something else. You make the decision you made initially right by how you talk to yourself about it afterwards. 

Maybe you’re thinking about starting your own business. Maybe you want to have your own law firm, you’re sick of working for other people. You might be really worried about leaving a job with a “steady paycheck” to go and hang your own shingle. Now, if you go and hang your own shingle and it is different than what you expect, which I promise you, it will be different from what you expect because you don’t know what to expect until you embark upon it and you start to figure out what running your own business is actually like. You can decide that you made a big mistake and that you screwed everything up and that you were foolish in the decision you made. That’s making your choice wrong, not making your choice right after the fact. 

Or you can recognize, hey, there’s going to be some things that are unexpected. And I’m going to navigate that. And I’m not going to second guess this decision. I’m going to go all in on it. I’m going to commit to it. I’m going to commit to the finish. I’ve talked about that on the podcast before as well. And I’m going to focus on all of the things that I love about running my own business, about having my own law firm. You keep making the decision right for you by how you think about it after you’ve decided. 

Another area where I see people really fret about making the “right” decision is what am I going to charge? What rate am I going to charge? Or how am I going to bill people? Am I going to pay a flat fee? Am I going to bill hourly? Whatever billing decisions you’re making, you might be questioning them and wanting to make the right choice. There is no right choice. There’s no right amount to charge a client. You have to learn how to sell whatever amount you’re going to charge. There’s no right offer or right structure for your services. There’s no right way to package them. There’s just how you choose to package them. And then you sell yourself on why the way you chose to structure them or price them is the best. And you continue to sell yourself on that day in and day out. You continue to build your belief. 

Why am I worth what I charge? Why is what I charge worth what it’s worth? Why is the service I provide valuable? Is it worth what I charge? How is it worth it? You just keep answering those questions in as many different ways as you possibly can. That’s how you sell yourself. Why is this structure or setup better? List out all of the reasons why you think it’s advantageous for you to structure your offerings the way that you do. 

I see this a ton when people come to me wondering, what should I charge for public speaking if you’ve been asked to speak at something? There is no right price. You’re going to pick a number. People will either pay it or they won’t. You might have to overcome objections and learn how to talk people through it in order to sell whatever service you’re offering. But if people say no to you, it’s not because you picked the wrong number, you picked the wrong price point. It’s because you haven’t learned how to sell it effectively. And instead of questioning what it’s worth, questioning the value, you have to believe that it’s worth what you’re charging and continue to find reasons why it’s worth that, sell yourself on it and believe that you chose right for yourself, even though there is no one right answer, okay? You make your choice right after the fact. 

A couple other examples of this. Let’s take it into the personal arena, all right? Maybe you’re thinking about moving. Should I buy this house or not? I’ve watched and coached a lot of people facing that question for themselves, and they hem and haw and they spin in indecision and they worry, am I going to be able to make this mortgage payment? Am I biting off more than I can chew? You’ll really worry about making the wrong or right choice. Instead, look at the numbers. Can you technically afford it on paper? Be thoughtful about your decision. And then once you’ve made it, make your choice right. Make the decision right by continuing to sell yourself on it. 

Yes, I wanted to live in this neighborhood. Yes, I wanted to live in this city. Yes, I wanted to live in a place that looked like this. Yes, I’m willing to spend this amount. Yes, I can afford this. Yes, I’ll do whatever I need to do to figure out the money. I believe that I’m capable of coming up with the money even when my shoes pinch a little bit. You continue to sell yourself on why it was a good decision, the right decision for you at the time based on the information you had available to you, instead of finding all the reasons why it was a bad decision and why you shouldn’t have made it. You get to decide to sell yourself on why you should have made it and why you did make it instead of selling yourself on the opposite, on why you shouldn’t have, okay? It’s all about how you talk to yourself once you’ve decided. 

The area that I see this becoming the most evident to me is in deciding who you’re going to spend your life with, okay? If you think about people picking a partner, I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have that leads to so much discontentment in relationships these days is people believe that there’s one right person for them, okay? And they’re on a quest to find that right person. And when they’re dating someone, they’re constantly thinking to themselves, is there someone better out there? Am I with the right person? Is the right person out there waiting for me and I’m with someone else? They really hyper fixate on the idea of being with that one perfect person. 

Instead, what I have found to be true is there are a lot of people you can build a life with, okay? Whether that is a long-term commitment or a short-term commitment, there are a lot of people that you can make a relationship work with and find a lot of joy, contentment, and happiness with, okay? But it isn’t about finding the right fit. It’s about finding someone who meets enough of your preferences. There’s always going to be things that you love about someone, and there’s always going to be things that you don’t love about someone. That’s just the way life works. There’s always going to be that split. It’s about figuring out what you prefer, finding someone that aligns closely enough with those preferences, and then figuring out, can I tolerate the parts of them that I don’t really care for? Because there are parts of you that people won’t care for, and there are parts of other people that you won’t care for, and all of that is very normal. 

But then you choose to invest in that relationship. You choose to invest time into that person, effort into building that relationship, getting it to where you want it to be, and you continue to make your choice right. It’s not about making the right choice on the front end, but it’s about making the choice and then making the choice right on the back end by recommitting to it day in and day out. You continue to choose your choice by continuing to choose to invest time in that relationship, to continuing to choose to work on things, to resolve conflict, navigate hiccups and obstacles as they come, continuing to build upon that foundation that you’ve created together day in and day out. 

You continue to choose your choice and make it the right decision by looking for the things that you appreciate about the person, finding things that you’re grateful for in them, continuing to commit to work through those challenges rather than finding their faults, focusing on all of the things that you like about other people better, focusing on how unfulfilled you are and all of the things that you find lacking in the relationship That’s not choosing your choice. That’s looking for all of the reasons that you don’t like the choice you made in the first place and making the initial choice you made wrong, not right for you, okay? 

So I want you to look at the different decisions you make throughout your life. Big decisions, small decisions, doesn’t matter. This could be as simple as what you chose to work on in your day. I watch so many people make a decision about how to spend their time in a day, and then after they’ve deposited that time, they’ve spent that time a particular way, they beat themselves up for how they spent it. They say, oh, instead of responding to emails, I shouldn’t have done that. I should have worked on that big project instead. 

Now, I do think there’s value in exploring, why did I choose to respond to emails if what I really planned to do was work on that big project? Was I buffering with email? Was I avoiding some negative emotion that came with working on that big ticket item? If that’s the case, learn from that experience and then leverage that learning moving forward. But if you were always going to need to respond to emails and you planned to respond to emails for a particular amount of time during your day, don’t devote that time to your inbox and then tell yourself you should have spent your time differently. Instead, make the decision about how you’re going to spend your time and then make the decision right by selling yourself on why it was a good decision in the first place, rather than doing the opposite and telling yourself why you made the wrong decision and should have done something else. 

By doing this, you’re going to, on the front end of decision-making, really dial down the pressure that you create for yourself, okay? And the less pressure you have, the more ease you’ll find that you’re able to bring to the decision-making process. It’s going to be a lot less effort to make a decision when you’re not making the stakes so high because you’re focused on making the best right decision on the front end. On the back end, you’re really going to dial down the regret that you experienced because you’re going to know how to make the decision right by how you talk to yourself, by how you choose to intentionally talk to yourself about the decision you’ve already made. 

Even if you decide to pivot moving forward, you can still make the decision right for you by not beating yourself up, second-guessing yourself and telling yourself that you should have done something differently in the past, which you of course can’t change, okay? This is really going to dial down a lot of the negative emotion that you experience around decision-making. You will enjoy making decisions so much more when you know your emotional experience around decision-making is in your control based on how you choose to talk to yourself once you’ve made the decision, okay? No right or wrong decisions, just the decisions you make right. Make your decision, choose your choice, and then continue to choose it over and over and over again. Sell yourself on it, and you’re going to sell yourself on a much more pleasant experience when it comes to decision-making. 

All right, my friends. I hope you found this helpful. That’s what I’ve got for you this week. Go out there, make some decisions, and then make the decisions right after the fact. And I will talk to you in the next episode. I hope you have a beautiful week. Bye.

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 111. Today, we’re talking all about increasing your efficiency. 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 hope all is well with you. I am excited to talk about today’s topic. I find that so many of my clients are really obsessed with becoming more efficient, and I wanna talk you through how to actually do it because I find that it’s something that people aim for or strive for, but they don’t really go about doing it because they don’t know how. So I’m gonna teach you how in this episode.

So the first thing that we need to do is define efficiency. What does that word mean to you? For me, I really differentiate between efficiency and productivity. Productivity is how much I get done in a given day. Efficiency to me is really about how you work when you’re working, how efficiently you’re going about completing an assignment. So is it taking you longer than it needs to take you? Or are you maximizing your time and it’s only taking you the time that the task requires? That’s what we’re looking for here.

So one way to think about efficiency would be if you’re at work for eight hours, how much are you billing? Are you billing five hours? Are you billing seven and a half hours? And what are we aiming for? Okay, what would be an increase in efficiency for you? That’s one way to measure it. I also like to look at efficiency on a task by task basis. And I think that’s really the best way to improve your efficiency overall is to focus on completing tasks more efficiently.

So when you’re thinking about a task that you do regularly, we want to think about what would an increase in efficiency look like for that task? So the first step, of course, is going to be figuring out how long you normally take to complete that task? So you could think about how long does it take you to respond to a client email? How long does it take you to write a social media post, if that’s something that you do to grow your law practice? How long does it take you to do legal research on an issue? How long does it take you to process your inbox, okay? So those are things that you might do pretty regularly. How long does it take you to redline a document?

Now, these might be a little tricky to measure or to get an accurate understanding of how long it takes you each time you do one of these tasks because your tasks might vary a little bit. But do your best and let this be a little clunky, okay? You know, I love to tell you guys that. Let it be a little messy, let it be a little clunky. But ask yourself, how long does it take me when I normally do this? And then set a goal for yourself. How long would I like it to take me?

