After my last post, I thought of a few more things it’s helpful to consider when deciding whether to pursue a career that strongly interests us.  Like I said before, I’m not specifically coming out for or against seeking the work you love — that’s a decision each person must make for themselves based on their own wants and needs.  I’m pointing to questions it’s important to ask when making that choice.

Doing work we’re deeply engaged in usually goes hand in hand with being vulnerable — exposing parts of ourselves it feels risky to share.  If you’re a blogger, I’ll bet you’ve experienced this sense of vulnerability when writing on something you strongly cared about.  “Do I really want people to know I feel this way?” you may have found yourself asking.

Often, revealing these parts of ourselves feels risky because they’ve been criticized or ridiculed before, and they feel fragile.  If you were told “no one thinks you’re funny” when you were little, allowing your sense of humor to emerge in something you’re writing is likely to feel unsafe.  Someone might make a similar comment, and then you’d be forced to relive the pain of that old wound.

The Perks Of Disengaged Work

This points to a reason why many of us are doing jobs that don’t deeply engage us.  In most jobs, we don’t need to bring out tender parts of ourselves to do our tasks.  You don’t usually have to expose your sense of humor, your compassion, or some other vulnerable aspect of yourself to draft a PowerPoint, plug values into a spreadsheet, or review documents.

I know many people who prefer this approach to work.  After all, they risk getting hurt enough in their personal relationships — why bring that vulnerability into what they do for a living?  And it’s okay with them if working feels mechanical, because they find exciting things to do in their off hours.  As the saying goes, they work to live — they don’t live to work.

Can You Separate “Work” From “Life”?

Although it’s easier in some ways to “work to live,” that approach, like anything, has drawbacks.  For some of us, when we don’t bring all of ourselves to our work, we’re nagged by the worry that we aren’t giving our gifts to the world.

To take my earlier example, it’s true that, if you do work that doesn’t require you to express your sense of humor, you don’t take the risk that someone will criticize that part.  But by locking that part away, you also keep people from enjoying it — you deny people a gift.

Also, the idea of “working to live” — disengaging from your work, but showing up fully in other activities — sounds good in theory, but the reality is messier.  You can’t work for 8+ hours a day with a detached, emotionless attitude and expect that not to spill over into other parts of your life.

I know this from experience.  I took pride in the work I did as a lawyer, but I wouldn’t exactly say my most vulnerable parts shone through in it.  I spent my working days in a cool, rational headspace, which was ideal for what I did.  The trouble was, I found myself, out of habit, slipping into this mindset with friends and loved ones — relating to them like they were colleagues or adversaries.

If you do something you really care about, you’ll almost certainly have to let others see parts of you that you normally keep under wraps.  This involves a risk, but also a great reward, because offering all you have to give brings a feeling of aliveness that’s exhilarating.

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Much has been written about the importance of finding work that not only supports you financially but also deeply moves you.  Many people react to this kind of advice by thinking something like “well, it’s nice that you can do something you’re passionate about, but I’m focused on trying to survive right now.”  Presumably they figure that, once things are more financially stable for them, doing work that feels meaningful can finally become a priority.  Or maybe they’ve grown too cynical to believe it’s even possible for them to enjoy working.

Doing something we’re genuinely interested in, of course, isn’t the only thing we tend to put off until we find the financial security we’re looking for.  Many of us also put off taking our intimate relationships and outside pursuits as deeply as we’d like, hoping one day we’ll feel secure enough to go for what we want.  The trouble is that, for many of us, the sense of security we crave never seems to arrive.  For many of us, no matter what we achieve in terms of money and material rewards, a nagging fear that it could all disappear tomorrow lurks in the background.

We tend to assume that the sense of stability we’re seeking will come if we just work a little harder or longer.  But is this true?  I’ve known many wealthy people who, despite their material success, seem trapped in “survival mode,” fearing they’ll make a mistake and the abundance in their lives will dry up tomorrow.  And of course, there are more public examples of famous actors, like Johnny Depp and Jennifer Lopez, who have, surprisingly (at least to me), been concerned that their careers won’t last.

What this suggests to me is that money won’t give us the lasting feeling of security many of us are chasing.  Instead, I think it has more to do with our view of the universe.  That is, do we see it as a basically safe place, where we’ll probably come out okay if we take some risks and even make a few mistakes?  Or do we see the universe as unforgiving and hostile, likely to punish or destroy us for even a minor slipup?  If we hold the second view, it’s not surprising that, no matter how secure our job seems, and how much money we have, that fear that “everything’s going to fall apart” keeps its hold on us.

If the degree of security we feel really depends on how we see the universe, how can we shift our perspective to develop the feeling of safety we want?  In working with clients, I see it as one of my roles to help them cultivate what A.H. Almaas calls a sense of “basic trust,” or a “confidence in the goodness of the universe.”  Here are three approaches to developing a more trusting perspective on life that I’ve found useful:

1. Let Go Of The Idea That “Insecurity Equals Success.”  Many of us have spent our lives believing, consciously or otherwise, something like this:  the more afraid I am of failing, the more successful I’m likely to be.  We tend to assume that anxiety about running out of money or not achieving the status we want in our careers will keep us motivated.  If we weren’t so afraid, after all, we’d have no reason to get out of bed or off the couch.

First, notice that this way of thinking puts you on a treadmill you can’t get off.  If you really have to stay fearful to stay motivated, you can never allow yourself to relax and let go of your anxiety, because if you did, you’d lose your will to go on.  Also, notice that this mindset can actually harm your productivity.  When you’re constantly worried about your career security or performance, the time and energy you spend tossing and turning at night, endlessly second-guessing the work you produce, and so on don’t contribute much to advancing your career.

Most importantly, if you recognize that you’ve been thinking this way, just consider for a moment the possibility that sources of motivation other than fear exist.  There are things you can enjoy doing so much, and feel so deeply moved by, that you don’t even think about the money, material rewards, or whatever else you’re earning when you do them.  In other words, you can enjoy the process of doing those things without even thinking about the end product you’re creating.

Take the activities in your life you see as “play,” for instance.  Suppose you enjoy running.  Running is obviously a great way to stay healthy, but while you’re running you don’t need to focus your mind on the product—good health—to like doing it.  You can enjoy the pure process of it, without giving any thought to the results you’re getting.  Once you see this is possible, the next step is to find something you enjoy the process of doing—whether it’s fishing, computer programming, dog training or something else—and incorporating that into the work you do.

