Hello. How are you doing today? I am so glad that I get to talk to you today because we are talking about eight lies that you probably believe that are costing you time and money and these are beliefs that I had for a really long time until I started operating in the world and started recognizing that if I want to do achieve my goals, I needed to start thinking differently. And these are so common, these lies that we believe we totally buy into them because we're taught like that they're real and we're taught at a really young age and we never reevaluate our beliefs, and if we don't reevaluate our beliefs, then we will never make the change that we want. Now I want to acknowledge something because I'm recording this in the middle of covert 19 we just had another extension of the time that we're sheltered in place here in California and I want to acknowledge that our mindset right now is probably a little screwy, right?

Like you probably have a lot going on that is completely different than the routine that you're used to and you might be thinking to yourself, well, how is this relevant to me right now? And I want to tell you that right now is the perfect time to start reevaluating what is going on in your life, how you operate in the world. If you notice that there are a lot of emotions that are being stirred up right now. Maybe you're being a little extra snappy with a partner or you're a little less patient than usual in other areas of your life, or you notice yourself frittering frittering your time away in front of the television. I want you to know, first of all, you're normal. You're human. Congratulations. Welcome to the human race. You have done nothing wrong, but I want you to know that you are in.

You are capable of so much, and I'm not saying you have to go out and like learn Mandarin right now, but what I am saying is that it's your time to figure your stuff out. It's your time to start getting a game plan in place. Now, if you're already of the mind that, yeah, this is the perfect time for this, then let's do this. Let's go all in today. So I'm going to help you with this podcast, really start understanding where you're getting tripped up in your goals and your mindset. Now if you don't already have a regular thought practice, this is something I want you to start. This is something that if you really want to see change in your life, if you really want to begin moving forward in ways that you've only dreamed possible, start a thought practice. And what that looks like is writing down everything you're thinking and feeling.

It could just be like five minutes, just getting it all down on a piece of paper and then start breaking it down. Just like I've talked to you about the thought cycle. So I want you to recognize that you can start understanding how you feel, right? Like we talked about that in episodes 96 through 99 like really understanding where these emotions are showing up in your life, how they feel in your body, and really getting connected with those because those are the signal that will tell you what you are thinking. So I want you to start really getting in connection with yourself so that you can finally do this so that you can really get going on this. And this is going to help you find the time to get totally present to your family instead of always stressing over what's going on with the office.

And maybe you can even start something, you know, even now or later, you know, however you want to do this, where you get your schedule set up, where you can begin writing that book or working on whatever project you want to do. Get going on that. These are the tools that you need to get going on that. And maybe you really want to take on another project at the office, but you just haven't been able to do it because you can't get your mind around how you're going to find the time. You just feel too overwhelmed. Well, these are the thought work. The thoughts that I am going to help you work on in your thought work so that you can get going on this. Okay? So no matter what it is you want to do with all this extra time that you're going to get, when you start recognizing these thoughts and start putting them into action, I'm here for you.

Okay? I mean, this is how I became a morning person is by working on my thoughts like I was never a morning person and now I'm waking up at four 30 in the morning. I mean, this is not a coincidence and this is the same way that I stopped drinking alcohol. All of the thought work that I did. This is what led to me deciding, Hey, this is not serving me and how do I find all this extra time to not only work as a lawyer, but also work on my coaching business and create things like my podcast. It's by working on how I think about time. So I want you to know that this isn't just some, you know, I don't know, imaginary thing that you can do. This is something that is real and you can really get focused and get things accomplished in your life when you consciously design your life with intention, when you are not working on autopilot and just working, working, working, and you start to become aware of how you think and how you feel.

And we're not taught to really understand our feelings and think about what we're thinking. We're just taught to work and I don't know about you, but my whole life has been revolving around work. It's something that I have always done about. It's always been about working hard. When I was a kid, it was all about working late at night, getting up early in the morning and grinding all day because that's just what I did with my dad's business. That's how he ran it. It was okay. It was constantly working about it. It was waking up in the middle of the night and having to have a conversation with my dad about what, what was going to happen at the store the next day because he had stuff on his mind that he wanted to talk about because it was constantly on his mind to this business and if you were running your own legal practice, that's probably the same thing going on with you is you're constantly thinking about it and I have no problem with that.

