authentically speaking
Bollington
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.