2. Face The Possibility Of Failure.  Although we all seem to be afraid of failing in our careers and elsewhere, many of us never seriously consider what “failure” really means to us, and what we’d do to pick ourselves back up again if we did fail.  When we take a hard look at these issues, we often find that the risk of failure no longer seems so terrifying.

I invite you to honestly ask yourself:  what’s your definition of failure?  Would it mean losing your job?  Getting negative comments from the boss on a project?  Not meeting your sales targets?  Once you have an answer in mind, give some thought to what you’d do if that worst-case scenario came true.  Would you find another job or career?  Sell a few of your possessions?  Take some time off and write a book?

Most of us are unwilling to seriously consider what we’d do if we “failed,” because even thinking about that feels too scary—it’s almost as if we’d die if the situation we’re imagining came about.  But when we actually contemplate how we’d handle a “failure,” and begin coming up with fallback plans, we often discover a strength and resourcefulness in ourselves we didn’t know we had.  In fact, we’d probably manage to survive and even thrive in the face of setbacks.

When we recognize we’re capable of dealing with most of the challenges we may face in our work, a peace and focus set in as we go through our normal routine.  The risks we thought were too frightening to take, the conversations we thought were too difficult to have, and so on start to feel more manageable, and the success we’re looking for starts to feel more available.

3. Notice How The Fear Of Failure Feels.  Ultimately, the worry that things will “fall apart,” in your career or elsewhere, is just a sensation you experience somewhere in your body—for many people, it’s the feeling of some part of their bodies tensing up.  Like a cramp or a crick in your neck, it may be uncomfortable, but it isn’t likely to seriously hurt or kill you, and in fact it tends to pass away quickly.

Take a moment, the next time you’re feeling anxiety about your career, financial security, or something similar, to observe how that fear manifests in your body.  What sensations let you know you’re feeling afraid?

When you simply start to notice how anxiety about failure feels for you, your relationship with that sensation begins to change.  Many of us hold back from pursuing our most deep-seated goals—whether it’s the business we’re interested in starting, the screenplay we’d like to write, the relationship we’d like to have, and so on—to avoid experiencing this fear.  But when we realize that the emotion of fear is actually a quickly passing bunch of sensations in our bodies, it ceases to look so threatening.

When we perceive our anxiety about failure for what it really is, the universe starts to look like a less hostile and more welcoming place to exist.  And we come to see that the feeling of security we’ve been looking for can actually be found within ourselves.

Related posts:

1. Don’t Wait To Do Your “Real Work” Many of us are stuck in the habit of waiting...
2. Career Transitions For Lawyers (Part One) (This is Part One of a two-part series.  Click here...
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You can download the MP3 file by right-clicking on the link below and selecting “Save Target As.”

Chapter 5, Exercise 3 – Transcending Your Anxiety Scenarios

In other news, I wanted to point out two other special offers related to my audio program.  First, I’m offering affiliates who sell the program a 30% commission from sales to buyers who visit from their websites.  Second, if you’re a blogger and you’d be interested in reviewing the course, please contact me — I’m planning to provide free copies to bloggers who review the program.

Related posts:

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2. Unfreezing: Managing Work Anxiety The Aztecs of ancient Mesoamerica played a game called ulama. ...
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In Part One of this article, I talked about the anxieties and limiting beliefs that tend to get in the way of lawyers interested in a career transition.  In this article, I’m going to describe the specific strategies I and others have used to exit legal careers in a way that has had us both survive and thrive.  Before I start my list, bear in mind that addressing the beliefs that tend to prevent us from creating change in our lives is just as important as, or more important than, the specific bullet points in our plans for a career transition.

For example, if you’re identified with the prestige of your law career, and would see yourself as a “loser” if you entered a field that didn’t require a graduate degree, no amount of advice about financially preparing for a transition is going to have you feel comfortable with making one.  To take the steps I discuss below, I had to deeply believe in myself and my business ideas, and be able to continue respecting myself even if things didn’t go exactly as I wanted.

With that in mind, here are four of the key actions I, and other ex-lawyers I know, have taken in making successful transitions out of the law.

1. Start thinking long-term about your finances.  I don’t need to tell you that law can be a stressful profession, and that many attorneys see constantly acquiring more stuff as the only way to make their jobs livable.  Although we’re generally a stuff-obsessed society, lawyers can become particularly addicted to constantly upgrading their cars, remodeling their houses, souping up their stereo systems, and so on.  Legal employers encourage attorneys to develop this habit, in the hope that their employees will accumulate debt and thus shackle themselves to their jobs with “golden handcuffs.”

I’m assuming that, in whatever you plan to do after you leave the law, you can expect to be paid less than what you received as an attorney, at least in the short term.  Thus, if you’re planning to leave the legal profession, you will probably need to start weaning yourself off any stuff addiction you may have, and saving where you can, at least a few months before your departure.

I recognize that it won’t motivate you for me to just tell you to start saving money.  I think it will help inspire you, though, to constantly keep in mind how fulfilled you’re going to be when you enter your new career with some extra money to invest in your business and your new life.  Every dollar you don’t spend on landscaping and plasma TVs today is another that can contribute to your new venture’s success in the long term.

Here are the specific steps I took to maximize the size of my financial cushion.  I rented out my condo at $2,000 per month, and moved into a studio apartment that rented for slightly over $1,000.  I sold my second computer (I really only need one), my stereo (I can play CDs and MP3s on my desktop), and my TV (I don’t watch TV anyway—having one was just a way of “looking normal,” which I’m no longer concerned about).  I canceled my magazine subscriptions and nearly anything—except my car insurance and gym membership—with a monthly recurring charge.  I stopped buying books and CDs for a few months.

You may also find encouragement in some of the things I didn’t need to do to become self-supporting once I left my law firm.  I was able to keep my car, as I paid off my car loan before I left.  I completed the last several months of a year-long coach training program, for which I was paying $500 per month.  I didn’t have to cook all of my meals—I could eat out occasionally.  Leaving my firm to start a business didn’t mean starvation or even a big drop in my quality of life—though, admittedly, I’ve never had expensive tastes.