Now, remember, there’s going to be a point where you reach maximum efficiency. I’ve used the example, I think, on the podcast before. It takes me 20 minutes to do my daily makeup routine. I can let it take me 40 minutes if I lollygag, if I scroll on my phone and take a break, or if I get really perfectionistic about how I do my eye makeup, that would be a really good example of this, all right? 

Same thing if I’m drafting a social media post. They take me about an hour on average. I could let it take two if I wanted to. If I distracted myself with my cell phone when I got confused and I didn’t work through the confusion and then I spent time drafting and then I said, you know, “I’m gonna scrap this, it’s not any good” and then I start over from scratch or if I write half a post and then jump to a new post and then jump to a new post and jump to a new post, and I never complete one, it would take me a really long time to get that done, okay?

So if I were working on increasing my efficiency in any of these areas, I would look at how long is it taking me right now, and how long would I like it to take me, all right? So, like I said, there will be a point where you reach maximum efficiency. So you have to start to figure out where that point is, and that might be some trial and error too. You can say, “Oh, I’d really like to be able to do my makeup in 10 minutes.” But if I try and try and try and I can’t get it down, then that’s past the point of maximum efficiency. So I would probably time myself and see how long it takes me. Same thing with drafting a social media post. My posts I write on LinkedIn and there’s a character limit. 

So it’s going to take me a certain amount of time to write those words and then go in and revise and edit that post and then pick out an image to go with it. That’s gonna take me a certain amount of time. I’ve gotten it down to, like I said, about an hour on average. Down from an hour and a half when I first started and I started to pick apart, where are the areas that I could cut down? Thinking about what to write about. Overly editing things. Jumping from one post to another without finishing one, all right?

So this is what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna figure out how long the task is currently taking you. Then you’re going to set a goal for how long you would like it to take. I want you to list out the steps that you need to take to complete the task. And then you’re gonna ask yourself, which ones do I think I can reduce? 

And do I think I can reduce it when I add up all of that reduction time? Does that match the goal that I’ve set for how long I think it should take? If it doesn’t match up, you want to readjust that expectation of yourself, okay? We’ve got to make sure that the math works. You need to be able to reduce the individual steps enough to get down to your goal. And if you can’t get down to your goal, then you’ve got to adjust the goal, all right?

So once you’ve done that, you’re setting the goal for this is how long I think it should take me. This is what I’m going to aim for. And you’re going to set a timer for yourself and you’re going to make a deal with yourself. “I’m gonna force myself to complete it within the time that I’ve given myself.” 

Now, this is going to require practice, all right? Because you’re probably gonna be telling yourself, “I can’t do it any faster. I can’t do it in that timeframe. It just takes me as long as it takes.” But that’s not the case. If you truly can do the steps in less time, you’ll be able to practice doing the steps in the amount of time that you give yourself, all right?

I wanna walk you through a story to evidence what I’m trying to teach you. When I was studying for the bar exam, I was a really slow test taker. I already knew that about myself going into my bar prep. I was a slow test taker all through law school. I don’t know if I ever finished an exam while I was in law school. I would spend too much time on the essay questions or too much time on the individual multiple choice questions and I would run out of time. 

Now, that was okay in law school. I was still able to get really good grades because my answers were good and I’d got enough of the questions right and things were graded on a curve. So I did pretty okay. I shouldn’t say that, I did better than okay. But I was able to get by even though I was a slow test taker.

Now I knew that wasn’t going to fly studying for or taking the bar exam. I knew that that would really be a pain point that I was gonna have to work to overcome because in Michigan, we have 15 essays on the exam and you get allotted a certain amount of time. I think you get six hours, no, five hours. 

So three hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and that would break down to 20 minutes per question. Now, part of my bar exam strategy was doing really well on the essays because I normally ran out of time on the multiple choice, so I wanted to make sure that my essay scores were really strong, and in order for that to happen, I needed to make sure I responded to all of the essays.

So my habit in law school was spending 45 minutes on one essay and then not leaving myself enough time to get to all of the essays. And I knew I couldn’t do that with the bar exam. So I started out when I was studying, really focusing on the essay exams. I actually took a private course through JD Advising. Shout out to Ashley Heideman, she’s amazing. If anyone knows anyone prepping for the bar exam, definitely use JD Advising, they’re incredible. They’re the best in the business in my opinion.

So I took an essay course and we did so much more practice through that essay course than you did with BARBRI. I did both. I did JD Advising and BARBRI for multiple choice. So with that, when I started doing that essay work and I would read the questions and answer them, I just decided to see how long it takes me on average to thoroughly answer an essay question. 

And I timed myself and I found out that it was taking me about 45 minutes to finish an essay. Well, that is a surefire way to fail the bar exam. So what I decided to do is work my way down over time to become more efficient in answering questions, to be able to complete the answer in less time.

Now, my goal obviously was 20, 20 minutes per essay question, but I wasn’t going to be able to make that jump overnight. This required practice. That’s what I said a moment ago. This is gonna require practice from you too. So instead, I started giving myself smaller and smaller increments of time to work my way down to 20 minutes ultimately. So instead of 45, I forced myself to answer it in 40 minutes and then I’d do another one at 40 minutes and another one at 40 minutes. And when I was able to hit that, then I started moving it down to 35 minutes. And when I was able to hit that consistently, then I moved it down to 30 and then 25 and then 20.

Did this take me a decent amount of practice? Yes, it did. But over time, I was able to reduce the amount of time that it took me to answer each question and get it within that limit that I was setting for myself. Goal for my efficiency. And in part, this happened because I started to learn the value of a minute. I want you to think about this. 

When you really study yourself and you practice this, you start to learn the value of the time that you have to work on something, just like we learned the value of a dollar growing up. You know, our parents are always focused on teaching us the value of a dollar. Well, I need you to learn the value of a minute, meaning how long does it take you to do something? How long will a minute last? What can you accomplish in a minute? Same thing with the value of 20 minutes or the value of an hour. You need to understand what can I reasonably expect to get done within a given time period.

So when you practice, you start to really understand the value of the time that you’re giving yourself. So I started to figure out, “Oh, I need to read the essay prompt one time. I can’t go back and reread it. That doesn’t work. I need to spend a little bit of time but not much, just a minute or two mapping out my answer. And then I need to start writing and I need to say enough on a particular topic or a particular point, and then I need to move on rather than saying every single thing that I know about something.” That’s not going to get me there. That’s going to get me way over my efficiency limit, back to that 45-minute mark.

So I started to figure out how to actually budget my time and what to do within those 20 minutes. And I could gauge how far I should be along at this point in the 20-minute time period. That’s what you’re going to be doing when you practice this, okay? As you’re working to whittle down your time and become as efficient as possible, you’re going to learn the value of a minute.

So I want to give you two other client examples just to drive this home. So I was just coaching a client. She wants to be more efficient responding to emails, okay? Now, we looked at how long it takes her to normally respond to an email. And I get it, I hear you, not every email is going to be exactly the same. But what we want to work towards is her being able to say, “This should be a 10-minute email,” and to be able to respond to it within 10 minutes.

So we broke it down and we listed out what are all of the steps that go into you responding to an email. Well, she’s gotta read the email first. So when you open the email, you’re going to be able to gauge how long is this email. That should take me two minutes or three minutes to read. And then what comes next? Well, then I need to think about what to write. If you’re spending 10 or 15 minutes thinking about what to write, we’ve got a problem. That’s an area where we can really reduce the amount of time that you’re spending on something. So can you force yourself to only think about it for a minute or two and then start typing?

Are you spending a lot of time wordsmithing or revising what you have already written? If you are, we can reduce that as well. Write it once, complete the whole email. That’s a huge recommendation I have for people. That’s one of the things that I learned when I was working in big law. Someone came in and taught us how to write well or write efficiently and to be better at legal research and writing. And one of the recommendations that this person had was to not edit contemporaneously while you’re writing, just to write, sort of dump your thoughts out onto a piece of paper or into a Word document and then at the end of it, go back and revise. You’ll save yourself a lot of time.

I remember when I first learned that and I thought that that was absolutely impossible, but that really is how I write now and I am so much more efficient because of it. If you’re going through and you’re writing a sentence and then you’re deleting it and rewriting the sentence and deleting it and then rewriting the sentence, you’re gonna waste a lot of time editing as you write instead of just saving editing for the end. I’ve found that that really gets me out of my perfectionism if I edit at the end because it’s already complete, so you’re a lot less likely to go in and make unnecessary tweaks and changes. You’re really just issue-spotting for like, “Nope, I need to tweak that.” I can go in, tweak that really fast, and then get out and be done with it.

So with this client, we broke down all of these different steps, and we started to aim for where we were going to make reductions in the time that she was allocating and devoting to completing the task. So she’s going to work on opening an email saying “This should take me 10 minutes,” giving yourself 10 minutes and sticking to the 10 minutes. And then opening another email, “This should only take me three minutes because it’s a two-line email and I just need to read the two lines, draft my response, send it off.” So you can work on your efficiency there. If you’re someone who takes an hour to respond to an email when it could have been done in 15 minutes, this is what you want to work on. Examine what are all of the steps, list them out, where do you spend time unnecessarily, and let’s make some goals. Let’s aim for how we can reduce the amount of time you’re spending.

Same thing with social media posts. I just coached another client of mine on this. She spends a couple hours drafting a single social media post. So I wanted to go through and say, “All right, what are all the steps that you take in order to complete writing a social media post and how long do you spend on each one?” And a big one for her was figuring out what she should write about. And instead of spending 30 minutes or 15 minutes on that, we should be able to get that down to one or two minutes. 

And then if you’re spending a lot of time wordsmithing or editing, can we get that down? Can we not edit contemporaneously so we’re not spending as much time doing that? Is it getting too long and then you have to spend a lot of time cutting? That would be something to pay attention to. So maybe instead of writing in Microsoft Word where you’re not conscious of the word limit, write in the social media app and that will cut you off. It will tell you when you’re at the limit and then you’ll have a better sense of where you need to stop, how to reduce it in order to complete the post.

This is what I want you to do if you’re focused on increasing your efficiency. Same thing if it’s with the billable hours overall throughout a day. Can you reduce it? Can you increase your efficiency? If you’re at five billable hours for eight hours worked, can we get up to six? And then can we get up to seven? And then can we get up to seven and a half?

