Have you ever had the thought you don’t want to progress your career?
You are ambitious at heart. But all those things you’re supposed to do in order to progress – speaking at meetings, seizing opportunities, asking for feedback, networking, showcasing your value – these are such a trigger for your Imposter Syndrome, you see career progression as just another way to make a hard job harder.
I get it. Working in the legal industry where the standards, the pressure to perform and the level of expectation is astronomically high, it’s easy to get caught up in the hardness of it all.
But what if being a lawyer didn’t have to be hard?
What if there was a way to make it easier?
If my putting the words ‘lawyer’ and ‘ease’ in the same sentence made you spit out your coffee, you’re not the only one. I love the look on a client’s face when I ask them: “what if this were easy?” And “How could you do this with more ease?”. At first, they think I’m mad!
They think ‘ease’ is reserved for people with low aspirations doing jobs where there are no expectations.
But ease doesn’t come from the absence of difficulty and challenge at work. It comes from how well equipped you are to deal with it.
And the best way to equip yourself, is by progressing your career.
Speaking at meetings, seizing opportunities, asking for feedback, networking, showcasing your value. I agree these present their own challenges. But on the other side of these challenges, lies something rare and exquisite in this industry: lawyering with more ease.
Here are 5 career progression moves that will make lawyering easier:
- Learning from feedback – getting feedback and implementing the lesson learned will help you get better at your task. The better you are at a task, the easier that task is to perform.
- Setting better boundaries – having a standard for how you work, and committing to it, is going to make you feel more in control. The more in control you feel, the easier it is to cope with the demands of the job.
- Staying calm – the better you are at staying calm, the more focused and efficient you’ll be. The more focused and efficient you are, the easier it is to get things done.
- Nurturing relationships – the more people you know, the easier it is to find the support you need .
- Being more visible – the more visible you are, the more opportunities you will attract. The more opportunities you attract, the easier it is for others to see your value (and give you the recognition you deserve).
Lawyering is hard. Staying where you are without developing your skills keeps it hard. Progressing your career makes it easier.
P.S. In Imposter Syndrome Coaching I help you speak at meetings, seize opportunities, ask for feedback, form your relationships, showcase your value and develop all the other skills that will progress you and your career. Whatever it is that triggers your Imposter Syndrome, I’ll help you work through it. Enrolment for Imposter Syndrome Coaching 2022 opens on 10th June. I want you to be ready. Join the waitlist here to be the first to get the details.