2. Explore contract legal work.  Contract work is one way to make ends meet in the midst of a transition out of a conventional law job.  Many attorneys fear working on a part-time or contract basis—either because it’s considered less prestigious than working in a firm or corporation, or because they have nightmare visions of reviewing documents sixteen hours a day in a warehouse with hundreds of embittered out-of-work lawyers.  I did a few contract projects to pay the bills after I left my firm, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I’ll make three observations here about contract legal work that may encourage you.

First, I was surprised to learn that there are contract projects out there that allow you to work from home without setting foot in an office.  I worked on one project that solely consisted of doing legal research on the Internet and summarizing what I found.  I never met any of the people who worked with me in person.  This may sound a little isolated, but in fact it simply allowed me to interact with people on my own terms.  I could call friends or go outside if I wanted, and I didn’t have to explain myself to a supervisor.

Second, as I alluded to, not all contract work consists of reviewing documents.  As I mentioned, one type of contract work I did involved research and writing.  I know several other lawyers who previously worked at firms and now draft agreements or motion papers for other attorneys on a contract basis.  Some have even gone to court and argued motions and attended conferences.  So don’t be discouraged from making a transition out of fear that you’ll have to do document review to make ends meet.

Third, despite what I said in my second point, I have worked on document review projects, and they really aren’t as bad as some make them out to be.  At first, I imagined that, as a “temp,” I’d be treated rudely and condescendingly, I’d be on call 24-7 to meet my temporary employer’s review needs, and I would have no access to the Internet outside of the web-based document review software.

None of these proved to be true.  Everyone, including the partners at the firms I worked at, was decent to me, I worked regular, predictable hours (with optional overtime), and I was allowed to check my business e-mail and such on the computers I used.  Granted, document review probably isn’t anyone’s idea of ideal work, but in my experience it’s really quite tolerable.

To me, the main drawback of doing contract-based legal work is that it pays me on an hourly basis, as opposed to compensating me based on the quantity or quality of my work.  But that, for better or worse, is no different from the pay structure at most jobs, including law firms, in that most employees are paid a straight salary regardless of their performance or productivity.  (That, of course, is one of the reasons I became an entrepreneur.)

3. Leverage your legal experience.  Back in law school, many of us heard that a law degree would help us no matter what we ended up doing, and I suspect many of us doubted that advice.  However, in my experience, it’s actually true—letting others know you’ve been a lawyer can open doors in terms of finding a job and growing your business.  After all, most people know that lawyers are generally hardworking, intelligent people who pay close attention to detail.

In my own case, my legal experience has been helpful to me in finding coaching clients—some of the people I’ve worked with have been attorneys seeking a career change, and it’s comforting to them to know they’re working with someone who’s actually been through the process they’re seeking to enter.  In another project I’m working on where I’ve been seeking investors, prospective investors have told me that, in determining whether I could run a company, they felt encouraged by my experience as a lawyer.

Another great example is an attorney I knew who harbored a lifelong dream of being a professor.  What made his path a little rockier was that he was interested in becoming a philosophy professor, rather than teaching law, and he didn’t have an advanced degree in philosophy.  But on the strength of his legal credentials and publications, and a few philosophical writings he’d done, he was able to land a teaching job at a college, and eventually move into a tenure-track position.

What’s more, if you’re an attorney and you’re interested in entrepreneurship, you likely have a lot of knowledge about going into business that many first-time entrepreneurs lack, and you can probably save a substantial amount of money by using that knowledge.  For instance, if you start a business, you’ll probably be able to do at least the first draft of the related legal documents without hiring an attorney.  You’ll also be well-equipped to research the regulations that apply to your business, and avoid violating them and paying fines.

Even if you were a litigator, as I was, you’ve still probably read a heck of a lot more agreements and corporate statutes than the average person striking out on their own.  Based on my legal experience, I drafted the operating agreement and certificate of formation of a limited liability company I’m starting, the legal disclaimers for this site and my products, and the lease on a property I own.  I’ve yet to hire a lawyer for business purposes.  (I’m keeping my fingers crossed.)

Bottom line:  don’t underestimate how much your legal experience and credentials can benefit you, even if you’re transitioning into a career that on the surface doesn’t look law-related.

4. Consult your colleagues.  Some lawyers I know, particularly those looking for jobs as opposed to starting their own businesses, benefited greatly in their searches by reaching out to people at their law firms or whatever organizations they planned to transition out of.  I know a few attorneys, for instance, who wanted to go into consulting or finance, and ended up finding positions through connections at their law firms. 

I also know a few lawyers who received some friendly advice from their colleagues—sometimes from partners—that helped them start their own non-law businesses.  This advice touched on issues like which business form to use, where to incorporate, and how to find investors.

Some attorneys I know have felt reluctant to reach out to their colleagues, particularly while they were still at the firms they planned to leave.  They feared that their colleagues would get angry if they raised the possibility that they might do something else, and even that the senior lawyers in their organizations would somehow “blackball” them and make sure they didn’t succeed in the field they were interested in.

I’ve never heard of either of these scenarios happening, and I now know a number of people who have successfully transitioned out of the legal profession.  Both in my own experience and based on what I’ve heard, other lawyers tend to be supportive and sometimes provide valuable information to people who express interest in making a change.  If you’re thinking about leaving the law, your colleagues and other lawyers you know will likely be invaluable in helping you with the logistics of your transition.

I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful, and if you’re transitioning out of the law or any other field I wish you the best of luck.

Related posts:

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As a former attorney, I know many lawyers.  Some of them love what they do and have always wanted to do it.  However, many others I know, although they practice in many different areas of law and their circumstances vary widely, have one thing in common:  they’d rather not be attorneys.

As many attorneys will freely tell you, they’ve never harbored a burning passion for the law, and being an attorney was not their number-one career choice.  Some have even advised their children against becoming lawyers.  Drafting motions and agreements, reviewing documents and writing nasty letters to adversaries were never high on their list of childhood aspirations.  Instead, they “fell into“ the legal profession.  That is, rather than consciously choosing the law, they “ended up in it“ through inertia or indecision.  (Vulnerable share:  this is what I did.)

How did this happen?  The reasons vary, but a few show up repeatedly.  The one I hear most often from attorneys is that they didn’t know what to do at the end of their undergraduate education, and they decided to put off making a decision by going to law school.  At the end of their legal education, many were saddled with debt, and the legal profession looked like the obvious way to pay it off.  And so began their law careers.

