Related Posts
DB ECM - does anyone have a view?
How is the EAD department at Bosch?
Conversation Starter
What's up young men?
Additional Posts in Law
Rising Star
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Been practicing for 6 years and what’s honestly helped me is having a sizeable nest egg that allows me to walk away from the job at any point without any changes to my lifestyle. I’m not dependent on the job for my livelihood anymore, I do it because I find it fun / interesting and I prioritize other things in life accordingly. It is just a job, the purpose of which is to make me money and buy me freedom, which it has done.
Haha why A2?
Rising Star
Personal trauma and burn-out really helps put things in perspective. That said, I would rather go ack to the days where I stressed about work. Hopefully others have a better and more implementable answer.
AA, work stress takes a back seat to a health crisis.
It’s sad to say but if you disappeared, your employer would continue on as if nothing happened. It would not affect the bottom line or profits. You would be replaced. It’s not that deep. Just work for the $, if you get fired, strap up and find another job. World keeps spinning.
The question is how do we do this?
You likely can’t do this mentally. You have to do it physically, by filling your time with more valuable things that then occupy more of your mental space and begin replacing the more negative thoughts.
What helps me is spending time with family, working out, and getting out into nature. Rekindling a passion for hiking has given me goals to aspire to, a reason to go to the gym, and thus helped me to feel better in general. When you hike all day in the rugged wilderness, it makes typing a few words in a document/email or having another phone call seem a little less important.
I will say that being debt-free and having a healthy savings rate helps a lot with this too. Not being tied to a particular job or income is incredibly freeing. The worst thing your employer can do is fire you. Have a solid safety net, plus unemployment benefits, and you’ll be just fine. That simple psychological shift may also be enough to enable you to take more risks at work, set firmer boundaries, explore new work you find interesting, etc., because you feel less like a yes man/woman to your manager and more like you’re choosing to be there in spite of the things you dislike about it.
You got this! 💪
Wow…yes! Trying to rekindle my love for hiking!! And recently became debt free! Congrats to you and thank you for the kind words
Watching how my parents were treated at work and how I have been treated at various jobs has molded that.
I looked at it this way. The two important things in your life are family and your livelihood. Family should always be the most important but there are times when work has to take temporary precedence.
These are all great reminders! I appreciate all of you taking the time to respond.
Because it is just a job and you’re just a spoke in the wheel.
Yep! A corporate cog 🫣
Rising Star
I don’t think Type A folks can easily just decide to give B level effort. I’ve had more success with making decisions about when I’m “all in” on work vs “all in” on something else. For instance, any time I’m alone with my kids, I have decided it’s completely inefficient and annoying to try to work, so I just completely put my phone away and focus on my kids. Similarly, on most Saturday and Sunday mornings, I’ve decided that the highest and best use of my time is to really focus on relaxing, so I devote myself entirely to that. So, when I’m focused on work, I’m not phoning it in. But I log significant and regular chunks of time when I’m not thinking about work at all.
For most of my professional life, which is now dwindling down because of my choosing, i have always scheduled my work around my exercise. I am a runner and i would pay attention to the weather so i can get maximum number of runs my body can manage. If, for example, on Sunday, i realize i can run MWF, then i would plan that and work TT longer hours. Sometimes, i would end up running MTT, and work MW long hours. By making my health a priority, i ended up not stressing over work much. Even on a running day, i knew i could add a couple of hours in the evening if i need to but by giving myself that choice, i almost never worked in the evenings. And i always worked at a law firm since i started practicing law. Although I always wanted to go in house, no one would hire me!
I think if you try to reframe your thoughts from “I am a lawyer” to “I work in the legal field” or “I work as a lawyer” that you can start removing your job as an identifier. You are you. You are not your job.
Very true!
My dad died young, so that jumpstarted my reflection. Then my firm put on the lipstick for the administration. Now the law doesn't even really exist with SCOTUS deciding that precedent just...isn't.
Together, all of this means that you're only really doing this for the one life you have. Not for fame. Not for glory. You can't take either of those away with you. And not even really for the money, because you're most likely going to be fine either way. You're just doing this for you. So, how do you want to spend your one life?
And if you're looking for actionable snippets, this page helps put things in perspective.
https://www.bryanbraun.com/your-life/months.html
F
I see these posts all the time. Just don’t do corporate law. There are fields where your clients are people who need a good advocate or a good transactional attorney. Family, estate planning, immigration, foreclosure defense, LLC formation, partnership agreements, and so on and so forth.
If you die today, you’ll be quickly replaced and things will move on as if you never existed. It truly is just a job and not your identity. Live your life accordingly.
I found it just takes time and financial independence. When you won’t be on the street if something goes sideways, a lot of the pressure is removed.
I could quit now and be fine financially and yet I still let the pressure get to me 🥲 I just hate disappointing people.