#237: Purposeful Thought Work for Ambitious Lawyers

Purposeful thought work for ambitious lawyers.

Ever sit at your desk thinking about what ifs?

What if you started your own practice?

What if you expanded your practice?

What if you made partner?

What if you started that blogging or podcast idea that’s been rolling around in the back of your mind?

This episode is for the dreamers.

The dreamers who have this nagging tug at their heart that they’re meant for more.

I wanted to create an episode for lawyers who — even though they have this recurring dream — also aren’t taking action OR aren’t taking the action that produces BIG results.

I designed this episode, so you could go through it a couple times and examine your brain  — question every belief stopping you from taking action — and begin dissolving thoughts sabotaging your yourself from going after your dreams.

When I do this work with my clients, they achieve their goals faster. I’m sharing the mindset work we do in a condensed version for you in this episode.

This is the game plan today.

First, I’ll walk you through uncovering and getting awareness of thoughts stopping you from taking action

Then, you’ll learn why our brains responds like it does with these thoughts.

Next, we’ll start dissolving these thoughts by understanding what they really are.

Finally, you’ll learn how to question these thoughts one by one, so when they pop up for you, you can counter them with the truth and take action.

This last step is essential. It takes consistently showing up for yourself and questioning your thoughts. 

This is the process of rewiring your brain to take action on your dreams.

The reason my clients see changes when they work with me as their coach is because I’m questioning their thoughts on our calls. They get in the habit of seeing the thoughts that prevent them from taking action and become more and more proficient at questioning their thoughts and countering them with the truth.

They become more proficient at thinking intentionally instead of letting their unintentional thoughts run the show.

Unintentional thoughts are the thoughts we have running on autopilot in our heads.

We all have unintentional thoughts.

We DON’T all learn to observe unintentional thoughts and dissolve them, and replace them with INTENTIONAL thoughts. Intentional thoughts are thoughts that lead to better — moe intentional — results in our life.

Remember, our thoughts create our results.

If we don’t have what we want, we can change that by examining our current thinking and make changes to it.

Before we go into this episode full swing, I want to celebrate a few of the results my clients are getting right now because they are kicking butt on their goals.

One has blown past her $200,000 goal and is hitting $250,000 in revenue this year. She did that  even while deciding to work four days a week this year.

Another both made partner AND found other jobs she likes. She’s got options where she didn’t think she even had options before.

Another is laying the foundation for a new stream of income by taking 3-5 hours a week to follow her writing passion.

Another is strengthening her bond with herself and building her self-confidence for a new leadership position she took on this year.

If you want to make change in your life, not is a great time to book a Strategy Session with me.

It’s that magical time of year where we can finish the year strong AND create the belief system we need to move us through the new year with less overwhelm and more confidence.

I do this work on myself, and it makes a HUGE difference in how I show up for my business, my clients, myself, and the people around me.

Go to dinacataldo.com/strategysession to book a call.

Let’s get you on the celebration list.

Go to dinacataldo.com/strategysession and we’ll set you up for success.

Alright, let’s get to the game plan for you dreamers.

1. The very first step I’m walking you through is getting awareness.

This step is crucial.

It lays the foundation for you catching thoughts that aren’t serving you.

A thought doesn’t serve you if it prevents you from taking action or makes it hard like moving through molasses.

I’ll run through a few I hear on a regular basis, then I’ll walk you through how they may present themselves, so you notice them more easily.

Four thoughts I hear regularly from lawyers, and get in the way of taking action on their dream are:

“What if I fail?” – This feels scary. It’s fear of the unknown.

“What will people think?” – This also feels scary. It’s fear of judgment.

“Shouldn’t I just be happy?” – This can feel demoralizing and discouraging. I did an entire episode called the dark side of gratitude. I’ll link to it in the show notes. It’s episode 206. 

“I shouldn’t follow my dream because…”

• The economy is uncertain.
• I don’t have time
• I have kids, we’re saving for college, band camp, cheerleading, a house, etc.
• My family needs the healthcare
• My family needs X right now

I had a flavor of these thoughts too as I’ve gone after my goals.

The only difference between me and you — if you have any of these thoughts — is that I persevered though them and got coaching to help me work through them.

Whether you’re currently working with a coach or not, in this episode you’ll get some tools to help you work through your thoughts.

2. Why do we think thoughts like these?

You may think it’s because they’re true.

That’s actually not why we think them at all.

The reason we think these kinds of thoughts that create doubt, worry, maybe even shame is because our brains have programming — just like a computer.

The primal part of our brain is concerned with three things: pursuing pleasure, avoiding pain, and feeling comfortable.

You have a steady paycheck right now or a practice that’s bringing in income already with what you’re doing.