Similarly, others came out of college or university knowing they wanted to do something high-paying and prestigious, but lacking a specific direction.  All they knew was that they had some verbal facility and did well on the law boards, and that they weren’t comfortable with the risks that go with doing something more entrepreneurial.  Law promised status and a high, steady income, and so they “ended up“ in it.

Talent Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Direction

Another common characteristic of many lawyers I know is that they’re bright and highly motivated people.  How is it, then, that such people “fell into“ the legal profession, as opposed to choosing a career they were genuinely interested in and passionate about?  Wouldn’t we expect such ambitious and talented individuals to take conscious control of their lives?

I’ve pondered this question for a long time, and discussed it with many current and former lawyers.  What I’ve come to believe is that many attorneys “ended up“ in the legal profession, and remain there today, out of a sense of shame.  Although they considered alternative careers that sounded more inspiring, they decided, for one reason or another, that they weren’t good enough, or that they didn’t deserve, to pursue their true calling.  And the shame I’m talking about is also what’s keeping many attorneys from seriously considering a career transition.

My sense is that many lawyers’ decision (or non-decision) to “fall into“ the law, and their reluctance to try something new, are often rooted in beliefs they’ve harbored about themselves and the world since they were very young.  In my experience coaching people — many of whom have been attorneys — through making transitions, becoming aware of the ideas that are driving our choices, in our careers and elsewhere, is the most important step toward creating change.

Based on the many conversations I’ve had with dissatisfied lawyers about the reasons they entered their career, and the reasons they may be having trouble making a transition, I’ve come up with a list of the most common limiting beliefs attorneys often hold about themselves.  In this article, I’m going to describe, and take a critical look at, each of these.

If you’re an attorney interested in a career change, or you do something else but what I say here resonates with you, I invite you to examine these beliefs with me.  See if taking a hard look at them helps remove some of the mental obstacles that may have been blocking you from pursuing your true calling.

1.  I “owe“ it to others to be in a stable, high-paying profession.  Despite what some nonlawyers say about the legal profession’s ethics, we attorneys tend to have highly developed, and frequently rigid, ideas of right and wrong.  Our strong consciences help us zealously represent our clients, but they also tend to have us savagely criticize ourselves and hold ourselves to inflexible standards.

With this powerful conscience comes a sometimes overwhelming sense of obligation — to our parents, children, friends, and others.  We believe we deeply “owe“ the people around us — so deeply that we actually have a duty to design our careers, relationships and other important aspects of our lives to serve their wants.  Perhaps, for example, we owe it to our parents to take a career path they’ll be proud of, or at least one they won’t feel embarrassed by.  Maybe we owe it to our families to enter a low-risk and high-paying career, to ensure that we’ll always provide them with enough.  And so on.

If you’re a lawyer, and you recognize that you entered the law out of a sense of obligation to someone, I’m not going to try to insist or prove that you don’t owe anyone anything.  I do think it would be useful, however, to try on another perspective for a moment.  Consider the possibility that, if you dislike what you do for a living, others around you are feeling the impact of your dissatisfaction, whether you want them to or not.

This may be happening in obvious ways — perhaps you’re coming home to your family with a hair-trigger temper because of your dissatisfaction with your career, or you’re finding yourself too exhausted to spend any quality time with them.  Or perhaps the impact is subtler — maybe there’s a distance between you and your family, or others in your life, that they feel but can’t quite explain.

Now, try on the idea that, when you do something you feel passionate about, the fulfillment you experience “rubs off“ on those around you as well.  Your family and friends’ empathic sensibilities can pick up on your joy as well as your pain.  In fact, you’ve probably noticed that the mood you’re in when you’ve had a great day at work can subtly uplift even strangers you pass on the street.

Perhaps your reaction to what I’ve said is that it would be impossible for you to support yourself, or your spouse or children, doing anything but law.  If you hold this view, I invite you to simply take a hard look at it, and honestly ask yourself whether someone with your talent and motivation would really be unable to succeed doing anything else.

2.  I don’t know what I want to do.  A number of lawyers have come to me claiming they’re still doing law because they don’t know what they really want in their careers.  Interestingly, however, I often find this isn’t actually true.  What’s really going on is that they’ve learned to say they don’t know because they’re ashamed to admit their desires.  They chose law because it was a “safe,“ conventional path no one would criticize them for taking.

One of my functions as a coach is to provide a nonjudgmental environment for people to discuss what they actually want in their lives.  When I’m successful at assuring a client I won’t ridicule or shame them for telling me what they’re passionate about, they usually become willing to drop the “I don’t know“ facade and open up about what they truly desire.  It just takes a little time before they can trust me enough to confide in me.

In providing this kind of environment, I’m helping them overcome the conditioning that had them “fall into“ their present careers.  Many of us grew up being told that our dreams were selfish or silly, that we didn’t have the talent to do what we wanted, or that what we wanted didn’t matter.  Not surprisingly, many of us adapted to this kind of situation by choosing never to talk about, or pursue, what we desired.

When we finally find someone — whether it’s a therapist or coach, or just a close friend — who will listen without judgment to what we really want, we often find our calling naturally revealing itself to us without effort.  We discover, as I put it in my audio program, that “it’s okay to have wants.”

3.  I have nothing special to contribute.  Although some lawyers I’ve spoken to do know what they really want in their careers, they’re convinced that they can’t pursue their true calling because they have nothing unique or valuable to bring to the field that interests them.  Several attorneys who’d prefer to be writers, for instance, have told me they abandoned the idea because “there are so many other writers out there.“  If they couldn’t make a unique contribution doing what they prefer, they concluded, they might as well do a job with decent pay.

One thing I often notice about people who tell me they have “nothing special to contribute” to some field is that they haven’t really tried.  The attorneys who told me they’d rather be writers, for example, had never actually tried writing professionally (except, of course, for drafting agreements and legal papers).  If this objection comes up for you, I’d recommend at least trying out what you want on a part-time basis, or recreationally, to get an idea of the quality of work you can actually produce.  Better yet, commit to another person — whether it’s a coach, friend or family member — to explore your outside interests, and request that they hold you to that commitment.

