#323: Feeling Isolated

Feeling Isolated

Here's a transcription of this episode:

If you have ever felt alienated at your job, your workplace, this episode is for you. I want to share with you a story, a story that I have experienced as well as a story that one of my clients is experiencing.

Because you are not alone. It can feel very isolating to work in a firm. And I wanna share with you something that I've learned over the years that I know will benefit you if you're in this situation. Listen in to get all the goods. Hello my friend. How are you doing today?

So this came up in a recent client call and I shared a story with my client that I think will benefit you too.

First off, let me lay some foundation for this. You might be working at a law firm and you may feel totally isolated. You may believe that you don't fit in, that you don't belong.

And I wanna ask you a question. What do you believe that thought is costing you?

That belief that you don't fit in is costing you. It's costing you advancement. It's costing you long, long-term stability in your firm. Long-Term financial gain. And also it's costing you happiness.

Because as long as we maintain this belief that we don't belong, that we're isolated, we cannot take actions that are gonna help us feel more connected with the people around us.

And so this is how this came up. I had a client who came to me and they said, Hey, you know, I feel like I just don't gel in this firm.

Like it's usually that way. And this person has gone from firm to firm, kind of, you know, experiencing something similar, that they're just not gelling with the people at the firm. And when this person feels that they feel really alienated, or when they think that they feel really alienated and isolated.

And so I asked my client, well, what do you do when you feel alienated and isolated? And they said, well, I tend to get into it with people like the office manager, or I tend not to participate in extracurricular activities like softball games and those kinds of things.

Or I may put off, you know, maybe responding to an email right away, or I might kind of think that I'm being treated unfairly and then I shut down. I don't communicate. I don't go to these events that are being offered at my firm. And so I said, what do you want? What do you really want? And I would ask this question for you too. What do you want to create in your firm? Do you want

To have long-term stability? Do you want to create more financial success? Do you want to have better relationships with the people in your office? I I just wanna ask you that because maybe you're out and you're just, you're you're already tuned out. But if not, I want you to ask yourself, what is it that you want? Do you want to stay here? And what would you like your time in this office to look like? Because when I was in the DA's office, I had a, a time, I think I was maybe like four years into my practice, maybe it was less than that. Maybe it was like three years, I'm not sure. And I was in the trial unit. I was in an office that was kind of off to the side and it was not one that was easily trafficked, right? There wasn't a lot of other offices around it.

You could easily walk by it, which I thought was great because it was quiet. I could get my work done.

I wasn't interrupted a lot. Well, it turned out that that was not such a great move for me because what I was doing is I was isolating myself. I was telling myself that I just needed to work hard and that my work would then speak for itself. Well, that's not how it works in an office. The way it works in an office is that we speak for our work. Our work is not going to speak for ourself. The reason I took on that belief is because I had experienced that in school, right? High school, college, law school, you just put in the work and then you get a grade. It was as simple as that. That's not how the real world works. So when I was given the opportunity to take a larger office down the hall where it was going to be in a more crowded, not not crowded area, but it was gonna have an area that it was gonna be open air.

It's where people had lunch. It's where all like my bosses were. I said, no. And the reason I said no is 'cause my brain told me it's gonna be too much work to move. I'm not gonna, you know, get as much work done. I needed to be quiet. Everybody's gonna be loud in that area. I should just stay here. And the reason my brain told me that is because of the reasons I just shared, but also because of my primal brain.

And our primal brains are going to always seek comfort in the familiar, they're always going to seek the easy thing. And what I was doing was seeking the easy thing. Now, the more difficult thing would've been to move my stuff and go to this new office to be in an area where maybe I wasn't going to get as much quiet time.

But the advantages to that would be me being able to more easily create relationships with the people there to ask questions of people there, to not be as isolated and maybe even advance quicker.

So the relationships that I lost because I made that decision, I I'm not lost on that, right?

Like I, I saw it happen because there was a person who moved into that office and I could see that they really created more, they, they created stronger relationships because of that move.

And it was really interesting me looking back on it and seeing the parallels with my client. And that's why I shared this story with them because they were thinking the exact same thing. And it was preventing them from creating what it is they wanted. This client wanted to create long-term stability within this firm. They wanted to be able to have long-term financial stability. They wanted to advance, and they weren't gonna be able to do that by not going into the office. That was something I haven't said that they, they weren't going into the office because they were working entirely remotely and they weren't going to any events.