Your brain is going to default to this programming because making any kind of change will feel Uncomfortable. You have habits — whether you see them as good or bad — that have got you this far. The brain sees this as a sure thing, and any change is deemed scary or bad.

It’s like playing a game of red light/green light.

Your brain will always flash a red light when you want to change anything you’re doing and try something different. Even if what you’re thinking is stalling your growth.

Our job is to see what’s happening in our brain and learn the skills to re-focus our brain, so we can take action more easily.

That then begs the question…

3. How do ambitious lawyers re-focus our brains?

First, recognize these are just thoughts.

They’re sentences in our brain. They don’t actually mean to stop.

It’s easy to take our thoughts at face value and believe them like they’re facts.

We have to retrain ourselves to see them as sentences in our brain and not believe them.

Imagine walking into a book store and taking all the titles at face value.

You walk up to a shelf with a book that’s entitled, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

If you take this title at face value, you might think, “Oh, I shouldn’t buy that book because I don’t have a spaceship. There’s no need for me to read that book. I won’t be able to see the galaxy anyway.”

In case you didn’t know, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a hilarious sci-fi book that has nothing to do with literal space travel.

Or for my English Lit friends, it’s like looking at the title “Pride & Prejudice,” and thinking it’s a treatise on the difference between the two topics. You actually have to read the book to understand it’s a romance and talking about social conventions between men and women and money in the 18th and early 19th century when it was written. 

Same thing goes with looking at our thoughts. Think of them as titles to a book you don’t know anything about. Get curious about them.

When we get curious, we get distance from the sentence. We don’t just accept it at face value.

Next, let’s talk about HOW to question these sentences in our brain.

To do this, we need to look at the thought and get specific about what our brain thinks the problem is. 

I’ll take those four sentences we talked about at the beginning of this episode and break them down.

If you have different thoughts, you’ll do the same thing on your own.

You’ll question them until you make them specific.

Let’s say you want to start your own practice (or do anything else new. I’m just making this specific for purposes of this example).

You think something like…

“I want to build my own practice, BUT…I don’t have time right now.”

Ask questions and get specific.

What exactly does “I don’t have time” mean?

I guarantee you have SOME time.

How much time MIGHT you have?

If you cut something out, would you have more time?

Is that something you want to do to fuel your dream?

I have a client who’s laying the foundation for her future business with 3-5 hours a week. She has kids and works full-time, so that’s what she has to start out.

What we work on is making decisions ahead of time on the most effective way to use that time, so she’s not wasting it spinning out and telling herself she doesn’t know what to do.

I have another client who has a little more time to build her business, and we structure her time accordingly.

There’s no such thing as “not enough time.”

There’s math and there’s drama as my coach likes to say.

The drama are the vague thoughts you’re not questioning.

The math are the facts. The specifics.

Here’s another example:

The thought: “I want to build my own practice, BUT…I might fail.”

Get specific.

What does failure mean to you?

When I was thinking about leaving the law to coach full time, my version of failure was that if I didn’t make enough money to keep my standard of living, then I’d need to go back to my job. Then I’d feel shame. And that would feel horrible.

What I realized when I questioned this thought was that I could handle feeling a feeling. What failure actually meant for me was never trying.

I could go back to my job and deal with any feeling I might have if I didn’t make as much money as I needed to keep my quality of life. But I never wanted to feel regret for not trying.

Before and after I left my job, I got coached on this, so I could see when this thought popped up and when I was giving it too much time in my head on autopilot. 

I had learned how to have my own back and make decisions without drama in other areas of my life, but I had to do the work separately on this thought. So this just shows you the work is never done. Sometimes it’s like playing whack-a-mole. 

What it came down to was me honoring what I wanted, and if I wanted to go back to the law job for the money I’d be kind to myself instead of making it mean I failed. It was just a decision. This awareness and questioning of this thought made it easier for me to leave.

Here’s another example:

The thought: “I want to leave the law, BUT…people will think something negative about me.”

Sometimes I hear this from lawyers who think their employer will think they’re ungrateful for the opportunity they gave them.

Or they’re afraid if things don’t work out the way they want them to that people will think, “See I told you so.”

Here’s what I want to ask you: “So what?”

What if they do?

Do you want that possibility to prevent you from living the life you want?

DO you want to allow those people to dictate how you live your life and the decisions you make?

Life is short.

We get to make of it what we want.

Do you want to let what someone thinks or says out loud stop you from doing what you want?

Most lawyers I talk to say no.

It feels horrible when we think someone will disapprove, but is that a feeling you’re willing to feel in the short term, so you can have what you want in the long term?

My answer was yes. Definitely.

Here’s the last example:

The thought: “I shouldn’t because…”

• The economy is uncertain.
• I’m saving for college, band camp, cheerleading, a new house, etc.
• My family needs the healthcare
• My family needs X right now

Any time we think something like, “should” or “should not,” FLAG IT.

