fueling lawyer happiness
When I consider An Inconvenient Truth - the new documentary account of the dangers of global warming - and the current energy deficit in our country, it strikes me that the depleted state of the natural world mirrors the depletion and need for renewal that many lawyers experience today.
In my work, I often talk to clients about their energy state. I ask them to consider how a particular dispute, issue, interaction or job impacts them on an energetic level. Is it filling or depleting their energy stores? Does it make them feel upbeat, positive and excited or bring them stress, anger, resentment or even physical illness? When we gauge situations and people we encounter at work and elsewhere by this yardstick – which I call the XE [energy exchange] Factor – we close in on a better understanding of why we come away from exchanges feeling fueled or exhausted.
Over at The Occupational Adventure, Curt Rosengren has written a great post along these lines called Feed the positive & eliminate the toxic. He says: “Every day we’re surrounded by inputs that either feed our energy or drain it. And for the most part we don’t spend all that much time managing those inputs.’’ To help us become better energy conservationists and builders, Rosengren makes the following suggestion: “Sit down and make a three-columned list. In the first column, make a list of all the things in your life that feed your positive energy. In the second column, make a list of the things that drain it. In the third, make a list of things you could build into your life to ‘feed your mind with material of hope and possibility.’"
For some insight into how other practitioners have (re)energized their lives in the law, you can read a 2001 ABA Journal article by Jenny B. Davis titled Life In Question: How Five Lawyers Worked Out Answers of Their Own and its 2006 follow-up, Life In Question … Continued. The articles profile lawyers who reached personal and professional turning points that compelled them to “question their own choices or the direction of their own lives.”
The important message that we’re our own first line of defense in protecting our personal energy level is embedded in a csmonitor.com commentary by Jeffrey Shaffer called July 4 is for fireworks; every day is ‘personal independence’ day. In it, Shaffer points out that “challenges to our personal independence” – to those values, concepts and rules of self-conduct that inform our integrity – often arise during exchanges “with friends and fellow citizens.”
Finally, you’ll find more inspiration on fueling personal happiness at The Happiness Project [hat tip Curt Rosengren] a blog by author and former lawyer Gretchen Rubin. And this week’s Coast to Coast podcast by bloggers J. Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi features The Fun Side of Lawyers.
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When I consider An Inconvenient Truth - the new documentary account of the dangers of global warming - and the current energy deficit in our country, it strikes me that the depleted state of the natural world mirrors the depletion and need for renewal that many lawyers experience today.
In my work, I often talk to clients about their energy state. I ask them to consider how a particular dispute, issue, interaction or job impacts them on an energetic level. Is it filling or depleting their energy stores? Does it make them feel upbeat, positive and excited or bring them stress, anger, resentment or even physical illness? When we gauge situations and people we encounter at work and elsewhere by this yardstick – which I call the XE [energy exchange] Factor – we close in on a better understanding of why we come away from exchanges feeling fueled or exhausted.
Over at The Occupational Adventure, Curt Rosengren has written a great post along these lines called Feed the positive & eliminate the toxic. He says: “Every day we’re surrounded by inputs that either feed our energy or drain it. And for the most part we don’t spend all that much time managing those inputs.’’ To help us become better energy conservationists and builders, Rosengren makes the following suggestion: “Sit down and make a three-columned list. In the first column, make a list of all the things in your life that feed your positive energy. In the second column, make a list of the things that drain it. In the third, make a list of things you could build into your life to ‘feed your mind with material of hope and possibility.’"
For some insight into how other practitioners have (re)energized their lives in the law, you can read a 2001 ABA Journal article by Jenny B. Davis titled Life In Question: How Five Lawyers Worked Out Answers of Their Own and its 2006 follow-up, Life In Question … Continued. The articles profile lawyers who reached personal and professional turning points that compelled them to “question their own choices or the direction of their own lives.”
The important message that we’re our own first line of defense in protecting our personal energy level is embedded in a csmonitor.com commentary by Jeffrey Shaffer called July 4 is for fireworks; every day is ‘personal independence’ day. In it, Shaffer points out that “challenges to our personal independence” – to those values, concepts and rules of self-conduct that inform our integrity – often arise during exchanges “with friends and fellow citizens.”
Finally, you’ll find more inspiration on fueling personal happiness at The Happiness Project [hat tip Curt Rosengren] a blog by author and former lawyer Gretchen Rubin. And this week’s Coast to Coast podcast by bloggers J. Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi features The Fun Side of Lawyers.
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