Major patterns among Happy Lawyers and Miserable Lawyers
A snippet from my journal. If Iād known this was going to be such a major piece, Iād have at least started on a fresh page.
5 ways to kiss like a pro. š 10 signs youāre in a great long term relationship. 7 habits of highly effective people. 8 ways to blast your biceps. šŖ Iāve read articles on all of these topics and many more over the years.
Why are these lists so damn compelling?
Some might say they want to know what to do better in order to improve and be [a better kisser / more jacked / more effective / etc.].
But me?
Thereās one thing that Iāve done EVERY time Iāve read one of these lists:
Iāve compared myself to each bullet to see how I rank.
I think thereās something hardwired in us that wants to figure out where we stand. Although it can certainly be bad (have you heard the expression ācomparison is the thief of joyā?), I think it may just be the way we are as a social species.
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You may have a sense of how happy you are. But where do you stand on the patterns of happy lawyers and of miserable lawyers? Well, I finally have a way for you to find out because Iāve distilled what I think are the major patterns that happy lawyers and miserable lawyers have.
The Patterns
But first, my process to getting to these patterns:
I interviewed happy lawyers and miserable lawyers (and those in between). I reached out to some people to ask to interview them, and others volunteered to be interviewed (as of writing this article, I have completed 75 interviews). Some lawyers were:
in private practice (ranging from firms with hundreds of lawyers to sole practitioners, boutiques and full service),
in-house (general counsel, directors, legal counsels in both private sector and public sector), and
"recovering" š (lawyers who've transitioned to business roles and to more exotic sectors)
Then, starting from when I had around 50-60 interviews, I started reviewing the interviews and creating a big list of the main points from each interview. In particular, the things that were going well and things that werenāt going well (for both happy lawyers and unhappy lawyers). This list was rather large and had both diamond and dirt in it.
Then I took that big list and narrowed it down to a list of major patterns.
Without further ado:
The Major Patterns
Happy Lawyers
lack of financial instability
a lot of schedule flexibility
a tribe, friends, support
strong alignment (priorities, values, gifts, reality)
their life met/exceeded their expectations
strong self-awareness
generally active self-compassion
intentionality with their actions and moves (particularly big ones)
gratitude/appreciation
they took action (even small action) towards their goals
well-rounded confidence and trust
self-care (sleep, health, ā¦ wealth?)
letting go of things they couldnāt control and that didnāt serve them
feeling in choice
good communicators
had a good amount of growth and challenge
Unhappy Lawyers
constantly on call
not enough separation between work and life
worry / anxiety / fear / self-criticism / imposter-syndrome
misalignment (values, gifts, priorities)
lack of ārequiredā clarity
reactivity
grind feels like a GRIND
pressure (internal/external)
social media genius-drain
lack of support / mentoring
feeling stuck
excessively prioritizing work over relationships with spouse and kids and other important personal things
[weakness at setting boundaries and caring too much what others think]
The Analysis
This is all well and good. But what do these patterns mean?
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Iām not interested in knowledge for knowledgeās sake, Iām interested in practical knowledge that will help us get happier. Maybe once we find the differences between happy and unhappy lawyers, we can find the levers to pull that will drive transformation.
Well, straight off the top there are a few things we can get rid of. Many happy lawyers also feel a lot of pressure and they work hard and they often donāt have a lot of clarity about the future. A number of happy lawyers feel imposter syndrome as well. A lot of happy lawyers are on call a lot of the time, work too much, and donāt really have enough separation between work and life (though it doesnāt seem to drain them as much as it does the unhappy lawyers). Some unhappy lawyers are great communicators. and some of them have good schedule flexibility too.
So that trims the list a bit, but weāre still left with a rather large list. Further, a number of the items in each list are likely correlative (or at least not strongly causative). For instance:
are happy lawyers happy because they trust that things will work out? Or do they trust that things will work out because theyāre happy?
are some unhappy lawyers unhappy because they drain their genius through excessive use of social media and doom scrolling? Or do they doomscroll and use social media too much because theyāre unhappy? (although ā¦ maybe itās both?)
The Starting Point
I was stuck with this list for a while until I realized that some of the patterns were actually opposites:
Happy lawyers had friends, support, and a community, and unhappy lawyers felt a lack of support and mentoring.
Happy lawyers were intentional about their lives and unhappy lawyers just tended to go with the flow and react to circumstances rather than have a plan.
Happy lawyers took action whereas unhappy lawyers felt stuck (or trapped) and didnāt take action.
Happy lawyers generally had created a life where their reality was aligned with their values and priorities and where they got to use their gifts. In contrast, many unhappy lawyers werenāt using their gifts and they felt out of alignment and like they ignored their priorities.
Last, but definitely not least, happy lawyers spent time on their inner game. They were self-aware, they did their best to be self-compassionate and forgiving with themselves, and they spent time on self-care and filling their bucket. Some unhappy lawyers also did a number of these things, but they had other issues that overshadowed them - their worry, anxiety and fear was often running a bit out of control.
This actually feels like a really good starting point to me. If we distill those 5 bullet points even further, we land on the following levers. I was starting to think that if a lawyer could:
upgrade friends/community/support
become more aware (especially of their alignment (values/priorities/gifts)) and take intentional action
become more self-compassionate
ā¦ Well, theyād probably be happier!!
But of course, thatās not the whole story. There are a few other things I still want to spend some time thinking about:
Happy lawyers feeling gratitude and appreciation and whether thatās a cause OR an effect of being happy.
Happy lawyers having expectations for their life that are met or exceeded. This one in particular pokes at me. Can you become happier by lowering your expectations? Would you want to? Do unhappy lawyers have excessively high expectations?
The link between (and effect on happiness of) feeling stuck, feeling in choice, and letting go of things you canāt control (including the need to be perfect).
How much of the unhappiness is driven by the drain that strong negative emotions in a person exert on that personās happiness (particularly those emotions that self-perpetuate or are stuck in a feedback loop). And, conversely, what effect strong self-compassion (or, heaven forbid, self-love) would have on it.
And finally, whether I could distill all of this even more to fewer elements - it seems to me that a common thread of a lot of things are the stories we tell ourselves about how our life needs to be going (and who we need to be).
So still a lot of questions, but weāre starting to get closer to some answers.
Iāve got a draft model that explains happiness for lawyers that Iāll walk you through next week.
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