But more importantly, really consider these questions:  why does everything you do need to be unique and special?  Why do you hold yourself to this standard?  What do you fear would happen if you didn’t produce something groundbreaking in your work?  Would people ridicule you, or get angry, or harm you in some way?  Taking a serious look at these questions often loosens the grip this “need to be special” has on you.

I’ve worked with several people who felt reluctant to make a career transition because they doubted their ability to make a “unique contribution.”  In almost every case, when they closely examine their belief that every piece of work they produce must be revolutionary and cutting-edge, they start taking it less seriously.  If the need to “be special” is holding you back from pursuing your goals, I invite you to do the same kind of self-examination.

4. Marketing my goods or services would be sleazy.  I’ve known a number of attorneys who were interested in doing something more entrepreneurial, ranging from starting their own businesses making quilts to selling financial products on commission.  However, another common feature of lawyers’ mindset seems to be a disdain for selling things.  To many attorneys, there is something crass, manipulative or pedestrian about promoting products or services.  Here’s another vulnerable confession:  I even felt a little anxiety as I was designing this site’s marketing, for the same reasons.  “Oh, how low I’ve fallen,” I despaired for a moment.  “I’m hawking my wares on the Internet.”

The number of legal restrictions on lawyer advertising that exist everywhere is a testament to this belief’s power.  Similarly, I often hear lawyers belittling successful entrepreneurs, wondering how people with neither law degrees nor academic honors (or, like Bill Gates, not even college diplomas!) could make more money than most senior law firm partners.  And don’t get attorneys started on celebrities who became millionaires simply by looking attractive, without ever drafting a single Motion for Summary Judgment or Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement.

Despite this prevailing attitude, I think most attorneys would acknowledge that it’s at least okay to truthfully market a service or product that’s actually of decent quality.  If you think you can start your own business and create something worthwhile — and I suspect that someone with your talents and intelligence can do so — there’s nothing sleazy about telling people about it.

More importantly, if you find yourself limited by this attitude, consider this question:  do you really believe self-promotion is shameful, or is that just something you tell yourself to excuse the choices you’ve made?  If you abandoned your dream of entrepreneurship for law or some other more “stable” career path, it’s comforting to believe you did that to avoid manipulating others or demeaning yourself.  But can you honestly accept that belief?

5. Everything will be okay when I’m wealthier.  Some attorneys I know, although they’re unsatisfied with their careers right now, believe their quality of life will significantly improve once they start making more money.  This is particularly true for associates at large law firms who believe they have a decent shot at “making partner” within a few years.  The reasons lawyers hold this belief vary.  Some, for instance, think more money will give them access to enough material rewards that they’ll become satisfied with their lives.  Others plan to retire early, and spend the rest of their lives with their families financially free.

Unfortunately, in my experience, even when attorneys meet their financial goals, they find themselves saddled with the same sense of emptiness that plagued them when they started out.  What’s more, money does little to heal the rifts in their personal relationships.  In the end, no matter how much money they make, how many junior people they get to supervise, and how many important people they get to hobnob with, wealth and status simply don’t seem to “make everything okay.”

It took me a long time to finally acknowledge that no material reward can really fill the emptiness many of us — lawyers or otherwise — experience within ourselves.  That this was hard for me to see is no surprise, since — as with many other attorneys — the reason I entered my legal career was ultimately to garner enough money and prestige to feel adequate. The only way we can come to terms with this emptiness, or sense of lack, is to be willing to silently sit with it and fully experience it, rather than running or trying to distract ourselves from it.

I offer several guided meditations for this purpose in my book and audio program, but just sitting alone in silence can help us get intimate with and ultimately transcend the feeling of inadequacy that may be nagging us in the background.

(This is Part One of a two-part series.  In Part Two, I’m going to dive into the practicalities of transitioning out of the legal profession, based on my own experiences and those of other ex-lawyers I know.)

Related posts:

1. Career Transitions For Lawyers (Part Two) (This is Part Two of a two-part series on transitioning...
2. Do You Have The “Personality” For The Career You Want? Personality tests are becoming increasingly popular among people starting out...
3. Don’t Wait To Do Your “Real Work,” Part II: Finding Real Security (This is the second part of a series I began...

As I said in Part One of this review, Parachute has much to recommend it in terms of the inspiring and spiritual perspective Bolles offers on the job hunt and career satisfaction.  As with any work, however, there are places where Parachute has room to grow, and I’ll talk about three of them here.

1. Canned Interview Strategies.  Bolles provides a long list of tips and tricks for succeeding in job interviews.  Examples include the “two-minute rule,” which means you should avoid spending more than two minutes responding to an interviewer’s question, to make sure they don’t think you’re self-indulgent; the “50-50 rule,” which means that, for the same reason, you should ensure that you and the interviewer talk for roughly equal amounts of time; and various forms of confident body language, such as strong eye contact.

Bolles says some of these strategies are supported by studies showing that people who use the suggested behaviors are more likely to be hired.  Even assuming these studies actually prove what Bolles says, one question that remains is whether people who intentionally make an effort to do these behaviors succeed in interviews.  In other words, it’s one thing to say that people who don’t talk for more than two minutes per answer tend to get the job—it’s another to suggest that people who consciously worry about the amount of time they spend talking are more likely to get hired.

In my experience, people who go through job interviews saying planned lines and using rehearsed body language are likely to be, and give the impression of being, anxious.  If you’ve ever tried to use rehearsed lines or body language in any setting—and many of us have in some context, whether at a social event or at work—you’ve probably noticed it takes a lot of effort.  What’s more, if your attention is on trying to get the techniques “right,” it’s hard to keep your mind on what the other person is saying.

Recall those moments, for example, where you’ve been in a conversation and you’ve been frantically trying to plan what to say next.  I’ll bet you were not only nervous, but you also had trouble listening to the other person’s words.  This probably isn’t the best mindset for coming across as confident and professional in an interview.

A Novel Idea: Real Interest In The Job You’re Applying For

What do I propose instead as an approach to interviewing?  Let’s start by looking at the impression the rehearsed language and movements Bolles recommends are supposed to create.  Essentially, they’re intended to make us look enthusiastic about and interested in the job we’re looking for, and confident but not arrogant.