If you enter your time every day, I’ve had one client, she’s like, “It takes me like an hour to enter my time every day.” I told her, “I love you and you’re doing it wrong.” I mean that from the most sincere part of my heart, it should not take you an hour to enter your time. So we’ve got to look at what are you overcomplicating? What’s going on here? And when we started to dig deeper, we found out that she was really obsessing over her narratives and we needed to reduce the amount of time that she spent on a narrative.

So you can give yourself the goal, “I should be able to complete a narrative in a minute or in two minutes or in three minutes.” Now if that seems like a really huge stretch for you because you’re spending 10 minutes on a narrative, then let’s work for eight and then six and then five and then four. We can work our way down just like I did with bar exam essays, okay? Same thing with the emails or social media posts. You want to work your way down. You will feel frustrated with yourself if you try and make too big of a jump. So I want you to be willing to inch your way towards greater efficiency, but this is how you do it, all right?

Give some thought to where you would like to be more efficient in your workday or in your personal life, because this applies in both places. And then ask yourself, how can we get more efficient? What are the specific steps that we could reduce, set a goal, and then time yourself and work towards it? It will be uncomfortable. You’re going to want to go past the amount of time that you set, but if you really get clear on what you want to achieve when it comes to efficiency and why it’s important to you to achieve it and you continue to practice this, you will make improvements over time. It will pay off, I promise.

All right, my friends, that is what I have for you this week. I hope you have a beautiful week and 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 110. Today, we’re talking all about the secret to working less. 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 fulfilment. 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 you’re doing really well. I’m so excited to talk about today’s topic, it came out of a recent coaching session with one of my clients. And as we were having this conversation about this topic, I realized that I have seen so many of my clients struggle with this desire to work less. 

So, I wanted to record a podcast episode specifically on what I consider to be the secret to working less because it’s something that I see time and time again, people want to change about their lives.

And that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to help you change your life, to create a life you’re obsessed with, to live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. That’s what I’m here for, and this is a big way that people want to achieve that goal. So, let’s dive in. 

So many people have developed the belief that they need to be available around the clock in order to deliver good client service. Now, if this is you, you just know that you’re in the right place and this episode is for you, or you believe something like that, the only way to stay on top of your work is to work until the work gets done.

Now, if that’s how you think about work, you’re always going to be working way more than you want to be. You’re always going to be working nights and weekends around the clock in order to keep up with the demand, because the demand is always going to be there. And to “keep your clients happy,” even though you working fringe hours, as I like to call them, is not what makes clients happy.

I also see so many people that I work with have the desire to work less, but they don’t have the know-how, they really need a strategy to implement in order to actually make working less their reality. So, I’m going to teach you how to do that and give you that strategy in this episode. 

First things first, you always want to check in with your mindset. What do you think about working less? Are your thoughts negative? If you’re not working less and you’re working more than you want to be, then you need to check in with the thoughts that are creating that result. 

Like I said earlier, do you think that you need to work around the clock, or work until the work gets done? If you do, if you think working less isn’t possible for you or that something bad will happen, we’re going to have to start to shift those thoughts and create some safety and security around even just the concept of working less. 

I don’t need you to fully believe that it’s safe and secure. I’d really love for you to just step into possibility that that is attainable, that that might be true. And from there we can start to take different actions. 

But before we get into the action and the strategy, you first need to figure out how much you’re actually working. So many people don’t have a clear understanding of the hours that they’re actually dedicating to work. So, I want you to pay attention to two different numbers. 

Number one, how much you’re working overall, and then how much of that time you’re actually doing work. Because when I used to practice law, I would tell myself that I was working really long days. But if I looked at what I was actually doing during those days, I wasn’t as productive as I thought I was being. I wasn’t actually “working” as much as I felt like I was working.

Now, you might still be working a lot. So, you want to get clear on what the numbers are, and then you can get clear on how much you want to work. We need to know the data between those two figures; the amount that you’re working and the amount that you want to work so we can come up with a game plan for how to whittle that down. 

Now if there’s a big gap between those two numbers, you’re working, let’s say 80 hours a week right now or 70 hours a week, and you’d really love to be working 50 or 40… I am not suggesting that any of these numbers are the right numbers. If you want to work 20 hours a week, that is totally fine. You get to pick what’s right for you. I’m just using typical numbers that I see with my clients.

But if there’s a big gap between those two numbers, how much you’re currently working and how much you want to work, what I want you to do is to not get overly ambitious or go crazy with making too big of a jump too fast. It’s going to send your nervous system into overdrive. It’s going to be way too uncomfortable.

So, I’d much rather have you make incremental changes over time, and work your way down to that lower figure rather than trying to do it all at once, like all in one week. That’s just a recipe for disaster. You’ll set yourself up to fail. It’s going to be too big of a jump and it’ll just be too uncomfortable. 

We’re going to take this slow and steady and make incremental progress. All right? So, what that might look like in practice would be if you are working seven days a week right now; maybe 12-hour days during the week, or 14-hour days during the week, or even 10-hour days during the week, and then you’re also putting in time on the weekends. Maybe it’s less, but like six hours and six hours or something like that.

What I would want you to do, that incremental change would look like, “Hey, I’m not going to work Sundays. I’m going to take Saturdays off. I’m only going to work two hours on Saturday and Sunday instead of six hours each of those days. For my weekdays, I’m going to cut it from 14 hours to 12 or from 12 hours to 10, or from 10 hours to eight or nine.”

So, we’re just going to make little incremental changes in the beginning to create that safety and security that it is okay to work less. All right? That’s just a tip though. 

Now I want to walk you through the strategy that I teach my clients. Because I watch my clients go about this the wrong way, and I want to make sure that you don’t make this one mistake that’s going to keep you stuck in the exact same pattern that you’ve been in; working way more than you want to be working. 

So, first and foremost, like I said, you need to decide how much you want to work, and you want to get really clear on the number of hours and the start and stop times. I know that sounds like a lot of structure. If you are listening to this and you’re like, “Olivia, I don’t like structure,” I really want to promise you that you are going to love the freedom and the free time that you get on the other side of this. So, please just give this a try. All right?

You’re going to decide how much you want to work, total number of hours for the week, and then you’re going to decide how that breaks up over the days. And then, what times you’re going to be working so you have what I like to call “bookends” for the start and stop time of your day.

Because you really need to be clear on when your day starts so you can get to work. And then also, when your day ends so you’re not indulging in confusion. Messing around with ‘I don’t know’ thinking at the end of the day.

“Have I worked enough?” Whether or not you track your time, “Could I keep going? Should I keep going? When am I actually supposed to end? When’s the official end of my day?” None of those excuses or escape routes. We’re going to decide the times so you have complete clarity on when your day ends. 

Then you’re going to limit yourself to that amount. So, you’re going to start your work day on time. And even if you don’t, we’re not going to run long. I’m going to explain in a second why that’s so imperative.

So, you’re going to start your day, and then you’re going to end it at the time that you decide to end it. And you’re going to be really bad at this at first, okay? I just want you to get really ready for that. Prepare yourself. Like I’ve said on this podcast before, it’s going to be really clunky. 

If you’re used to working weekends or working late nights, like I said, what I call “fringe hours”, this is going to be super uncomfortable for you to stop at the time that you agreed with yourself that you would stop working. It is going to bring up immense discomfort.

All of the excuses to continue working are going to come up, so you need to practice embracing that discomfort. You’re going to be tempted to change the plan when it feels uncomfortable, when it feels hard. But you’ve got to resist that urge. You want to keep working on honoring that original decision. 

It doesn’t matter how many days this takes you to get this dialed in, I don’t want you to quit on it. I want you to keep working on honoring that cutoff time that you originally decided upon. I want you to keep working on allowing the discomfort that comes with doing that, too. All right?

And here’s why this works. If you decide how much you want to work and then you honor that, even when it’s uncomfortable, you’re going to get better at making good use of your time during the day and then giving yourself permission to take the evenings and weekends off.

Now, this isn’t going to happen overnight. This is going to happen over a considerable period of time. 

Here’s the mistake that most people make, especially my perfectionists. If you’re a perfectionist, this is for you. They go about working less in the reverse order because it feels so much more “practical”. 

So, instead of deciding how much they want to work, and then constraining to that amount and allowing the discomfort and honoring that original decision and stopping work at the time that they decided to work instead, they tell themselves that they’ll start working less once they’ve perfected their efficiency and their productivity during the work day or the work week. 

If you don’t want to be working weekends and you currently are working weekends, they tell themselves that they have to get that dialed in first before they’re allowed to work less, before they’re allowed to stop using those fringe hours, those nights and weekends for work. 

Now, under this logic, they tell themselves that then, once that’s taken care of, once that’s settled, once they’ve mastered the art of being super efficient and productive during the day, then they’ll give themselves permission to work less and stop working nights and weekends once they’re on top of everything.

But I have seen this time and time again, and that is not how this plays out. Because they don’t get better at being more efficient or more productive during their day. Because they have no incentive to. Because they keep earmarking those fringe hours for work “just in case.” 

And then they tell themselves that their day didn’t go as well as they planned it, and so they “need” to work those fringe hours to make up for it. Here’s the thing with that. When you know that you have this holding pen for work, you will always use it.

When there’s a question mark as to whether or not you’ll use nights and weekends, you will always work them. And you will either fail to make good use of your time during the day or the week… Like I said, you’re trying to not work weekends instead of at night… or you will plan to do too much in a day and overcommit yourself. Which will drive you to justify working nights and weekends. And the cycle will continue.

So, you have to eliminate the question of, “Will I work tonight? Will I work this weekend?” You have to take that off the table by deciding that you won’t first, before you figure out or get that productivity and efficiency dialed in. All right? That’s going to come second.

This part comes first, taking the fringe hours off the table. Like I said, it’s going to be uncomfortable. That is not a problem.

That is the way forward. That’s the path to success here. So, you have to decide how much you’re going to work, honor it very uncomfortably.