I love the idea of having something you're so passionate about that you are constantly thinking about it, but, and even obsession like I think you have to have like this obsession with creating something in the world with helping people in order to accomplish it. But there's a difference between wanting to help people and feeling anxious, anxiety, feeling anxious, feeling overwhelmed by your to do list. It's, there's a difference between not understanding like this grind that you're putting yourself into and understanding, Hey, there's a time and a place for it and then I'm going to be fully present with my family. So I want you to know that this is possible for you. Now you might be thinking, well I just have to like sit down with my calendar and just do it right? Well you already know how to use a calendar and if you haven't done it by now, you are not going to do it.

And so that's why this thought work is so important because that's going to shift your mind and get you in a place where you will be using your calendar. I talked to so many people who are like, yeah, I have a calendar but I don't really use it. And I say, why aren't you using it? And they said, well, you know, and we're actually gonna get into some of the reasons I hear more people not using their calendar and not like following it and not writing in it. But I want you to know the reason you're not using your calendar is the motivational triad. Okay? The motivational triad is this. There's three things that our brain wants. It's the re. Now, the reason we do anything is because of how we think it's going to make us feel. Whether or not that's true or not like that, it's really gonna get us this feeling that we feel like we don't have right now that we think we don't have right now is neither here nor there, but we think that we're either going to receive pleasure or we're avoiding a pain of some sort or we're conserving energy.

Those are the three reasons we do anything. That's what our ancient brain has set in place for its standards for us is, Hey, we're going to go out and seek pleasure. We're going to avoid playing pain, and we're going to conserve energy at all costs. So anytime we do anything in the world, it's because we think we're going to get one of those three things. But what I want you to recognize is that if you want to create something in your life, you've got to consciously create it. You can't just go on this autopilot that our brain has us on. You actually have to start thinking consciously, okay, what is the thing that I want and which of these three reasons is the reason I want it? I like that is part of doing the work. All right, so myth number one. Okay. The harder I work, the more I'll get then.

Okay, so this is the first lie that we have been told about time. Okay? We think, okay, if I work really, really hard, then I'm going to be able to get to the bottom of my inbox. It's going to be a lot faster and then I'm going to have time to do all of the things that I want to do. If I just keep working really, really hard. That is just the biggest load of baloney. Okay, so this is what we've been taught to believe about time, that there's never enough of it that if you work harder, you're going to finally catch up. If there were more time than we would be happy because then we could do more of X, Y, Z, we could write the book, we could spend time with family, we could do more of what we want to do. So we're basically not.

Basically we are looking at circumstances outside of us causing our feelings, which is completely untrue. We have complete responsibility over how we create our feelings because our thoughts create our feelings. Now it's not time that is creating the overwhelm and the stress. It's how we're thinking about time and when we think thoughts like the harder I work, the more I'll get done. That is going to create time or that is going to create the stress and the overwhelm. That is going to be the opposite of creating time. So I want you to start recognizing this. So what's true about time? Each of us has 24 hours in a day. You cannot work hard enough to create more time. It's finite. Okay? There's no more of it. You just, you use it and then it's done. You just go. Now we only want more time because of how we think it's going to make us feel when we have it.

But we can feel whatever we want whenever we want. All right? So the harder you work, the more you're creating a reality where all you do is work. And so to understand this, you've got to be doing your thought work. And that's what is so incredible about coaching is it actually digs into your thoughts so that you can find these, these lies. Like the harder I work the get, the more I'll get done that are keeping you from enjoying your life, that are keeping you from spending the time with your family, feeling really grounded. I, I just, I, I look at how I lived years before compared to how I live now and it is 100% different because of the work I did on myself. And because I went into coaching and got my own coach and started really thinking through how I was designing my life and was I designing it with intention at the time I was not.

And so when we start recognizing these lies that we were told and what we really bought into, that's when we start making the change. And so the second lie I want to tell you about is the lie that we believe that using our calendar wastes our time. So this is the camos common excuse I hear from lawyers who don't use their calendar and they say, well, I think it's just faster if I just jump in and start working. And it feels true, right? Like you think, okay, well if I just start, it's gonna work out. Like I'm going to get it all done, but that is so wrong. Okay. We really feel like we're going to be avoiding pain if we just jump into the work. But I tell ya, the one hour a week I spend on my calendar saves me five hours alone in just the confusion and doubt on if I'm doing using my time in the best way possible.