So here’s a crazy new idea that isn’t covered in most job-hunting books:  what if we applied for jobs we were really enthusiastic about, and we actually became more sure of ourselves?  If we genuinely had the characteristics interviewers are looking for, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about looking like we did.

But how do we cultivate these qualities?  There isn’t space for a comprehensive discussion here, but I’ll talk briefly about enthusiasm for the job you’re seeking.  On one level, you can ensure that you’re engaged during a job interview by actually being interested in the work you’re trying to get hired to do.  If you’re genuinely intrigued by or passionate about the job you’re interviewing for, those qualities are likely to naturally show up in what you say and do.

This may sound obvious, but many of us don’t actually focus on it.  Instead, our attention is usually on the perks of the job we’re seeking—how much it pays, how prestigious it’ll sound to other people, and so on—rather than the actual work the job entails.  Or, we’re so concerned for our survival that we don’t feel we have the “luxury” of paying attention to our interests.  As Bolles himself recognizes, if we actually take time to think about the work we’d prefer to do, we can much more easily guide ourselves toward employers we’re interested in working for, or businesses we’re interested in starting.

Perhaps you find yourself feeling angry or resistant when you read this, and you’re having thoughts like “that just isn’t realistic for me.  I’m focused on paying my bills, not ‘pursuing my dreams’ or ‘being myself’.”  If a reaction like this arises in you, notice any subtle feelings of superiority or righteousness you get from seeing yourself as constantly struggling to survive.

For instance, do you see yourself as responsible or practical because you aren’t following your dreams?  Do you see it as “selfish” to go for what you want in life, and view yourself as a noble martyr because you don’t?  Asking these kinds of questions can help you make valuable discoveries about how you may be limiting yourself in your career and elsewhere.

On a deeper level, as I discussed in Part One of this review, sometimes we have trouble getting excited about a job we’re seeking because our unconscious defense mechanisms against intense feeling stop us from experiencing enthusiasm and aliveness in any area of our lives.  As I noted, the key to letting go of these barriers against intense emotion is to develop awareness that we have them, by carefully observing how we move and tense up our bodies when strong sensations arise inside us.

2. Transcending Shame.  The formula for career satisfaction Bolles presents is, essentially, find out what you love to do using the self-inquiry exercises Bolles describes, then use Bolles’ job hunting techniques to pursue your passion.  As I’ve said, the information Bolles offers on both these subjects is wide-ranging and thorough.  However, like most career advice out there, Bolles’ formula misses a critical stumbling block for many of us:  the fear and shame that hold us back from doing what we know we must do to succeed.

This is consistently the issue that needs, and receives, the most attention in the coaching I do.  In my experience, the main obstacle people face in finding career satisfaction actually isn’t not knowing what they want.  They often come to me claiming they don’t know, but often we quickly discover that isn’t true.  In fact, they’ve fallen into the habit of telling people they don’t know what they want, and perhaps even convinced themselves they don’t know, because they’ve learned, for one reason or another, to feel ashamed of their desires.

The reasons we develop this sort of shame are varied, but they often stem from early in our lives.  Perhaps, for example, our caregivers told us we were selfish and asked for too much, said our dreams were unrealistic or stupid, criticized us and told us we’d never amount to anything, or something else.  These experiences convinced us it’s unsafe to express and pursue our wants, and we learned that it’s easier to just say we’re not sure.

One of my roles as a coach is to provide a safe, nonjudgmental environment for people to say what they want out of their careers, and when I do this people often surprise themselves with how much they actually know about their true calling.  I often recommend to people having trouble finding career direction, even if they aren’t working professionally with a coach or someone else to reconnect with their desires, to simply find someone who will listen to them without judgment, and reveal their career goals.

I invite you to try this if you’re looking to make a career transition, or just seeking more satisfaction from what you do.  Find a confidant you can trust not to criticize your ideas, and simply tell them what you want out of your career—even if you only have a vague idea of what that is going into the conversation.  When you have the firsthand experience of someone listening to your desires without shaming or judging you, you’ll likely start feeling safer expressing what you want and even seeking it in the world.

When You Think You “Can’t Do It”

We might call the type of shame that prevents us from expressing our wants the sense that “it’s not okay to want.”  Unfortunately, even when we overcome this variety of shame, another limiting belief often continues to stand in our way—the conviction that “I can’t do it.”  We’re all experts at coming up with reasons why it’s just not realistic to pursue our goals.  Maybe we’re not smart or motivated enough, we’re too young or too old, there’s too much competition, people will ridicule our decision, or something else.

These reasons usually sound so logical and compelling to us that we just give up and settle for less in our careers and other areas of our lives.  In my experience, however, these reasons lose their power over us when we become willing to take a look at what’s really prompting us to come up with all these obstacles to achieving our goals.

For example, the next time you find yourself devising all kinds of creative reasons why you can’t accomplish something, notice how your body feels when you’re in this “hopeless mode.”  In other words, what kinds of sensations do you experience when you’re convinced that you can’t do something—is it a sinking feeling in your chest, a tightness in your shoulders, a shortness of breath, or something else?

Once you understand the sensations that signal you to feel helpless, consider the possibility that you’ve chosen to label those feelings as a sign that you can’t succeed.  You’ve convinced yourself that, when your body feels a certain way, that means you can’t do what you want to do.  What this means is that you can choose to remove the label you’ve put on the feeling, and just experience it as a sensation that comes up in your body—like an itch or the urge to sneeze, for instance—and nothing more.

Training yourself to remove the labels from the emotional energies that arise in you can take some work, but the freedom this can give you in your career and other areas of your life is remarkable.  When you take control of how you interpret the feelings in your body, many of the limitations you used to face seem to dissolve.

3. Emphasis On Jobs.  As I’ve said, what I appreciate most about Parachute is its focus, particularly in the last chapter, on pursuing a career path that’s congruent with what you see as your overall purpose in life, rather than being (as Bolles puts it) a “job beggar” who’s only interested in paying the rent and keeping busy during the weekdays.  Seeing as how this is Bolles’ perspective, it’s surprising to me that most of Parachute is specifically devoted to techniques for getting a job—to finding an employer to work for instead of striking out on your own.

