It is the most oft repeated expression in the lexicon of personal development:
“You are what you think.”
I could call upon many great names to support my point, but it matters not.
It is axiomatic that the more we spend time thinking one thing rather than another, we are far more likely to be disposed to act out our thoughts.
You may have seen a quote that I tweeted the other day:
“They intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.”
When the work was abundant, you didn’t think too carefully about the trajectory of your career, your goals or fashion a mindset that was entrepreneurial.
You did the work and the rest was set.
But, now, the work is thin on the ground, the landscape tougher, and you find yourself worrying about your future.
> Have you chosen the right career?
> Why do you have so little passion for what you are doing?
> You find it hard to keep raising your game?
My 8-year-old daughter Florence, who is a fearless trampolinist, always says: “You have to be in it to win it”. For her, it is about the competition.
For you, what does being in ‘It’ actually mean?
Does it mean that you look at different ways of doing the work?
Or spending more time on the work that you enjoy?
Or, simply, having more work?
Is that really good enough?
Surely, what you have to focus on is making the most of your ability every single day, and crafting the very best of You around the legal world which you inhabit.
If your heart isn’t in it, then each day will become harder and harder to face the work, the billing and the production mentality that you have come to decry.
However, if the fire is still burning, then you have to change your thinking to believe that things can be better, and not just different.
You could do worse that to stop feeding your mind with all the negative input awash within the profession.
Kill it dead.
Of course, you still have to keep ahead of the pack with your encyclopedic knowledge of the law, and the application thereof but don’t get so bogged down doing it, doing it, doing it that you stop asking the fundamental question:
“Why This as opposed to That?”
The money may sustain you in body but not in spirit. And, as a consequence, it won’t leave you feeling fulfilled, no matter how many things you have to show for all your hard work.
Don’t make the legal adventure a road to nowhere.
Make it a destination worth living for.