And then what’s going to happen is that you’re going to truly learn what you have time to do in the hours that you’ve decided to work. That forced constraint will force you to make better use of your time, because you’re going to stop viewing those fringe hours as extra time that’s available to you just in case you need it. 

Listen, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it is the most effective strategy I have found for working less. You’ve got to make those decisions ahead of time, practice constraint, and then get clear on what you can actually fit into your day. 

If you keep using that holding pen, if you keep using those fringe hours, you’re never really going to have a grasp on what can be accomplished in your workday. So, you’re going to always overcommit yourself. You’re going to make promises that you then tell yourself nights and weekends are required in order for you to meet those commitments. 

When you make these decisions ahead of time and you practice constraint, you take all of the other options of when you’re going to work off the table. So, when you don’t give yourself another option, other than the time that you’ve already decided to work, you make better use of your time during the day. You have a better understanding of what you can accomplish and you make better use of that time. 

Your buffering is going to go way down, because you’re not going to have that earmarked time, that safety net, if you will, just sitting there available for you. 

Now, you’re also going to have to adjust your mindset as to what enough work is, all right? Because a lot of people are really attached to pretty high numbers… And I know “high” is a thought here. But pretty high double digit oftentimes, double-digit numbers like 10 hours or more. And they think that anything less than that is inadequate. 

I assure you it’s not. That’s just a thought that it’s inadequate. And it’s an optional thought that you can give up right now if you’d prefer to work less than you are currently working. All right? I highly recommend that you do give that thought up. 

But check in with yourself. What do you think is enough work? If you keep telling yourself that eight hours isn’t enough or nine hours isn’t enough or six hours isn’t enough or seven hours isn’t enough, whatever you’d prefer to work, you’re going to keep working more because you’re going to avoid creating an experience for yourself where you feel inadequate.

Now, I remember when I used to think that 12 hours was just barely enough. I used to wear my overworking as a badge of honor when I practiced law. But I would squander… and this is why I brought this up earlier… I would squander so much of that time because I would be telling myself I would plan to be working long hours.

And then I would tell myself that I could just work on it later because I didn’t mind putting in a long day. I always reminded myself, “Well, I have tonight. Well, I have this weekend.” And it actually decreased my productivity. Because I’d hold a question mark over that time block in the evenings and on the weekends, and I would just postpone things for that period of time.

Now, what I watch people do here is they overfill that time block. That reserve, the holdover, the area. I think of it in terms of math, like where the remainder goes. But what they do… Let’s say, realistically you’ve got two extra hours that you could use in your evenings, after you take care of your kids and you make dinner, and between then and when you go to bed, you’ve got two hours or so.

But all day long, you just keep telling yourself, “I can work on that tonight. I can work on that tonight. I can work on that tonight.” You’ll end up earmarking that time in the evening with eight hours’ worth of work. 

I used to be so guilty of doing this, and my numbers were way higher than eight. I would plan like 40 hours’ worth of work for the evenings and way more work over the weekend.

And you could see this show up with my specific actions that I would take. I would be leaving the office at night, and I would pack up a Red Rope or fill up my briefcase with things that I wanted to work on once I got home. It was an insane amount of stuff to do. I remember when I used to have to read trial transcripts or deposition transcripts, I would fill my briefcase with them. 

So, let’s say I was working on a motion for summary judgement and I needed to get through six deposition transcripts. I would put them all in my briefcase and I would plan to read them all at night, because all day long I would tell myself, “I can do that tonight. I can read that one tonight. I can do that tonight. I can do that tonight.”

And then you create an impossible situation for yourself. You set yourself up to fail because there’s no way you can get through that at night. You can see how this habit of just putting everything off into those fringe hours, having that time earmarked for the ‘just in case’ stuff, you end up giving yourself an out for getting that work done during the day. 

Because you can just always do it later. “I can do it tonight. I can do it early tomorrow morning. I can do it this weekend.” And then you’re always pushing stuff off, so you’re not making good use of your daytime work hours. 

When I finally started to really work on my time management skills, I started to pay attention to how I was spending my time during the day. And this is when I became glaringly aware of how I was spending my time. I audited my time. I have a podcast episode on time audits to teach you how to do that. But I audited my time, and I realized the thought that I was thinking was, “I can just do that later. I have time to get that done today.”

So, I’d keep pushing stuff off and then I would be buffering during the day. I wouldn’t actually be utilizing the time that I was “in the office” during the day. This is why I mentioned earlier I want you to check in with yourself. How much are you working? And then, how much are you working during the time you’re working? I know that sounds a little confusing, but I think you know what I mean.

I was at work for 12 hours; and this is back when everyone worked in the office five days a week. But I was at work for 12 hours, sometimes more, but I wasn’t actually working. Or I’d be at the office for eight hours, and I wasn’t working eight hours during that time, because I kept telling myself, “Oh, I’ll get five or six hours’ worth of stuff done tonight.”

In my head, I’m still thinking that I’m going to put in a 14-hour billable day, but my billable hours didn’t add up to that because I wasn’t making good use of my daytime working hours. 

So when this came to my attention, I realized that regardless of how long I was “at work”, I was really only working or billing like eight hours a day. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with billing eight hours a day. Sometimes it was less than that for me, though, for sure, because I was buffering so much. 

But what I could have done instead of “working”… but not actually doing the billable work during that time… instead of “working” 14 hours a day, 16 hours a day at times and only billing eight hours or so, I could have just worked eight or nine hours and billed that time… by actually working during that time… instead of working really long hours but not actually making use of them. Either way, I ended up billing the same amount. 

So, I could have been so much more strategic about how I approached my work; worked the same amount, billed the same amount. And then I would have gotten my fringe time back instead of always devoting that time to work. And I was always frustrated and disincentivized to work at night because I felt like I had been working all day when really I hadn’t been. I was just at work all day not making great use of that time. 

If this is you, that’s why I want you to check in with yourself. How much time are you spending at work, or at your desk or in front of your computer, technically working but not actually working? You want to be clear on what the difference between those two numbers is.

And then you can make this intentional decision, “I’m going to commit to working these hours,” start time and stop time, “and I’m going to hold myself to that so I can stop using this remainder time, this fringe time, to be the saving grace for all of the work that I didn’t get through in the day.”

And when you hold yourself to that, that is what is going to enforce your heightened productivity and efficiency during your work day. All right? 

So, if you want to work less, I want you to trust me on this and give this a try. You might feel guilty at first, or incomplete and unfinished, because there’s still work to be done. Spoiler alert, there will always be more work to be done. 

And all of this will feel super uncomfortable, but I promise you it will not kill you. You need to create a body of evidence that the world will not come crashing down if you give up on that fringe hour work. And the only way to create that body of evidence is to limit yourself, honor those limits, and see what happens. 

I promise you; you will be surprised at what you find. It’s way less of a deal than you assume it will be. The world actually keeps spinning. What’s going to happen is that you’re going to enjoy working less when you honor those limits. And that’s going to help reinforce your original decision to constrain your working hours, because you’re going to like having that free time back. And that’s going to reinforce your productivity during your work day or your work week. 

Again, if you want to stop working weekends instead of just at night, I cannot wait for you to see how this seemingly backward approach makes all the difference. I know it feels like you’re going about this in the wrong way, but I promise you, if you truly want to work less, this is the right way to go about it. All right? So, go give it a try. 

All right, my friends, that’s what I have for you this week. I hope you 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 109. Today, we’re talking all about being unrealistic with your schedule. 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 good start. I’m so excited to talk about today’s topic. This has come up on a couple of my coaching calls recently, some of my one-on-one calls earlier this week, and we did a deep dive into this topic on this week’s Lawyers Only call. 

And for those of you who are listening and you’re new to the podcast, Lawyers Only is my signature coaching membership program for, you guessed it, lawyers only. So, we do group calls inside that program once a week, and this month, we’re talking all about procrastination. 

One of the ways that you overcome procrastination is that you start planning your schedule accurately. Because if you’re planning inaccurately and unrealistically, it’s much more likely that you’re going to put things off to the last minute, because you’re underestimating how long stuff will take you. 

So, I taught my people inside the program how to plan their day. I teach a 10-step process. That might seem like a lot of steps, but it is truly foolproof. It is so specific and so easy to implement. It walks you through absolutely every step you need to take in order to plan your schedule accurately. 

And one of the things that we were discussing, in relation to planning your schedule accurately, is that in order to get better at time management, you have to stop lying to yourself. It is absolutely essential when it comes to managing your time and planning in a way that sets you up for success. You cannot lie to yourself. 

Now, most people wouldn’t see this as lying to themselves. This is what my clients tell me, they’re being aspirational with the way that they plan their plans. Just aspirational. Maybe they’re being optimistic about what they can get done. I really want to challenge you to look inward. Are you thinking about your schedule this way? Are you thinking about your planning this way? 

I want you to replace the word “aspirational” or “optimistic” with “unrealistic” or “impossible”, because that’s really what you’re doing at the end of the day. Those “aspirational plans” end up not coming to fruition, right? Because they’re not possible. And when you start using more accurate terminology, like unrealistic or impossible, you’re going to be less inclined to make these unrealistic plans to begin with. 

Because it’s going to seem absolutely nonsensical to you to make a plan that you can’t actually accomplish. When you use words like aspirational or optimistic, or ideal, there’s still a part of you that believes it’s possible. So, I want you to shift your terminology here. 

I want to walk you through some of the ways that I see people make “aspirational”, or better yet, unrealistic plans. Now, the worst offending example of this is double booking yourself. You quite literally cannot be in two places at once. So, if you have double bookings on your schedule, you have to resolve those. You have to see those and know, “Hey, that’s not possible for me to accomplish. There is no best-case scenario where I can clone myself and be in two places at once. It’s not going to happen.”

So, when you see those double bookings, you’ve got to resolve them. I know you’re hearing me say this and you’re like, “No, no. Sometimes I really can do two things at once.” Don’t make the exception the reason that you plan this way all the time. Because more often than not, it doesn’t really work. 