Those words are red flags you’re judging yourself.

When we judge ourselves we block ourselves from taking action.

We feel shame in wanting what we want.

Whenever I notice my brain thinking these kinds of “should” thoughts, I get specific.

What does it mean that the “economy is uncertain?”

My clients are getting promotions, interviews, and creating businesses where people pay them money.

So this is not a universal truth.

If we’re using vague words, our brain is putting up a roadblock to trying something different.

So get specific about what that phrase means to you.

Do you make it mean people don’t want to buy your services right now?

When we think this thought, we tend NOT to market our services as much because we think people don’t have money to purchase our services. 

When we think this thought, we tend NOT to look for new positions or ask for promotions.

I more than doubled the revenue in my business this year compared to last year. I have a client who blew past her revenue goal this year and made way more than last year. 

The reason?

When our brain thinks crappy thoughts, we question them. We don’t believe them at face value.

I literally never think about what the news says about the economy. I don’t want to take on anyone’s crappy thoughts. I have enough on my own, I don’t need more.

Same thing goes with the other thoughts.

Any thought you’re having like, “I shouldn’t because the family needs, or I’m saving for, etc…”

These kinds of thoughts leave no room for AND. I did a whole podcast on, “The Power of And” and how black and white thinking impacts lawyers developing interests outside the law. I’ll link to it in the show notes.

Black and white thinking blocks us from creativity. It’s like thinking, “I can have a peanut butter sandwich OR a jelly sandwich.” A genius thought, “Oh, wait, I can put them both on the sandwich.”

Sometimes we do need to make choices, but more often I see people — myself included — think in black and white terms only to discover their brain is wrong.

You can keep your current job AND build other interests even another business. 

You can leave your current job AND think about setting up health insurance outside your current job. 

You can save for college for your kids or a new house AND lay the foundation for a new business and eventually leave your current position.

Do that MATH.

Stay out of the DRAMA.

Literally look at your numbers.

You’ll probably find the numbers are much better than your brain tells you.

And if they’re not, you get to make decisions.

The question becomes what decisions do you want to make VERSUS what decision are you ignoring or avoiding by letting your brain think on autopilot.

What we’re doing in this episode is uncovering thoughts you have, so you can neutrally evaluate them and make decisions based on your best interests NOT on fear or shame.

It takes being thoughtful, strategizing and problem-solving, AND it can be done.

How do I know?

I made a lot of these decisions before I left my job at the DA’s office.

I help other lawyers navigate what they want and make powerful decisions for their future using these same tools.

They learn how not to let their futures be decided by their autopilot thoughts and keeping them in fear and worry and instead learn how to take action on what they want.

When they learn the skills to navigate the thoughts that will inevitably come, they feel more confident about their decisions and don’t live in “What if” land.

They simply decide what they want and make that happen.

4. The final part of this is continually recognizing these thoughts and redirecting your brain.

A lot of people think if they notice the thought once, it should go away.

When it doesn’t, they beat themselves up for continuing to think it.

It’s going to come back. The skill is noticing it and not letting it go unquestioned.

This is a continual process.

Our brain has practiced thoughts like this for a long time, and we need to continually redirect our brain.

That’s the work.

Don’t give up on yourself.

The best thing I ever did for myself was NEVER give up on myself.

I never gave up on the belief it was possible for me to change my life.

I never gave up on the belief I could figure out how to create the mindset I needed to move forward on my goals.

Give yourself that same gift.

You will NEVER regret doing this work for yourself.

Here’s a quick recap of the skills you learned in this episode.

First, gain awareness of the thoughts you’re having as sentences in your brain. They are optional. They aren’t factual.

Second, know that when you have these thoughts, they don’t mean anything. We have thoughts because of an automatic process in our brain that has us pursuing pleasure, avoiding pain, and seeking comfort. Anything new will feel scary. That’s okay. It’s our job to learn how to feel feelings without letting those feelings keep us from taking action on what we want in our life.

Third, we learn to move past them by:

A) getting distance from these thoughts and realizing they don’t mean anything about reality.

B) question your thoughts. Get curious and specific. When we get factual, it’s easy to see the drama versus the math.

Fourth, keep doing this work.

Don’t do this once and forget it. Save this episode and come back to it once a month, once a week, whatever you need.

Keep redirecting your brain to recognize the drama you brain tells you and question those thoughts.

If you want help moving past the drama, so you can take action towards your dream, book a call with me.

We’ll look at the specific thoughts you have about what’s between you and making your goal reality in our initial call and find out what skills you need to make it easier for you to take action.

Book a call with me at dinacataldo.com/strategysession

Alright, my friend, I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Talk to you soon.

Bye.