I mean it just saves me so much time right there. You are deciding ahead of time how you want to spend your time. You're recognizing exactly how you're spending your time. You're not fooling yourself into thinking that you are spending your time on something that's more valuable right now. Like I don't know, doing research on a a case whereas you have a brief that's due. Which one do you spend more time on? I mean you make a decision and you decide exactly how much time you're going to spend on it and that's what it going to take me to. Myth number three. Okay. So the lie I want to tell you about here and number three is that we believe that it takes as long as it takes, that we just need to keep working right up until the due date and then we're going to turn it in.

Now, school taught us this and this is one of the reasons why it is so frustrating that we were not never taught how to use a calendar. We were never taught how to manage our time. Nobody taught us this. Life would be so much easier if we just use our freaking calendar. And so right in school we were taught that we had an assignment, I like an exam and we kept studying and studying and studying until the night of the exam, right? Like the teacher would get on us. You're studying, right? You're studying, right, you're studying, right, you're doing all your homework. It's all in preparation for that exam and we're going to all prepare and prepare and prepare. And then let's say Thursday afternoon comes and you take the exam and then all the work is done right? That that and then you can start working on something else.

Then you can start enjoying your time and not feel so guilty about, you know, screwing around whatever it is. That's it, right? That is how we treat our adult life when it comes to court, when it comes to court appearances, when it comes to writing a brief, when it comes to reviewing a contract, I mean we have brought this all into our adult working lives and when you really start looking at it, you have to recognize that you decide ahead of time how much things are going to be worth in terms of time. That's why using a calendar is so important. That's why time blocking is so important and I just go on and on about it with my coaching clients because it's like, Hey, once you get this, it makes your life so much easier. And that's exactly what I hear. It's like, okay, how can I make my life easier?

Well, that's what part of the motivational triad, right? Like we're trying to get some pleasure. Well, if you want to make your life easier, time block, use your calendar. You're deciding ahead of time, okay, I'm going to devote two hours to researching this project. I'm going to spend an hour at the gym. I am going to take two hours to just hang out with my kids watching a movie. Then you've decided ahead of time exactly how you're going to use your time and you don't have to feel guilty about it because you've decided on Sunday night when you worked up your calendar, this is how I want to spend my time. Is it going to be perfect the first week that you do this? No, it's not. That's why you've got to keep doing iterations of your calendar until you get into a rhythm that feels really good for you, where you feel like you're using the time, the way you want to use it.

You're the one who decides. I'm going to talk a little bit about reiteration of your calendar and a little bit with the last lie that we're told. Okay. So align number four, multitasking makes up for lost time. And it's so funny to me because I, you know, I have believed this myself at one point or another. We believe that if we are listening to a podcast while journaling while watching the news, then somehow we are making up for lost time. That's simply not true. Instead, what we're doing is creating that anxious, overwhelmed feeling in our body. You know, that tension that you might feel sometimes you can feel it running right up your spine. Sometimes you can feel it in your shoulders, your jaw, the space between your eyes. It builds up. Okay. And when we are not taking the time to consciously use our time, then we are creating for ourselves more pain and we don't even recognize it.

Like our brain wants us to avoid pain. So why are we multitasking? We're doing that so that we can feel a sense of creating more time for ourselves because we think we're going to be able to then spend that time doing something else. Instead, you've just got to consciously decide how you want to use that time. Not just, you know, context switching because multitasking is a misnomer. It's context switching. You're listening to a podcast and maybe you pick up one piece and then your attention is drawn to something else on the news and you pick up one piece and then you start writing something down and then you forget what you were writing. I mean, your brain is being pulled in three different directions and you're literally stretching your brainpower thin. You were unable to maximize your effort and it would be so much quicker if you really wanted to spend your time on those three things to do one at a time.

Now I would question why you'd want to listen to the news. But you know, that's everyone's choice. I watch very little of it. I read a few headlines. That is how I choose to spend my time surrounding the news because I'd rather spend my time doing something else that furthers my business, that makes me makes me feel like I'm contributing in some way. And I don't get that when I'm consuming the news. So I want you to recognize it. Recognize that multitasking does not make up for lost time. You actually have to choose what is most important for you. And that's what I walked through with my coaching clients is how are you spending your time? Do you want to spend your time this way? And usually when they create that, I have them do a table where they're actually like tracking their time.