You might say, “Oh, I am going to attend this meeting. But I’m also going to respond to these emails while I’m attending this meeting.” That is not ideal planning. Alright? That’s setting yourself up to fail. Chances are that meeting is going to require more of your attention and focus than you’re giving yourself credit for. Or that you’re giving credit to the meeting for. You’re going to need to be more focused. 

And that means that you’re not going to get through the other items that you planned to be doing during that time. So, even if there are some slight instances where you can technically pay attention to one thing while working on the other thing, A. you’re not showing up the way that you want to be, fully present and paying attention to what is in front of you. Okay? 

So, if you’re in a meeting, you’re going to be checked out. That’s probably not the professional impression that you want to set, or the reputation that you want to create for yourself; someone who’s checked out of the things that they’re attending. 

But more than anything, you don’t want to be doing this because you’re going to think, in your perfectionist brain, that you can make it work. More often than not, it’s not going to go to plan. It’s going to be harder for you to achieve the second thing while you’re already engaged in the first activity. So, just don’t set yourself up for that. 

And then, of course, the worst example of this is when it literally requires you to be in two places at once. I used to work for a man who would do this all the time. He would have double bookings where he needed to be in two different courts at the exact same time, and the court appearances were in person. That is asinine. It is completely impossible for you to be in two places at once. 

So, when you see those conflicts, you’ve got to resolve them. Alright? That’s going to be your new goal. You’ve got to make me a promise, no more double booking yourself. 

Now, there’s also a really subtle way that people double book themselves; actually, two ways. One is where you underestimate the amount of time something is going to take, and then you schedule something back-to-back with that initial task, that initial thing that you have to do. 

So, if you know deep down, if you’re being really honest with yourself, that court appearance isn’t going to take just a half an hour, even though it’s scheduled for a half an hour, or your assistant put it on your calendar for half an hour and it’s really going to take you an hour and a half, and you schedule something back-to-back with that half an hour time slot, you’ve double booked yourself. 

Because you’re going to be stuck in court longer than you planned for, and it’s going to run into the next thing. That’s one way that you double book. So, that’s another reason, or way, that people schedule unrealistically. They plan things back-to-back. 

If you’re a sucker for underestimating how long stuff takes, this is a way that you double book yourself and you create “aspirational” game plans for the day. We want to get out of that aspirational space to the absolute greatest extent that we can. 

Another way that people double book themselves, is they’ll plan every minute of their day, but they won’t factor in any time for the stuff that they do every single day no matter what. Alright? An example of this would be, you say, “I’m going to work from 9am until 5pm.” Okay, and then you plan all eight hours with substantive project work, some big-ticket items.

Maybe you’re working on a brief and you’re like, “I’m going to spend all eight hours on the brief. It’s going to take me eight hours to write it. I’m going to spend all eight hours of my day and crank that out.” However, if, on average, you spend two hours a day reading and responding to email, you’ve double booked yourself. Because you’re going to be checking your email; it’s what you do every single day. 

If it’s your habit to be in your inbox pretty frequently, it’s very unlikely you’re just going to ignore your inbox all day long. So, instead of planning those eight hours to work on that brief, you really need at least 10 hours. And I would suggest even more than that, because there are going to be interruptions. 

You’re going to need to be human; eat lunch, use the restroom, grab a cup of coffee, do whatever, have a conversation with someone that was maybe unplanned. Now, you can always set boundaries to avoid that for sure. But you’ve got to be realistic. Do you supervise people? Are they going to have questions that’s going to take up some of your time? 

So, if you’ve got an eight-hour project and two hours’ worth of email, you need more than 10 hours to factor in that human – being, and that interruption time, okay? And if you’re not factoring in that email time… Or let’s say you enter your billable time at the end of every day. If you’re not factoring that in, and you’re planning all of the time that you have set aside for work, you’re double booking yourself and it makes your plan completely unrealistic. 

What’s going to happen? What you’re going to see is that by the end of the day you’re going to be behind schedule. And you’re likely behind schedule because you were unrealistic about your plan. That’s what we want to avoid. 

It’s really wild to me when I have conversations with my clients… And part of this is because I coach on this so frequently, I know what questions to ask… But someone inside Lawyers Only today; we were talking about her schedule. 

When we got to talking, I started to probe into some of the standing appointments that she has on her calendar. I asked her, “Hey, does that actually go 15 minutes? You scheduled 15 minutes for that meeting with one of your team members. Does it typically take 15 minutes? Because, in my experience, very few meetings take only 15 minutes.”

She was really honest with me, and she was like, “No, it almost always runs over. I’m like, “That’s amazing to know. You’re planning aspirationally. You’re planning too little time for that meeting. How long does it normally go? Or worst-case scenario, how long does it normally go?”

She explained to me that pretty often it actually lasts up to an hour. I’m like, “That’s great information to have. Instead of planning aspirationally, you’re

going to start allocating an hour for that meeting. If you finish early, fantastic. But if you don’t, if it goes the full hour, now you’re not going to be behind schedule. You’re going to be right on schedule, because you planned accurately and realistically, not aspirationally.”

Same thing with figuring out how much time you spend on those repeatable tasks, if you just start to pay attention to your day. This is why doing time audits is so important. I have a whole episode all about doing time audits. But you want to study yourself and learn how long you spend doing things, because you can start to factor that into your daily game plan. That way, you’re not double booking yourself, or being unrealistic about how long you spend on things. 

Use the intel from your daily life to get better at planning realistically each day. If you can get 1% better at planning realistically every single day, you will be in such a different place six months from now.

The other thing that you want to be on the lookout for when it comes to aspirational planning, and this came up in one of my client’s sessions earlier this week, you’ll want it to take less time than it actually takes. So, you’ll just make that plan. And the way that I’m describing this to my clients is that you want the plan to look good on paper. 

If you were being realistic, you wouldn’t like what it looks like when it actually is mapped out on your calendar. Okay? Instead of just coming to terms with what it looks like when it’s mapped out on your calendar, and being a little frustrated or disappointed that that’s all you can get to, or that it’s going to take you that long, you’ll lie to yourself. You’ll be aspirational. You’ll make it fit into the time you’d prefer that it took. 

A client of mine was working on a brief earlier this week. And she said to herself, “Maybe that’ll take me four hours.” When I probed a little bit deeper, I was like, was four hours really realistic? Now, one of the things that I teach is that you want to break down all of the micro tasks that go into a project. That way you get a much more accurate assessment of how long each of those tasks will take you. 

Then you can add that up and get a better sense of how long the project itself will take you. And when we did that, it was very clear that it wasn’t going to take her four hours to complete this project, it was going to take her nearly 12 hours to complete this project. 

When I asked her, “Did you do the math on this?” She sort of avoided doing the math. We got to talking and she admitted, “I just didn’t want it to take me that long. So, I just picked four hours.” And that’s when it clicked for me. I’m like, “Oh, she wanted it to look on paper.” She wanted to like what the schedule looks like, rather than being realistic. 

When you do that, you set yourself up to fall behind and fail. Because the task is going to take as long as the task takes. The project is going to take as long as the project takes you. Even if you don’t like the answer, you’re not going to be able to cheat that system. Alright? Like they say about casinos, “The house is going to win.” Time is going to win. If it is going to take you 12 hours to do that task, it’s going to take you 12 hours to do that task, no matter if you only allot four for it. 

So, you don’t want to a lot four. You don’t want to be aspirational or optimistic, or better yet, delusional about the time that you assigned to that project. You want to be really honest with yourself. That’s going to be your goal when it comes to working on mapping out your daily schedules. 

And I highly recommend you take this a day at a time when you’re beginning working on time management. If you try and work on doing a whole week in the beginning, you’re going to get really frustrated because you’re not going to be good at planning. 

Realistically, this is something that you have to be willing to be bad at for a while. Let it be clunky and work on it over time. You’ll get better and better and better. And when you’re taking this a day at a time, you get to leverage the learning that you experience every single day. 

Because you can evaluate, at the end of the day, “Hey, what worked today? What didn’t work? What would I need to do differently tomorrow?” And then you can implement that learning based on the data you received on that self-exploration that you conducted, and you can apply it the very next day. You’re going to increase your speed of improving so significantly when you go about it this way. 

You can look at how you plan your schedule, and at the end of the day you’re like, “Was I realistic or was I aspirational? Was I realistic or was I delusional? Was I realistic or was I being unrealistic?” 

And if you were being the latter, if you were being aspirational, optimistic, delusional, or unrealistic, ask yourself: What would have been more realistic for me to do? What would have been a more realistic game plan? How could I have made tweaks or changes to make my plan more realistic, to better match what actually happened in reality? And you take those little kernels of knowledge, those kernels of wisdom that you gained, and you apply them to the very next today. 

So, this is my challenge for you. In this episode, I want you to commit, “I’m going to stop lying to myself. I’m going to stop making aspirational game plans when it comes to planning my schedule. When it comes to planning my day, I’m going to come to terms with how time works. I’m going to be very realistic. I’m going to review my daily game plan and check in with myself. Is this aspirational? Is this a little too hopeful? Or do I think I can actually accomplish this?”

If you had to rate it on a scale of 1-10, I want it to be higher than an eight; that it’s realistic. That’s a good space to be in. And you will know. 

If you start to have, and engage, in dialogue with yourself, and you’ve got that gut check that you force yourself to do, you will get better and better and better at hearing that voice inside of you that’s like, “Eek, this is going to be a little tight. This is going to be a little close. I’m cutting it a little close here. This is a little too aspirational. This is a little too optimistic. It’s a little unreasonable.”

When you get that sense, because you’re checking in with yourself and you’re having that really candid conversation, if that’s the answer you get back when you do that check in, you’ve got to adjust the game plan. You’ve got to make it more realistic, so you can actually get to a place where it’s like, “This is doable. I can knock this out. I’m not being hopeful. I’m not being too ambitious with this game plan. This feels really achievable and attainable.”

That’s the space you want to be in. Okay? So, no more double booking yourself. You want to go through and look for these mistakes, if you’re making them, and then figure out what you’re going to do instead. How can you make those tweaks and changes to make sure your plan for the day is as realistic as absolutely possible?

