Authentically Speaking

Lawyers are strong, intelligent professionals. Very often we’ve got the career, family, nice house, decent income, but experience failing mental health and a poor sense of well-being. Have you spent years climbing the ladder, striving to be the “go to” person for your clients and the person your team looks to for answers? But in clocking up all that chargeable time maybe you’ve missed school plays, dinner dates and family gatherings. Do you manage to have conversations with your spouses that doesn’t involve negotiating who’s paying the cleaner or picking up the kids from school? Lawyers have a larger dose of the “perfectionist” gene than you’ll see in many other professions. We feel as though we must be the one who gets everything done, meets deadlines, gets the kids to school and has a week’s worth of frozen dinners ready? (Or feels like you should be doing all of that?) This is leading us to higher and higher levels of burnout, stress related absence, ill health, not feeling able to pursue that promotion or new role, and even leaving the profession we’ve worked so hard to join.