When they go through that, they start recognizing, Oh my gosh, I had no idea I was spending so much time doing X. I'd really rather be spending it doing Y. And that's when they start to begin seeing the shifts. All right, so lie number five. The harder I work, the more my client is going to see my value and client can be filled in for boss. If you don't have your own practice or you have a partner or something like that that you're working for, then you are then going to be looking to, to your boss to see your value, right? Like that's, that's what we do in school. We look to the teacher to say, yes, you're doing a good job. Yes, you got an a good job. No, you didn't get an a bad job. Okay. So I mean, I made these mistakes too.

Like I didn't own my own successes and I kept my head down in my office instead of spending more time with coworkers or leads, like really letting them know, Hey, I'm working hard because they're not going to know unless you put yourself out there and you start saying things about the work that you're doing and when we're taught in grade school that somebody else is going to just see our value because we're working really hard and then we get an a that this is a disservice to us as an adult. So this is something that, you know, you've got to spell out your value to your clients. Slash. Boss. You're not bragging. I mean, I feel like that's a big reason that women don't say that they are doing a really good job or that they have accomplished something that they have reached certain milestones in their career.

They play themselves down because they feel like it's bragging and we're taught when we're really young that that's not attractive. What I want you to see is that this lie is not serving you. You have to put out there, whether it's in your website copy or it's in your email copy, whether it's in your social media, exactly how you're serving your clients, how you're creating value in the world. If you do not tell them that you are helping people, then you are not going to be able to promote. You're not going to be able to get the clients that you want. You're not going to be showing that value to your client to get the testimonial that you want. These are all things that you have to do in order to keep your business moving. All right? Lie number six. I can keep my work and home life mentally separate.

So there's a couple of ways that our work can spill into our home life, right? It can be the actual work where we're on the phone with a client, we're reviewing a contract, whatever it might be. Or it could be mentally, and this is where it shows up the most. Well I don't know if it really shows up the most mentally. I think that there are a lot of clients that I have that are working so much at home that it's just both. It's just both. And especially right now, right? So this can show up in a few different ways though. Mentally you're snappy with your partner, you're exhausted, you can't get anything else done, you don't feel like doing anything like your thoughts go to. I don't feel like it. I don't want to. And you kind of like that stubborn child, that's what is going on in your brain.

You cannot keep your work and your home life separate unless you put some work into designing it that way. So in terms of the actual work remaining separate, here's what I want to tell you. You have to teach people how you want to be contacted. You have to teach people when you're willing to be contacted and you have to understand what you are willing to do. If you want to go home and you want to spend quality time with your family, you've got to put everything aside. There are so many lawyers that I talk to and they say, you know, I just wish I could spend more time with my husband and just have focused time with him because so often when I'm with my husband, I'm on my phone checking my email or I'm worried about something that happened at the office earlier that day.

There's just something that comes up in my brain and I can't enjoy that time with him. And he deserves that time. And the husbands are usually super understanding, but they know that this is something they want to work on. So what I want you to know is that you have more power than you think when it comes to creating boundaries for your work. You have to set those intentionally. And I talked to my coaching clients a lot about that, and then they can make those decisions for themselves, how they want to do it. Now, most attorneys believe you've got to be available all the time, right? Or something's going to burn to the ground or you lose a client. A case is going to fall through the cracks. You're going to miss something that just totally changes the trajectory of your life and that's just not true.

I want you to know you can put that away, message on on your email. You can put an away message on your voicemail or say, I take calls between the hours of fill in the blank or I communicate better via email, so please contact me there. So I want you to know that these opportunities are available to you and that is going to help you become more mentally available to the people in your life, the people that you come home to, when you have consciously created what you want to create, those boundaries that you want to create, you are better able to show up and not be snappy when you're using your time blocking and you understand exactly how you want to use your time and you're scheduling yourself and your family first because that's an essential ingredient of time blocking is you've got to schedule yourself first and your time for your family first.

Everything else fills in the blanks. Okay, you've got to schedule that time or you're going to drive yourself crazy and want you to know it's possible. You've just got to put in the work. You've got to do it. Lie number seven. Oh yeah. Prepare, prepare, prepare, and then you only present whatever it is that you want to create in the world when we think it's completely perfect. Or another way of saying this is if I can't do it perfectly, then it's not worth doing it all. This is another thing that we get from our schooling that is incredibly unhelpful as an adult. So many of us lawyers suffer from this perfection paralysis where we think that if we don't have it perfect, if we don't have and you know, if we don't have our sales copy perfect, if we don't have our social media copy perfect, if we don't have that perfect picture for our website, then it's not even worth doing.