Bolles does offer one chapter on starting your own business and self-employment, but his recommendations are more about how to transition out of your job than the logistics and inspiration needed for entrepreneurship.  This may be simply for marketing reasons, as the reality is that most people automatically look for jobs when they finish school or make a career change.  However, as Bolles wants to inspire us to find more direction and satisfaction in our careers, I found myself wanting to hear more from him about seeing that there are alternatives to the conventional wisdom.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with working a 9-to-5 (or 9-to-later) job.  If doing that is part of your vision for your life, more power to you.  However, it’s also true that many of us, although we dream of owning businesses, go to work for someone else anyway, either because it feels more comfortable or we doubt our abilities.  The comfort factor comes from someone else bearing the risk of profit and loss and making decisions about the business’s overall strategy, and our doubts often concern our ability to lead others and find customers.

If the idea of being an entrepreneur has never occurred to you, I encourage you to at least consider it, if only as an exercise to gain more knowledge of yourself.  Because, in our culture, we’re generally encouraged to get jobs, most of us don’t put much attention on our capacity to be leaders, or simply assume we don’t have what it takes to lead.  The same is often true of our ability to locate customers—many of us, I’ve found, simply conclude “oh, I could never do that” without giving the issue serious thought.

In my experience, when I encourage someone I’m working with to imagine what it would be like to start their own business, they often become suddenly aware of talents and abilities they’d forgotten they possessed.  No matter what working environment we end up in, recognizing our leadership skills can only help us find career fulfillment and success.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles (Part One) For a little departure today, I’m going to offer my...
2. Career Transitions For Lawyers (Part Two) (This is Part Two of a two-part series on transitioning...
3. Career Transitions For Lawyers (Part One) (This is Part One of a two-part series.  Click here...

For a little departure today, I’m going to offer my take on Richard Nelson Bolles’ What Color Is Your Parachute?, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the career advice genre.  Parachute has sold over nine million copies since its 1970 debut, is still updated annually, and is the most popular book on job hunting and career change in the world.  In addition to giving you what’s likely a unique perspective on the book, I’ll use this review as an introduction to my way of thinking about career satisfaction for those coming to it for the first time.

As I discuss here, Bolles is squarely on target when he suggests that the best way to find career satisfaction is to learn more about yourself—your personality, what you love to do, how you relate to others, and so on—and to focus on developing your character and values.  Bolles’ wisdom shines through most clearly, I think, when he discusses career satisfaction from a spiritual perspective.  Bolles is a former Episcopal minister, but his most important spiritual message is universal:  use your search for career fulfillment as a path to greater love and understanding of yourself and the world.

Bolles is further from the mark where—in keeping with the standard approach to career writing—he recites lists of “tips and tricks” readers are supposed to use to persuade employers to hire them.  These techniques range from making sure, in a job interview, that you and the interviewer each talk for about 50% of the time, to ensuring that you memorize and ask five key questions in every interview.

Focusing on applying techniques like these during an interview, or really in any other situation, creates anxiety and discomfort, and ultimately doesn’t help you project the confidence and “togetherness” the techniques are supposed to show.  More importantly, knowing yourself and developing your character—as Bolles himself seems to understand—are better strategies for finding career satisfaction than any rehearsed lines or body language.

Parachute’s Greatest Gifts

I’ll start with the valuable lessons Bolles offers us about career satisfaction, and there are many.  As there isn’t space to go into all of them, I’ll discuss what I see as his three most sage pieces of advice.

1. Focus on using the skills you love.  Much of today’s career advice recommends picking a career that emphasizes what you’re best at.  If you’re a great writer, for instance, look into law or journalism; or, if you’re good at math, consider engineering.  There’s also a lot of news and advice out there about which career areas are “hot”—that is, which ones have the most available or high-paying jobs—and the kinds of businesses it would be most lucrative to start or invest in during the near future.

Bolles gives us an inspiring alternative to these approaches:  seek out a career that lets you use the skills you love.  As he puts it, “the best work, the best career, for you is going to be one that uses your favorite transferable skills,” not one that’s trendy or that you happen to be competent at.  For example, law may be a high-paying profession, and you may have the sort of verbal facility that’s prized among lawyers, but if making quilts is really your favorite thing to do, at least look into whether you can make a go of it.

As Bolles recognizes, the mere fact that you’re good at using a skill doesn’t mean you can make a successful and fulfilling career out of it.  If you can do a really immaculate job of mopping the floor, for instance, but you lack passion for mopping, you won’t stay happy or motivated for long cleaning for a living, and no amount of money or recognition from your superiors is likely to change that.  In other words, “do what you love” isn’t just a lofty ideal—it’s sound, practical career advice.

I’d actually take Bolles’ perspective a step further by observing that, even if you don’t love using a certain skill right now, you may be able to transcend your discomfort with it.  The set of skills you enjoy applying, in other words, isn’t necessarily fixed for life.  This perspective is particularly important for people who feel called to take a given career path but feel uncomfortable doing what’s necessary to succeed in it.

For example, suppose you want to start your own business, but you feel some anxiety when you imagine promoting your products.  Your anxiety about self-promotion doesn’t necessarily need to keep you from becoming an entrepreneur—there may be a practice, whether it’s meditation, conscious breathing, NLP, or something else, that can help you let go of your fear.  In other words, if you’re feeling uncomfortable with the idea of pursuing your true calling, there’s likely inner work out there to help you dissolve that discomfort.

2. It’s okay to enjoy what you do.  It may sound obvious that liking what we do for a living is a good thing, but many of us, consciously or otherwise, have reservations about taking pleasure in our work and living in general.  As Bolles writes, “the reason why this idea—of making enjoyment the key—causes such feelings of uncomfortableness in so many of us is that we have an old historical tradition in this country that insinuates you shouldn’t really enjoy yourself in life.  To suffer is virtuous.”  If we want genuine satisfaction in what we do, we naturally have to accept that it’s okay for us to love our careers.

How do we locate the places where we’re convinced it’s not okay to enjoy our work, and get comfortable with feeling passion for what we do?  My take is that the thoughts and behaviors that keep us from enjoying what we do are often defense mechanisms we develop to protect ourselves against pain.  Some somatic psychologists suggest that, when we experience trauma or intense sensation, particularly when we’re very young, we often adopt ways of moving our bodies that numb us to how we’re feeling—perhaps, for instance, by holding our breath or tightening our muscles.