This is going to change your life. It’s going to reduce your stress so significantly, I promise you. When you stop lying to yourself, things get so much better. The overwhelm dials down, you’re going to feel more capable, and you’re going to feel more accomplished at the end of the day. So, give this a try. Get out there. Start to look for where you’re being a little too hopeful about what you can get done. 

Just be really honest, and you’ll amaze yourself with how good it feels to be a truth teller when it comes to time management. Alright?

That’s what I’ve got for you this week, my friends. I hope you have a beautiful week, and 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 108. Today, we’re talking all about being people pleased. 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 you’re doing really, really well. I am doing so great. I am catching my breath after a couple of weeks away. I was in New York for a little while, and then I spent quite a bit of time in Italy, which was just absolutely amazing. It’s my favorite place on earth. But now, I’m back stateside, I’m back to work and getting ready for a bunch of exciting stuff over here. 

Most importantly, the launch of my next retreat which is going to be in Palm Springs. I think I’ll do a whole episode talking all about that, just to fill you guys in. But that’s what I’ve been up to, and I’m excited to get back to putting out podcast episodes after my time away resting and relaxing. 

I’ve got a doozy for you this week. This is an episode that I’m really excited to record. I remember when I was first introduced to this concept, and really it started to shift the way that I think. I’ve been reminded of it recently, because I’ve been on the receiving end of this myself as of late, and I wanted to talk to you about how it feels. 

So, without further ado, let’s dive into today’s topic. We’re talking all about being people pleased. Now, why is it so important for us to talk about this? Well, I want to give voice to what it feels like to be people pleased, for the people who are on the receiving end of this. Because if it’s leading to some frustration for you, mind you, our thoughts cause our frustration. 

But if you’re feeling a little frustrated being on the receiving end of this, I just want to normalize that for you and give you some tips on how to navigate that. More than that, I want to talk about being on the receiving end of people pleasing as a way to dissuade the people pleasers from people pleasing. To offer you a different perspective about people pleasing, 

Because here’s the thing, people people-please because they think it’s better to people please than to honor their own preferences and to do what they actually want to do. Alright? That’s why we do it. You wouldn’t make yourself your last priority, and put yourself at the bottom of your list, and then prioritize other people’s wants and needs if you thought that was the bad thing to do. If you thought that that didn’t lead to something good. 

You think it leads to something good. That it’s better for them, and that it might ultimately be better for you because remember, we people please out of fear, we do it out of guilt, out of worry. You take an action that goes against your own wants, needs, and desires, prioritizing someone else’s wants, needs, and desires instead because you think it’s better. 

And you might not just think that it’s better for them, but also better for yourself. That you’ll avoid some negative consequences if you do that, if you take care of other people before taking care of yourself. 

So, I want to offer you a different perspective about people pleasing by talking about being on the receiving end of people pleasing, aka being people pleased. Because I want to offer you that it actually isn’t great to people-please people. 

And when you see what I’m talking about, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. You’ll see the nuance here. You’ll see why it might not be the best route for you to choose, the best course of action for you to take, and that there are some negative consequences. Maybe they’re unintended, but they are there. And if you can start to see that, in the instances that you people please in, you may be less inclined to do it. 

So, I always tell you that it is more than enough reason to just do what you want simply because you want to do it. You don’t need a better reason than that. That’s plenty of reason enough. But this is another reason to not people please, because it’s not always a pleasant experience being on the receiving end of it. 

Let me give you some examples of what this looks like. One of the most common areas or ways that I watch someone people please is that they promise or agree to a deadline that they can’t meet. I used to be so guilty of this in my professional life, back when I practiced law. I was a really serious people pleaser. 

I would agree to deadlines that I had no business agreeing to because I thought it was better to give an answer that sounded good in the moment, to just agree with the person, to give them the answer that I thought they wanted to hear. Now, in hindsight, after I’ve learned everything that I’ve learned through coaching… 

And people used to tell me this, I just didn’t believe them. People used to tell me, “Please, don’t just agree to something that you can’t meet. Give me a realistic answer instead.” And I wouldn’t think that that was the best case scenario. I wouldn’t think that that was the best course of action. I thought that telling them what they wanted to hear was the best thing that I could do at that moment. 

Then I would try my damnedest to meet an impossible deadline, while I had other things on my plate. Now, in hindsight, I recognize that what they really wanted was some certainty on when they could expect work for me. So, when they told me they really wanted the truth, they were being honest; they weren’t lying. I just couldn’t see it at the time, because I was so focused on making sure everyone was always happy with me. And I was always focused on doing that in the most immediate sense. 

So, I wanted to make sure that they were happy in the moment, even if it led to them being displeased in the long run because I would fail to meet the deadline. People would tell me that it was frustrating to work with me because I wouldn’t hit the deadlines that I agreed to. I wasn’t on the receiving end of this at the time, so I didn’t really have the full context. I didn’t experience it from their perspective, so I didn’t understand how much frustration this would ultimately lead to with my working relationships. 

Now, that I’m someone who follows through and does what I say I’m going to do. I give work to contractors, or even friends of mine. They make agreements with me or make promises to me, and then they don’t follow through because they overestimated their ability. They were a little too optimistic. And then, I’m on the receiving end of them going back on what they said. I realized what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that. 

I had this epiphany that the people that I used to work with, who used to beg me to just be honest with them, they really did mean it. They preferred certainty and they preferred knowing when they could reasonably expect something from me, rather than just receiving the answer that sounded good on the front end. They used to be so frustrated. 

Again, their frustration is caused by their thoughts, but it is really likely, highly likely, that someone is going to think negative thoughts if you promised something by a certain point in time and then you go back on that, you miss that self-imposed deadline, or that deadline that you agreed to. People are going to feel frustrated. 

So, you think you’re giving the better answer, in the instant moment when the situation’s presented to you, but you’re actually people pleasing them. And it’s not in their best interest, nor is it in yours. This is an example of being people pleased, where it really sucks to be on the receiving end of being people pleased. Alright?

Another example is when you take on work that you don’t have time for. There are two people that are on the receiving end of your people pleasing here. There’s the person who you agreed to take on the work for. Maybe that’s a client, or maybe that’s a colleague that you work with, and you’re already at capacity or over capacity. So, you’re either not going to do a good job, you’re going to do a rush job, or again, you’re going to miss the deadline that you agreed to. 

You also might be people pleasing the person who came to you last in time, and you agree to push back someone else’s work, or to put that on the backburner, so you can jump on that thing that just came to you. So, the person that you were supposed to be doing the work for originally, you’ve now put that work on pause. They’re also on the receiving end of your people pleasing. Okay? 

Neither of these people are getting your best, right? The person who you’ve just paused for, they’re going to feel frustrated because you’re supposed to be doing work for them, and now you’re not doing what you said you were going to be doing. 

And then, the person who you’re now doing the work for, they’re not getting the best you. They’re getting like half of you, or rushed you, or 40% you, or last minute you. And that’s not what they were expecting when they asked you to work on that project. They were expecting you to be fully present and all-in, and to have the capacity to work on it. So, they’re getting shortchanged, too. 

You know what it feels like if you’ve ever been in this position, to ask someone to do something and then they keep making excuses. They keep pushing it back, they keep asking for more time, because they have too much on their plate and they’re being overly optimistic, or better yet, unrealistic about what they’re able to do. Okay? It’s not fun being on the receiving end of that. 

So, if you’re tempted to be a “team player” to help out another person that you work with or help out a client, do them a favor, check in with yourself. Are you really doing them a favor? Are you going to be able to show up the way you want to show up? Or are you being unrealistic? Is it not going to go the way that you want it to go? If it’s not going to go that way, I really want you to consider saying no; apologize if you want to. 

You don’t have to apologize for being overcapacity, but communicate that you’re not able to take it on and you can explain why. Say, “Hey, I’m not going to be able to do it the way that you want me to do it. And I’m not willing to put you in that position, or myself in that position, where it’s likely that you’re going to be disappointed by what you receive from me.”

People will want to push back on this sometimes, alright? Maybe not everyone, but I’ll see a lot of people who are like, “No, no, it’s okay. You can do it. I trust you. Anything’s better than nothing.” But you’ve got to be honest with yourself. Are you going to be able to give it what you would normally be able to give it if you weren’t overcapacity? And if the answer’s no, you can’t give it your all, take a step back. Just communicate that you’re not able to work on it. 

Another example of people pleasing someone is if you stay on a call too long, when you’re supposed to end a call in an hour, or maybe half an hour, and the call’s running over. I watch people do this on calls with me all the time. And I can see them people pleasing me. Now, I don’t mind staying on a couple minutes longer, if I don’t have something that is back to back. I don’t schedule my calls back to back, so that’s not normally a position that I find myself in. 

But I try and be respectful of other people’s time. Normally, I’ll ask them if they can stay over a few minutes, rather than just making the assumption. But not everyone’s going to do that, right? I can even watch people, if we’re coming up at time, and they’re worried the call’s going to go over and they’re people pleasing me by not speaking up, saying that they have another call that’s about to start.

They’ll get really distracted, they won’t be present, they won’t be focused on our call, on what we’re talking about. And I can see them starting to freak out and panic, or scramble. It’s not fun to be on the receiving end of that people pleasing. They’re trying to be polite, they don’t want to tell me that they have to go, but it would be better if they were just honest with me about needing to get off the call. It’s totally fine. 

Or they can communicate earlier in the call, “Hey, I’ve got a hard stop.” That way I know exactly how much time we have together. And like I said, this is not something that I try and do often. This isn’t a habit of mine, but it is something I’ve noticed on my phone calls or Zoom calls, whatever the case may be. 

So, if you tend to stay over on calls, that makes you late for your next call, if you’ve got something that’s back to back. So, someone who’s waiting for you is on the receiving end of that people pleasing, in that sense, but then also the person that you’re on the original, initial call with. 

They’re also on the receiving end of your people pleasing. It doesn’t feel good to get someone’s lackluster focus or concentration because you’re in your head freaking out about getting to your next call. Just be honest. Don’t people please the person. Tell them you have to go. 