And this is really was hindering their progress within the firm. So what we did is we really looked at what would you need to do in order to create that long-term plan that you have for yourself. And what that would really take are totally different actions. And we started out with, you know, going into the office one time a week, going to an event once a quarter, really starting to manage their mind around all of the voices that are gonna come up, right? Because the voices are gonna come up. They're gonna say, I don't have time for this. Oh, I've got something else to do. This is too much work. This doesn't feel good. And really needing to manage your mind and know that those thoughts are gonna come up and decide that you're going to take the actions that are gonna lead to your long-term plan results.

And that is gonna be work. And it was funny because, you know, part of their brain was saying like, I don't wanna go into the office because it's so much work. And I said, well, it's just like any relationship, right? Like your relationship with your partner, it's gonna be like, yeah, it's gonna be work. You right there. You're not always gonna like having the conversations that you need to have with them. You're going to need to think through conversations or think about what you're gonna say before you say it. Be considerate of them. And those kinds of things are what help create connection over the long term. And if you're in a relationship for the long term, that is what is required. It's work. And it's not always gonna be fun, right? Relationships are not always fun. A lot of it is work. And so to do those things, we work backwards, right?

So if you're gonna change your life, if you're gonna change how you show up in the world, you've gotta think about how you need to feel to take those actions. And I will offer to you that any change like that, any massive change that you wanna create in your life takes commitment.

It takes commitment because it is uncomfortable. And your brain is gonna say, I don't want to.

And then it's your job to say, I know you don't want to, but we're gonna do it anyway. When you say I'm gonna do it anyway.

That shows commitment. That takes that old thought that you had and acknowledges it and says, okay, I understand you don't wanna do this. And because I'm committed to the result, I wanna create that long-term stability. I am committed to doing what is necessary to get it done. Now, as we were talking about this, I questioned my client and I said, do you think going into the office one time a week is gonna do it?

And he said, probably not. And what they then shared was that there is another person in the office that started off in a similar position and they were active in the different events. They were going into the office much more frequently, and they were getting noticed by management. They were getting noticed by the people who were charge of advancing careers. And I said, well, what's the difference between how that person thinks and how you are thinking about this? And what I noticed was that the person he described as going into the office and really having all of the, the activities, the involvement, was interested in the firm, interested in the people within the firm, interested in seeing the success of the firm.

And that is what catches people's attention. On the other side of things, when you see someone not going into the office, someone who's not going to events, that person is just by looking at their actions disinterested.

So I'm curious, I wanna ask you this. Which do you think you are in your firm? Are you interested or are you disinterested? And if you were in a relationship with a person and you saw somebody who was interested in you versus disinterested in you, who would you choose? Who would you want to be around? Who would you want to see advanced to the next level in the relationship? The person who was interested, the person who really showed that they wanted to be there. And it can be work to mentally get to where you wanna go, but how focused are you on the end result? Because often we get focused on, I don't belong here. I don't I don't see myself gelling here. Nobody, you know, is treating me fairly. And we can focus on that. Versus if we focus on what we are doing, how we are or are not participating, then we can see that we have so much more power than we think over how we are being perceived within the firm and how we perceive ourselves.

And I actually believe that it is most important to see how we are perceiving ourselves. And you know, if I think about this, and I think about it in terms of the story I shared around being in that office and as on the side hallway is I was really perceiving myself as just somebody who could keep their head down and do the work. I wasn't thinking about anything long-term. I wasn't thinking about creating connections or any of that. I just thought I just needed to get my work done and that my work would speak for itself. And you've probably heard this, it's not about what you know, it's about who you know. And if you are not creating connections, then you're creating disconnection. And that was really what I was seeing within this this client session. And I wanted to share it with you because if you are noticing these things come up, it's really easy to think that it's the office that really, it's the office's fault.

It's the people in the office. They're just not my kind of people.

They're overly critical of me.

They're doing this, they're doing that. Versus saying, look, maybe that's all true. I don't know.

But how about we look at how I am behaving?

How about I look at what am I doing and what shifts can I make to change things?

And when I am committed to those changes, I can tell myself, yes, this is hard and I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm gonna show up for the event. I'm gonna go into the office, I'm going to talk to the boss. I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to do the things that I know show that I am interested.

If you want to work on your relationship with your firm, with the people within your firm, with yourself, I encourage you to book a strategy session with me. You and I will talk about what's going on currently and what goals you have for yourself. And we'll decide whether or not working together one-on-one is a good fit. You have the opportunity to change everything by recognizing how you are relating to your firm and what your relationship is like with your firm.

Does it look like it's interested or do you seem disinterested? That is going to be a huge change for you when you can see for yourself which one you are. All right, my friend, I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week and I'll talk to you soon.