We were just going to keep putting it off until we get exactly what we want. And when we do that, we're holding ourselves back from putting ourselves into the world. And I've done a ton of podcasts on this, so I'm not going to go into that now. I'll link to some in the, in the website. If you go to Dina cataldo.com forward slash one Oh one, I will put them there. But I want you to know that you need to just reiterate and that is going to lead us into what I want to teach you here, which is evaluate, plan, act, fail or succeed and repeat. So every time you want to do something right, you, you create an evaluation. All right? If you want to create something for your business, let's say a website. You create an evaluation. What do I need to do?

Okay, I want an about page. I need a homepage. I need a free thing that I can give to clients to invite them to give me their email. And then you create a plan of action. You put that in your calendar. You say, I'm going to spend one hour figuring out exactly what I want to do for the design, for my, my three pages that I'm going to do. I'm going to spend two hours on my freebie. I'm going to spend one hour setting up my email. I mean, however you want to do it. I'm just putting out numbers here. And the reason I'm doing that is because once you have a plan, once you have that in the calendar, then you act, you just do the things and you see how they turn out. And at that point you can evaluate again, you're reevaluating, is this what I want?

Is this how I need to get the what is it that Seth Godin says is something like the, the easiest product out into the world? Do you want people to be able to see exactly who you are, what you're about? And okay, I've got the website up. But instead what we do is we don't put the website out because we think it's not perfect enough. We think that it's something that needs to be absolutely spectacular. It's gonna blow Oprah socks off before we put it out into the world. And that is not what we need. What we need is that the earliest viable product out into the world. So they see who you are now when we're dealing with contracts. Yeah. Okay. It's a little bit different. I get it. You've got to create that time block though and you've got to commit to it and you have to just be completely focused to it.

That's why it's so important to turn off your notifications to completely have your time devoted to the contract review. My animals are so crazy. They are just making all kinds of noise. I don't know if you can hear them or not, but they are just fascinating things. Okay, so so lie number eight. This is the last lie I want to talk to you about and the lie is we believe that you can put off X until you have more time, that there's always more time. No, there's not always more time. One day you are going to die. One day someone really important to you is going to die and you're not going to have any more time with them. This is why what you decide to do with your life in this moment is so important. That's why it's so important that we recognize how we can design our life with intention, where we want to spend our time because it's limited.

We don't have an an inexhaustible amount of time. When we treat it that way, then we are the ones who are losing and we seem to always treat it that way. Right? There's always more time to sit on the couch with the kids. There's always more time to spend with your parents. There's always more time to hang out with your husband. That's just not true and when we recognize that it's usually when it's too late. It's usually when our loved one has a diagnosis or when we have a diagnosis and we start reflecting on, wow, how did I spend my time on this planet? Am I proud of the time that I spend? Did I make a difference? Did I help somebody? Those are the things that I want to leave behind. I want to help somebody, whether it's one person or a hundred people, I want to help people and I want them to see how they're prioritizing their time before the diagnosis, before the time runs out.

Because then we have the opportunity to make the changes that we want. We have the opportunities to make the difference that we want, the impact that we want. And that all starts right now. If you heard anything in these lies that made sense to you, that you were like, Oh my gosh, that is exactly what's going on in my life. I couldn't, I've never really seen it that way. Before. I want you to take action. I want you to do one of two things. One, I want you to go to my website, Dina cataldo.com forward slash one Oh one. And I want you to download the it's a quick start guide for lawyers to make back your time, right? So you get five hours back each week just by implementing what's in this guide. That is what I want you to do. And then from there you can decide the next action to take.

You're just going to pick one thing from that guide and you're going to work on it. I want to see you make progress on this. I mean, this is why I do what I do is I want you to see how you can take back your time and that is the very first step. So the next step of course is working with me because I'm going to help you get the results faster than you can ever get on your own. Why do I know this? Because I've worked with coaches, I've learned exactly what works for me, and I've implemented it in multiple areas in my life and gotten fantastic results. So that's what I want to see happen for you. So go to Dina cataldo.com forward slash one Oh one and grab your guide and I will talk to you soon. All right, have a great week. Bye.

Hey, if you enjoy this podcast, I offer one on one coaching using my be a better lawyer framework. That's where we rewire your brain to help you create the life and the practice that you want. Go to Dina cataldo.com to schedule a strategy session.