Another example of this, and this can come up both in professional settings and in personal settings, is if you agree to do something, or you volunteer yourself for something that you don’t want to do, and then you end up being resentful about it. Alright?

Think of the last time you volunteered to do something at your kid’s school. Maybe it was something that you really didn’t want to say yes to, but you felt guilty so you agreed to do it. Maybe you agreed to help with a family event or party, and you really don’t enjoy doing those things, or you don’t have time to do it, but you agreed to do it anyway.

Then you show up and you’re kind of a sourpuss about it, and everyone there that you’re working on this project with has to deal with you being in a bad mood, being resentful, being a sourpuss, being disgruntled about the action that you agreed to. You did this to yourself because you people pleased. Think about what it feels like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s bad mood. 

This came up for me recently while I was traveling. There were some activities that I didn’t want to partake in, and I really thought about how I was going to be if I went along with it; if I people pleased to the people that I was with, okay? And the older I get, and the more that I spend time in coaching, I really don’t enjoy faking it. I don’t enjoy baring my true feelings about something. I’d rather just communicate my no and honor my own preferences. 

So, I know that if I people please someone, and I go do something that I don’t want to do, I’m not going to be very pleasant to be around. I really do think about, “What is the impact of that on other people?” An example of this is I don’t enjoy going to see the Colosseum. I’ve never liked it. I’ve been once; once was more than enough for me. I think you get the gist from seeing the outside of it. I don’t enjoy going inside. 

My friends who I was with in Italy wanted to go on a tour of it. I was totally fine with that, more than okay with it. I just didn’t want to go. So, instead of people pleasing them, because I was telling myself that they’d be upset with me if I didn’t go, or that if I wanted to be a team player or a good travel companion I would go on all the things with them, I just let myself opt out of it. 

I also opted out of going on a wine tour. I’ve really cut back on my drinking, and I just didn’t feel like going to an event that was going to be an all-day drinking activity. I know you’re not drinking a ton at vineyard tours, and things like that, touring a winery. You’re just tasting the wine, but it just did not sound enjoyable to me. 

And rather than going, and being resentful that I was there and I was spending my whole day bopping around Tuscany, what I really wanted to do more than anything in the world was stay at our beautiful villa, sit by the pool… it was super-hot out, it was like 96⁰… read my book, chill by the pool, get in the pool, go for a swim and just relax. I have been uncharacteristically tired lately, and I just wanted a chance to rest, relax, restore, by myself. Just have a moment to myself, some downtime. 

I really did think about what I would be like if I people pleased and partook in this activity that I really didn’t want to take part in. I realized that it wasn’t fair to the people that I was traveling with. To go do an “activity” for their benefit, when it really wouldn’t be for their benefit. I would be doing it to avoid their judgment. So, I’m doing it for my own benefit, but then I would be a sourpuss on the excursion. 

And yes, am I in control of how much of a sourpuss I am? Yes, but I also don’t want to shove and bury all of my feelings down. And if you’ve checked in with yourself when you’re “faking it”, you probably don’t do as good of a job as you think, right? Our true feelings tend to bubble to the surface and come through. People are perceptive, they can pick up on what we’re thinking and feeling. 

With that being said, I just chose to opt out and resisted the urge to people please other people. Because I didn’t want them to have to be on the receiving end of my people pleasing. 

Alright, last but not least, a really common way that people people-please… and I was recently on the receiving end of this one. I did not love it… you lie or withhold your preferences or your opinion about something. So, think about hanging out with a group of friends. I travel a lot with friends, and I’m normally the one in charge of picking restaurants.

What I typically like to do, is I like to offer a couple of different suggestions for people to choose from. I really do want their input. So, this came up on my recent trip. I would ask people, “Hey, do you want to go here? Do you want to eat this? What are you in the mood for?” It can be daunting to be in charge of making all the decisions all of the time. 

Now, I like to think that I’m good at making decisions. So, it is a skill that I can exercise, and I’m more than capable of doing it, but when I ask someone for their input, I really do want it. What I’ll notice is people are afraid of voicing their opinion because they don’t want to be “difficult”. They don’t want to be disagreeable. They want to just “go with the flow”. 

But if someone’s asking you for your preference, and you actually have a preference, voice your preference. Because if someone gives you options, and they’re hoping that you choose or narrow it down, because they’ve already done some of the narrowing and they’re trying to empower you to make sure that you get what you want, and you drop the ball and you don’t give them your perspective, it can be really frustrating to be on the receiving end of that. 

So, maybe you’re trying to choose what movie to watch. If you have a preference, voice it, alright? Now, someone else can disagree with you and ask you for a favor to watch something else instead; same thing with restaurants. But if you have a preference, voice your preference. Think about the person on the receiving end. 

Or think about when you’re on the receiving end of this, when you’re asking someone for their input, and you actually really do want it. Now, don’t ask people for their input if you don’t want it, okay? That’s another way that we people please. If you just want to be able to make the decisions and do what you want to do, then make the decisions and tell people this is the itinerary, “You’re either in or you’re out.”

But if you really do want input, ask people for input and then hope that they give it to you, or press them to give it to you. And if someone asks you for their input, give it to them. If you have input, it can be really frustrating to not get an answer when you want an answer from someone. Alright?

So, these are different ways that people can be on the receiving end of people pleasing, where it’s a less than ideal experience. I wanted to introduce you to a lot of these examples so you can start to pay attention to the instances that you people please in. And I want you to put yourself in that person’s shoes. How does it feel for them to be on the receiving end of your people pleasing? 

Now, if you’re on the receiving end of someone else’s people pleasing, or at least you suspect that someone is people pleasing you, the thing that I want you to do is I want you to call it out. Not in an antagonistic way. I just want you to ask people… I asked people this all the time. 

“Hey, are you people pleasing me right now? Because I don’t want you to do that. I want you to give me an honest answer. Please, don’t people-please me. It doesn’t feel good for me to be on the receiving end of your people pleasing.” Tell them what you’re experiencing. Explain what you’re experiencing. Highlight it for them. 

When you do this, it gives people a chance to check in with themselves. Are they people pleasing you? They can sort of take inventory. And sometimes people will be like, “Yeah, I really don’t want to do that. Amazing. Thank you so much for being honest with me.” Don’t get mad at people if they’re honest with you, they communicate a no, they resist the urge to people please you. That’s what you asked for. 

You can’t punish someone. It’s not fair to punish someone if they were honest with you when you asked them about it. Now, if they give you an honest, “No, I’m not people pleasing you,” then take their yes, or their answer or whatever it is that they’ve agreed to do, take it at face value and move forward. 

But give people an opportunity to check in with themselves. Slow the situation down. Because a lot of times people pleasers are operating so quickly that they just knee jerk their people pleasing response. They’re not even thinking about it, it just happens so fast. So, slow the situation down. Give them an opportunity to check in with themselves. 

“Hey, I love you. Are you people pleasing me right now? If you are, please don’t. It doesn’t feel good to be on the receiving end of your people pleasing. It doesn’t feel good to have you agree to do something that you don’t want to do. Alright? I want you to be honest with me. What is it that you want to do? What’s better for you? At this moment, you can tell me. I’ll respect it. Just tell me the truth”. And then honor whatever it is that they tell you next. 

That’s my advice for you, if you’re suspecting you’re on the receiving end of someone else’s people pleasing. I hope this helps challenge the way that you’re thinking about people pleasing, if you’re inclined to do it. And if you’ve been on the receiving end of someone’s people pleasing, I hope this normalizes what the experience is like, being on the receiving end. It doesn’t always feel good. And I gave you a tip for how to navigate those moments moving forward. 

Alright, I hope this helps you. I hope you 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 107. Today, we’re talking all about all-or-nothing thinking. You ready? Let’s go.

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

Hello, hello, how are you? I hope you’re doing as well as I’m doing today. I am bopping all around Italy just having a grand old time. It is June here and it is hot. So, I’m doing my best to stay cool during an Italian summer. But I’m having a wonderful time. I just left Rome. I got to Florence. I’m headed to Tuscany next and then headed on down to the Amalfi coast. But while I’m doing that, I decided to take a little break and record a little podcast for you. 

A couple of podcasts episodes back I recorded an episode all about perfectionist tendencies. In that episode, I introduced you to the concept of “all-or-nothing thinking”, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about in today’s episode. 

I want to introduce you to what the concept of all-or-nothing thinking is. I’m going to give you a bunch of examples of it. And then I’m going to tell you why it’s a problem and how to overcome it, so you don’t fall victim to this type of mindset and then suffer the negative consequences of this line of thinking. Alright? Let’s go. 

All-or-nothing thinking is a very black and white way of looking at the world. It’s where you see everything as binary. You’re thinking in extremes, there’s no gray area, there’s no spectrum. Things are just all one way or all the other. Okay? It’s very this or that, not and/or both. 

Now, the first thing that you want to know about all-or-nothing thinking is that this is a version of perfectionism. Perfectionists love to look at the world as all black or all white, very one way or the other. There’s not a lot of that gray area, or that in between space. There aren’t any exceptions. There’s just a lot of rules and a lot of rigidity. 

And with that rigidity, comes a lot of negative emotion. So, when you’re holding yourself to these very rigid black-and-white standards, when reality fails to live up to that expectation that you have set for yourself or for other people, you experience a lot of negative emotion. Things feel like they’re going wrong, even though they’re not. It’s just your thinking that’s causing the problem. 

So, let me give you some examples of all-or-nothing thinking. And if these examples resonate with you, you’re going to be able to start to identify your own all-or-nothing thinking. An example of this would be if you say to yourself, “If I don’t want every motion, I’m a terrible attorney.” Or maybe if you get a negative review, you tell yourself that you’re doing a bad job, or that you’re a terrible lawyer, you’re not competent in what you do. 

You also might think, “If I’m not the best, I’m not good enough.” That’s an example of all-or-nothing thinking. Or if you make a mistake, you tell yourself that you did a terrible job. One mistake ruins everything else that you did. 

Same thing applies if you get negative feedback on a project that you’ve been working on, and you make that mean that the person who gave you the feedback thinks that you’re an idiot. It’s that one negative critique, or maybe it’s a handful of negative comments, and you make it ruin the whole assignment and the job that you did. 

