Unpopular opinion - "...If you said I'd have to leave, I'd believe you..."
"I'm not a believer," she said in a resigned voice. She was a successful partner at her firm - I was interviewing her for The Happy Lawyer Book Project. And me? I was confused.
"In what?" I asked.
She sighed before continuing. "I don't believe I can be happier in law. If you said I'd have to leave, I'd believe you. But I don't think I can be happy here."
Does this resonate? I know it does with me.
I've been there. 😔
Where you look around and you see other lawyers that are happy and you wonder what they have that you don't, or what you have that they don't. Is it a blessing? 😇 Is it a curse? 😈
Well here's my unpopular opinion - I think that this mindset of hers is a blessing AS LONG AS IT HURTS ENOUGH.
Woof. 🐶 That feels weird to write.
The caveat is that it needs to hurt enough to push you out of no-man's land. I heard Tony Robbins once describe no-man's land as the place where life isn't that great, but it's not painful enough to motivate you to make any changes. To me (if you stretch it out over a life-time), it sounds like hell. 😈
So yeah, I want it to hurt. 😬😬
But I'm no masochist. I just don't want you living your life in no-man's land. That's a waste of all of the light inside of you. Light that deserves to BLAZE. 🔥🔥🔥 And working at a place where you're not happy (when you're clearly good enough to succeed both there and elsewhere) feels like a waste of all of that light.
According to IFS, there are no bad parts. That means every part of you wants the best for you. So this partner who told me she wasn't a believer, there was a part of her making her feel that way. And that part of her wants the best for her and doesn't see her getting that right now. And this part has decided that the best way to do that is to make her feel sad/disgruntled/unhappy (maybe it doesn't know what else to do 🤷♀️).
So if you're feeling shitty right now, send some love to that part of you that's making you feel shitty. YOU deserve that love. It deserves that love. 💙🧡💙🧡
It just wants the best for you.
Until next time - dream big, live bigger, and send some love to all the parts of you. They deserve it. And they probably need it.
Paul
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