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Balancing Work & Family

If only there was an “Off Button” for my mind

One of the most common issues I hear about when it comes to difficulty sleeping is the experience of trying to shut down your mind in order to relax and fall asleep, only to have your thoughts start speeding up and preventing sleep. It is often the case that busy people keep mentally busy throughout the day, holding anxious thoughts at bay due to focusing on other concerns. Only when they start to relax, and stop the mental busyness, do the simmering anxious thoughts in the background heat up to a full boil. Much like when you try to drown out your neighbor’s obnoxiously loud music by turning your stereo up to 11 (Spinal Tap anyone?), only to be berated by that obnoxious music once you turn your stereo off right before bedtime. Instead of continuing to block out the anxious thoughts, there are ways of addressing them proactively.

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The Importance of Sleep

It might be obvious to say, but sleep is really important. No, really. It’s really important. We all know that it is important to get a good night’s sleep, yet most of us do not get adequate sleep at night. The average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep each night. This, by the way, does not count the minutes/hours spent lying in bed awake, reading, thinking about your day, making to-do lists, etc. I have often had the thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I only needed an hour of sleep a night? I could be so productive!” This mentality frames sleep as a barrier to productivity. The reality is, adequate sleep is what allows us to be productive in the first place.

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Argument: Law School Changed Me

Law students and lawyers often tell me that law school changed them. This realization usually occurs after numerous friends and family members tell them that they have changed. “You’re more argumentative” is often heard. Typically, the law student does not feel like they have become a different person, but instead they have been learning new skills. One of the most prevalent experiences about law school is the way that it changes the way you think about everything. Whether you are thinking about an argument to make or about the intention behind a law, law school teaches you that there are no right and wrong answers. It is all about the argument you can make. This is why the Socratic Method is used in almost every law class that you take. The Socratic Method uses a series of questions to help explore potential answers or avenues of thought. The point of the method is to ask questions and engage in the process of exploration. It is not about determining the one and only right answer.

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Resilience: Internal Resources (Part 2)

In a previous post I talked about the importance of resilience in our day to day lives. One contributor to resilience is our experience of external supports (perceived and enacted). Another source of resources is within us. The more resilient we are, the more quickly we are able to rebound from challenging circumstances. This is true of major life events (adjusting to losing a job) as well as everyday sources of stress (unexpected work that gets dropped in your lap). The more resilient a person feels, the more confidence they have in their ability to withstand the turmoil that comes their way each day.

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Re-entering the job market through the OnRamp Fellowship

Today’s legal job market is competitive. With the number of law school graduates exceeding the number of law firm job openings, many struggle to find a way into a job working in a law firm. On top of this, many experience law firms as looking for a very specific resume and feeling as though they need to fit into a cookie cutter mold and surrender over their lives in order to get hired. Historically, there have been significant gender differences in the practice of law which can be grossly summarized as large firm culture has favored men. Women lawyers often report that their experience as associates in large firms is significantly less satisfying (as in their compensation) than their male counterparts (you can read more here and here).

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Resilience: Perceived and Enacted Supports (Part 1)

What’s the secret to coming out of a crisis stronger than before? This all-important factor is often referred to as resilience. Resilience refers to the ability to respond to negative life events in a way that preserves and strengthens a person. Resilience is not a single characteristic but instead is the grand sum of all of your protective factors. Researchers often identify several elements that add to someone’s resilience (protective factors), as opposed to the risk factors that we all face in life that can potentially break us down. A person with more protective factors will fare better under stress or during a crisis than a person with fewer protective factors.

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The Reason Behind your Decision matters – Fear is not your friend

In many areas of life, much weight is put on the reasons why we choose to do one thing and not another. For example, in the area of moral development a person’s reason for his/her decision is much more important than the actual decision. This is often demonstrated in scenarios of moral dilemmas where a person is asked what they would do (e.g., Your child needs an expensive medicine to survive but you cannot afford it. Do you steal it to save your child?), and then asked for their reason for making that decision. The actual decision does not tell you anything about the person’s moral development, but the reason behind the decision does (e.g., I would steal the medicine because my family would be mad at me if I didn’t; versus, I would steal the medicine because my child’s life would supersede the agreed upon laws and my good reputation and I would be willing to accept any consequences of breaking those laws in order to protect my child.).

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A Personal Account of Breaking Free: A Scary Thought AND a Real Possibility

I spent over five years working as a corporate associate for a premier Boston law firm. I was ambitious and determined to climb to the top. I naively thought that I was making choices and taking charge of my life, all in the name of success, whatever image of success was driving me at the time.

Unfortunately, the definition of “success” for a big firm associate is very narrow: you say “yes” to every assignment (even if it means working all-nighters), you become a coveted associate (which means more all-nighters, working weekends and ruined vacations), and you politely listen to the raving annual reviews, waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop, and cringe at the obligatory constructive criticism, no matter how forced it sounds.

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