Another example of that black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking would be that you delineate between either being a success or a failure. There is no spectrum. There’s no nuance. You’re either all one thing, or you’re all the other. You might think that if your performance wasn’t perfect, it was terrible. Or that there are only those two options, it’s either perfect or terrible. 

I see this one a lot with my clients if they don’t get a pay raise that they’re hoping to get, or a promotion that they’re hoping to get, or a particular bonus. They’ll tell themselves that their employer doesn’t value them. They make the compensation that they receive mean that they’re valued or not valued, rather than there being nuance there. That it is possible that you could be valued and still not receive the compensation that you want. 

Another thing that I see people struggle with all the time is if they don’t say everything the right or perfect way, they tell themselves that they’re a bad communicator, even though they communicate really well most of the time. They make those few instances, where they think they don’t say things the right way, be indicative of being bad at communicating overall.

You might tell yourself that if you’re not good at something that you’ll always be bad at it. I talked about this in the perfectionist tendencies episode. Where you expect yourself to be good from the get-go, and if you see yourself as not being good at something from the get-go, you’ll make it mean that you’re always going to be bad at it. You don’t give yourself any room for there to be nuance where you could make improvements, you could learn how to do something, you could build a skill set. 

If you’re a procrastinator who’s also a perfectionist, you might struggle with this one. This is an example of all-or-nothing thinking. You’ll tell yourself that you have too much to do, so you can’t get started. This happens a lot. You’ll have such a long to-do list, you’ll make the length of your to-do list a problem, and then you won’t take action and make a dent in that to-do list. You just say, “There’s no way I can get it all done. So, I might as well not do anything.” Alright?

You also might speak in really hyperbolic terms. Maybe you tell yourself that people always do things or they never do things. Maybe you’re thinking of a colleague or a partner, and you tell yourself, “They never help me.” Even though, if you had to get really honest, they probably do sometimes help you; maybe not just as often as you’d like. 

Or maybe you think someone always speaks to you disrespectfully, or they always raise their voice. Again, that’s that hyperbole coming through. It’s either all one way or all another. But if you were to look at the evidence, the evidence doesn’t actually support that belief. 

You might also ruin your day over something going wrong. If one bad thing happens, the entire day is ruined. You’ll let it taint your entire experience, rather than having a little bit of nuance and saying, “Yeah, not everything went my way, but it was overall a pretty good day. Even though one or two things happened that I wish they wouldn’t have gone the way that they did.”

“Should” thinking can also be an example of all-or-nothing thinking. People will speak in very extreme terms when it comes to “should’ thoughts. You might tell yourself that people shouldn’t lie. But if you started to explore that a little bit further, a little bit deeper, you might find some nuance there. Are there certain situations where you think it’s okay to lie? 

But when you encounter it, when you’re in that state of all-or-nothing thinking and someone lies, you have a really strong reaction to it. Because you’re in that state of it being all one way or all another way, all good or all bad. You either can do it or you can’t. Okay?

I see this happen a lot. Here’s another example of a “should” thought. People will tell themselves, if the phone rings, “I should answer it always.” Now, you might have been told that by a mentor or by a supervisor. Someone who had a little bit of a scarcity mindset, that if you miss one call you’re going to go out of business. That’s a great example of all-or-nothing thinking. You don’t leave any room for there to be a discrepancy, for there to be some nuance. 

A much better thought to think is, “Sometimes I can choose to not answer and I can call the person back, and it’ll be okay.” to give yourself some breathing room, to be able to finish projects that you’re in the middle of without having to interrupt yourself. 

These are all examples of all-or-nothing thinking. Again, it’s that very black and white, all one way or all another way, types of thoughts. And here’s why they’re a problem. First and foremost, you hold yourself and others to an extremely rigid standard. 

And when you hold yourself to an extremely rigid standard, and reality doesn’t match that expectation or that standard, you create and will experience a lot of negative emotion. Okay? There’s no room for exceptions to the rule, so when reality doesn’t conform to the rule, you suffer emotionally. 

Now, when you’re suffering from this type of thinking, or indulging in this type of thinking, you’re going to create a really unnecessary negative outlook of the world. And you’re going to feel terrible as a result. You’re going to feel really badly about yourself. You’re going to feel negatively about other people. You’re going to feel negatively just about your experience in the world. 

And all of that is unnecessary and avoidable. Okay? So, we want you to avoid it if you can. And you can, because your thinking is within your control. 

So, first and foremost, you are going to feel more negatively if you’re indulging in all-or-nothing thinking. In addition to feeling negatively, remember your feelings drive your actions. If you’re feeling negative feelings, you’re going to take negative action or no action. And if you’re all-or-nothing thinking, chances are you’re probably going to be buffering a lot. You’re going to seek that instant gratification. 

You’re also going to indulge in inaction. If you look at your A-line, if you look at the action that you’re taking, it’s not going to be very impressive. It’s not going to be very positive. You’re going to freeze, you’re going to spin, you’re going to shut down. You also will probably find yourself giving up really easily because you’re going to be telling yourself, “What’s the point? If it’s not all perfect, if it’s not all good, then it’s all bad. And if it’s all bad, why would I even bother?”

So, you can see why this is a problem. You think negative thoughts because you’re in all-or-nothing thinking, you feel negative feelings, and then you take negative actions or no action at all. And that’s not what we want. So, we want to break out of all-or-nothing thinking. We want to get out of this perfectionistic mindset that you might find yourself in.

Now, you can check in with yourself and say, “Where might I have picked this up?” Perfectionism normally gets passed down to us from other people. So, check in. Are your parents, or the people who raised you, or the people who trained you, do they indulge in all-or-nothing thinking? 

You can start to spot it in other people. I find that sometimes it’s easier to start to challenge these thought processes when you see it in other people, because it doesn’t feel as true for you when someone else is doing it. And you can see the nuance, you can identify the gray area, you can identify the spectrum. And you can choose better thoughts to think along that spectrum. Okay? 

You can make room for that nuance, for that gray matter. Which can free you up to feel better, a lot less frustrated, a lot less resigned. All of which is just going to benefit you in the long run. 

Now that you know what it is and why it’s a problem, let’s talk about how to solve for all-or-nothing thinking. First things first, you need to create awareness around it. You’ve heard me say this before, but the first step to solving any problem is becoming aware of the problem to begin with. 

You want to start to identify, “Am I indulging an all-or-nothing thinking here?” If you’re experiencing a negative emotion, if you’re feeling frustrated with yourself or inadequate or disappointed, ask yourself: Am I thinking about this in a black-and-white manner? Am I in all-or-nothing thinking? Do I think it needs to be all one way or all another way, or am I leaving room for nuance?

If you identify this, you will make it a lot easier for you to start to shift out of this thought pattern. Okay, and then from there, once you’ve created awareness around it, you can start to find the gray area and the spectrum between those two bookends, between those two extremes. 

Life is full of nuance, variations, and exceptions to the rule, so you want to start to find those exceptions. You want to start to find that nuance. You want to start to find that gray area and those spectrums. And see if you can plot a point along that spectrum that isn’t at one of the polar ends. 

When you do this, when you start to find other points along the spectrum instead of the two ends of it, you’re going to feel so much better about yourself, about other people, and about your experience in the world. So, let’s take those examples that I gave you a moment ago and go through what “spectrum thinking” would look like, or that gray area thinking would look like.

You could tell yourself, “I don’t have to win every time in order to be good at my job. I don’t have to be the best in order to be good or great, or at the very least good enough.” You can tell yourself, “One mistake doesn’t invalidate everything else that I’ve done.” You can tell yourself, “I can do a great job and still get feedback that allows me to improve further.” 

That was a big one for me. I used to make negative feedback a real problem. And then it dawned on me, “Of course, I’m going to get feedback from people. Of course, they’re going to push me to improve even further. I’m new at this. I’m learning. Not every comment that I get is going to be glowing. And that’s okay. I can still be smart. I can still be capable. I can still be competent and have room for improvement.”

“I can tell myself that it isn’t all or nothing. It’s not just ‘perfect’ or ‘terrible’ when it comes to my performance. My performance can be good enough. There can be aspects about my performance that were good and aspects that were maybe not so good. And that’s okay.”

“I can tell myself that just because I didn’t get the result that I wanted doesn’t mean that everything’s bad. Just because I didn’t get the compensation I want it doesn’t mean I’m not valued. Just because someone gave me a critique doesn’t mean they think I’m not smart.”

“I can tell myself that I don’t always need to say everything perfectly, and I can still be a good communicator. Even though I have a lot to do, I can make a dent in my to-do list just by getting started. Even if that means I’m not going to get through all of it today. That’s okay. Progress is better than perfect. Getting started is better than expecting myself  to be done with everything, and freezing because I won’t be able to get done with everything today.”

“Rather than being in that hyperbolic all-or-nothing, always/never thinking, I can tell myself that sometimes this person helps me. Sometimes they speak to me in a way that I don’t love, and sometimes they speak to me in a way that I do.” It’s okay for people to be nuanced themselves, right? People don’t have to be all one way or all another way, and very rarely are they ever all one way or all another way. 

“I can just look at the day overall and say one or two setbacks don’t determine the course of my whole day. My day can have highs and lows.” You’ve probably heard me say this on the podcast, that life is 50/50. And just because something is “negative”… and I’m using air quotes there, because “negative” is a thought… just because something negative happens doesn’t make the whole day bad. Okay? 

What I want you to start to do is identify the all-or-nothing thinking that you might be indulging in, and then ask yourself: What does the in-between space, between that all-or-nothing thinking, look like? What’s the gray area look like? What’s the spectrum look like? Where’s the nuance? What are some alternate ways I could think about the situation that aren’t at the polar opposite ends of the spectrum?

That’s going to help you feel so much better day in and day out. Alright? If you can overcome and stop indulging in your all-or-nothing thinking, it’s really going to make an impact on the quality of your day-to-day life. Alright? I hope this helps you. That’s what I’ve got for you this week. I will talk to you next week, 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.