#286: Own Your Year: Craft a Purposeful and Prosperous 2024

Own Your Year: Craft a Purposeful and Prosperous 2024

Hello, my friend. How are you?

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where I’m focusing my attention.

Our attention can be in the form of how we invest our time, where we invest our energy, where am I wasting energy with unneeded things in my life and where can I be more purposeful about my energy.

This has really come up as I’ve been anticipating moving to Sedona within the next 6 months to a year. I realize how many things I’ve really held onto and given my energy over the years just by virtue of being in my house. I’m clearing my house of stuff, and it feels really good but it also feels a bit jarring because I’ve taken so much out of closets and moved things out of the garage and said good-bye to some things that I had emotional attachment to.

And that’s kind of what it feels like when you purposefully take a look at your life and your law practice and make decisions about what needs to change to create the life and law practice you love.

We may even dread the process a bit because we’re afraid of what it might mean to change things.

Will it mean I’m going to need to upend everything and feel out of control?

Will it mean more work?

Will it mean less money?

There’s just so many unanswered questions our brain poses for us that we’re not even aware of.

Today, I want to shine a light on what it means to be purposeful, so you can create the prosperous 2024 you want both in your firm and in your life.

You’re going to want to grab a pen and paper, so you can take notes as you’re listening because this episode will help you prepare for 2024 — yes, the new year is almost here — and it will also help you prepare for my half-day even happening December 2nd called “YOUR FIRM'S BEST YEAR YET: Banish Overwhelm in Your Law Firm and Strategize Growth in 2024”

You can sign up for the waitlist at dinacataldo.com/2024

For those of you who have been asking if there’s a way to work with me in a group, this is for you. This is your opportunity to ask me questions and work with me to strategize planning for 2024.

And for my one-on-one clients, this event will be included in your current coaching package with me. You’re already in.

I wanted to hold a half-day event because most lawyers don’t designate time to think about what’s needed to help their practice the most right now. This is time you set aside for yourself to be intentional with how you approach 2024.

Go to dinacataldo.com/2024 and sign up for the waitlist, and you’ll get more details as we get closer.

And on today’s episode, we’re going to use this as an opportunity to think about exactly where you want to focus your attention in 2024 for maximum effectiveness to truly create your best year yet.

I’m going to give you questions to ask yourself to help you get clarity and focus.

You’ll also get insight into what some of my clients are working on or have worked on in the past, so you can get ideas for what you want to do in your own practice next year.

So get out the notepad and pen, and let’s get started.

#1: where are you frustrated in your practice right now?

This is your opportunity lady it all out. Be honest with yourself. Don’t tell yourself, “Oh, it’s not that bad” or “I’ll deal with it.” Those thoughts are the kiss of death to a purposeful and prosperous practice.

What’s nagging at you? What are you irritated by?

Is your intake process taking “too long?”

Is your assistant not “getting enough” done?

Are you working “too many hours?”

Write it all out.

#2: look at every frustration in your practice and get specific.

Use The Specificity Principle. The Specificity Principle is something I coined based on my observations of how specificity effects problem-solving and decision-making. It is 100% effective.

For each frustration, ask yourself “What specifically does that mean?”

So for instance, when you say your intake process is taking “too long” what does too long mean? How long is your intake process now? How long do you think it should be?

If your assistant isn’t getting enough done, what specifically does enough mean? What is he or she accomplishing now and in how many hours? What do you think they should be getting done in how many hours?

If you’re working too many hours, how many hours are you working now and what exactly are you doing? How many hours do you want to work?

#3: Now as you look at each frustration, brainstorm solutions.

Right now I’m working with several lawyers on solutions to hitting their revenue goals in 2024, and we’ve brainstormed solutions like:

• create an opt-in guide to connect with prospective clients and collect their email addresses

– create an email sequence to help cultivate leads

• create a podcast directing people to book a call with them or to purchase a smaller ticket item
• Interview potential associates for expanding practice
• Create a closing procedure to stay in touch with former clients and collect testimonials
• Create a social media strategy
• Create more opportunities to do speaking engagements
• Create a referral incentive and promote it
• Create more systems and trains employees on them to help practice run more smoothly

They’re not particularly frustrated with their revenue, but you can use this as an example of how to brainstorm next steps to solve for your frustrations. You can also use this for ideas on what you may want do do to hit your goals.

For each frustration brainstorm potential solutions.

#4: Ask yourself what your top 5 frustrations are in your practice. Circle them. These are things that are taking up tons of time or energy and you’re not seeing the traction you want to see.

Those are 5 goals you can focus on for 2024.

Once you get those accomplished, you can come back to your list and pick additional ones.

#5: Which of these 5 are easy to solve?

Sometimes I work through this with my clients, and they discover that the big frustration has an easy fix. It’s something that can be solved with a 15 minute conversation. Then they’ve checked a goal off the list immediately.

If that’s the case, then go back and pick another goal off you list.

Go through this process again to see if there are any other easy fixes.

#6: Take a look at each of your goals, and write down all of your thoughts about them.

Be honest. You may think they sound fun. You may think it sounds like a lot of work. You may think it feels hopeless to get any of it done because you just don’t have enough time.

Your thoughts will reveal what your real work is.

If you think you don’t have enough time, use the Specificity Principle. How much time do you think each goal will take you when you break it down throughout the year? It will likely only be an hour or two a week when you truly look at it.

If your brain still says you don’t have enough time, your real work is upleveling your time management skills.

That may mean finally learning how to use a calendar or it may mean finally learning to delegate or it may mean learning how to feel uncomfortable and say no to work you don’t really want.

The important thing here is to notice that your brain more than likely will want to revolt against change.

Expect it.

These thoughts don’e mean anything about what you’re capable of. They are just thoughts.

Your brain is afraid of change, so it will generate these kinds of thoughts. Even if they feel true, know that they aren’t true. Your brain is a skilled deceiver. It’s going to lie to get what it wants. In this case it wants comfort so it wants things to stay the same no matter how frustrated and overwhelmed you may feel. That feels normal and safe to it.

Each time you up level in your life it will feel uncomfortable.

Each time you feel uncomfortable that means you’re headed in the right direction.

#7: Once you have your list of thoughts, I want you to look at all the thoughts that express doubt.

For each thought that tells you that you can’t do it because…(fill in the blank) I want you to ask yourself how you can do it. What CAN you do to make more time? Why do you know you can do it? What evidence do you have that it IS possible? Spend a lot of time here because you need to show your brain the potential for success before you can move forward.

#8: What you just listed out in #7 are all the thoughts you will need to practice as you go after your goals in 2024.

Put them on post its and place them on your desk.

Print out your notes and look at them every day.

Do what you need to do to show your brain you can accomplish whatever you want.

And if you want help diving into your practice, streamlining it, building out systems that will help you and your team get more done or if you simply want someone to help you calm the overwhelm in your law practice so you can have a life, book a Strategy Session with me.

Working with me 1:1 is the fastest route to hit your goals.

We meet each week to make your life easier and focus on exactly what you need to help you create the life and law practice you want.

Book a Strategy Session with me, and we’ll talk in depth about a plan designed for you.

All right my friend. I’ll talk to you next week.

Bye.