We quickly become so accustomed to using these strategies that they become automatic and habitual.  As we unconsciously fall back on them whenever intense sensation comes up in our bodies, we often find ourselves numbing our feelings in response to passion and joy as well as in reaction to suffering.  Thus, we not only protect ourselves from pain—we shut down our ability to feel joy and aliveness in our careers and elsewhere.

One technique I find useful for noticing, and letting go of, these ways of numbing ourselves to feeling is simple:  just pay close attention to your breathing and the sensations in your body when you feel happiness arising in you.  Notice any muscles you’re contracting—perhaps by tensing your jaw, clenching your fists, tightening your stomach, or something else—to limit the joy you can feel.  See if you can keep your breathing steady and deep, simply allowing any intensely pleasurable sensations to wash over you and pass away.  You may find yourself experiencing a passion for your career you didn’t think was possible.

3. Appreciate the process, not just the products, of your work.  In our culture, when we think about our careers, our attention is usually on the tangible things we can get out of them—the money we earn, the possessions they help us acquire, the prestige they give us among peers and friends, and so on.  We aren’t normally as focused on enjoying the activities we do while we’re working.  Too often, we see those as a necessary evil we must endure to get the perks we want, and we spend much of our workdays eagerly awaiting the moment we can leave.

When we rely entirely on the things our careers bring us for fulfillment, instead of learning to enjoy the process of working, we’re often left disappointed.  You likely know more than one person who reached the pinnacle of their career, whether in terms of money, status, seniority, or something else, and found themselves asking “is this really all there is?”  The despair this realization creates can be intense—celebrities and wealthy people who, despite their success, use drugs and alcohol to “take the edge off” come to mind.

Bolles wisely emphasizes the value of learning to take our work one step at a time, and actually love what we’re doing moment by moment, in addition to enjoying the fruits of our labors.  As Bolles puts it, “your Mission is to take one step at a time, even when you don’t yet see where it all is leading, or what the Grand Plan is, or what your overall Mission in life is.”

One question Bolles may leave in readers’ minds is how we can learn to appreciate each moment we spend working.  To many of us, it seems obvious that it’s best to enjoy and participate fully in each moment of our lives, but we nonetheless find our attempts to “live in the Now” blocked by frustration, distraction and anxiety.  I’ll describe three techniques I’ve found useful for helping people stay focused on, and even enjoy, the routine tasks they do while working.

Take your attention off your self-image.  We tend to obsess over the money, prestige and other perks our careers can bring us when we’re fixated on the image we project to others.  When our minds are on the perks we can get out of our careers, in other words, it’s often because we’re thinking about the ways we want to impress or please other people, and worrying about how making a mistake would affect others’ opinions of us.

If you find yourself doing this while you’re working, see if you can instead turn your attention entirely to the activity you’re doing.  Become as aware of each movement you’re making, each detail of what’s in front of you, each rule to be followed, and every other aspect of your task, as you can be.  See if you can absorb your attention in your work so deeply that it’s almost as if, for a time, you “merge” with your work, and the work begins to do itself.

When you enter this meditative state, which psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously called a state of “flow,” you may find appreciation for what you do arising naturally.

Bring your awareness into your body.  We’re often prevented from fully focusing on and appreciating our work by distracting thoughts about the past and future.  These thoughts are often either painful memories or anxiety scenarios about things that might go wrong in our lives.  Enjoying what we’re doing, moment by moment, becomes difficult when we feel besieged by this sort of thinking.

One way to return your attention to the present moment is to focus your awareness on what you’re feeling in your body.  Notice, for instance, the steady rise and fall of your breathing, any tension you may be holding onto in your muscles, any tingling or prickling sensations you may feel on the surface of your skin, and so on.  When your attention is on how you’re feeling in your body, your awareness will naturally rest in this moment, because every experience you’re having in your body, by definition, is happening right now.

This practice can help curb the thoughts that would otherwise keep you from enjoying the experience of working, and bring more satisfaction and productivity to what you do.

Focus on the contribution you’re making.  Another way to cultivate appreciation for your day-to-day work is to keep in mind what you’re contributing to others with what you do.  In almost every moment you spend working, whether you’re aware of it or not, you are making a contribution to another person or group of people in the world.  Perhaps you’re participating in creating technologies that make people’s lives easier, helping customers find the products and services they want, giving moral support to your coworkers, or something else.

This, I’ve found, is another useful tool for reconnecting with feelings of joy and aliveness in your work.  When you recognize that you aren’t just working for your own fulfillment—you’re helping others find the same in their own lives, and making a positive impact in the world—you’ll likely gain access to an appreciation for working you may have been missing before.

(This is Part One of a two-part review.  Click here to read Part Two.)

Related posts:

1. Book Review: What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles (Part Two) (This is Part Two of a two-part book review.  Click...
2. Don’t Wait To Do Your “Real Work,” Part II: Finding Real Security (This is the second part of a series I began...
3. Career Transitions For Lawyers (Part Two) (This is Part Two of a two-part series on transitioning...

Fully realizing the amount of freedom we have in how we can live our lives, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in Being And Nothingness, can be frightening.  When we recognize what a staggering number of choices we have, we’re seized by the fear that we might take the wrong path.  Sartre compared this feeling to looking over a cliff, worrying that we might have a lapse in judgment and jump:  “I am afraid not of falling over the precipice, but throwing myself over. . . . I distrust myself and my own reactions.”

I’m reminded of Sartre’s words when I consider why so many motivated, successful professionals I’ve met have told me, with straight faces, that they’re “trapped” in their current jobs.  Despite their many credentials and achievements, they believe, for one reason or another, that they have no choice but to do what they’re doing now.  Perhaps they say a transition would be too much of a financial risk, they’re too old to change course now, they aren’t creative or persistent enough, there’s too much competition, or something else.

I addressed some of these common objections to making a career transition in my last post.  In my experience, however, just answering practical concerns like these often isn’t enough to help people overcome their fear of making a change.  The real concern that has them hold back is a deeper one, and I think much of the time it’s similar to the one Sartre expressed.  Contemplating a career change—or, really, any other significant change in our lives—forces us to acknowledge how much choice we have, and the vastness of the possibilities open to us can be dizzying and scary.

In this article, I’ll discuss what I mean by the “fear of freedom,” and how strongly it influences and limits us in so many areas of our lives.  I’ll also talk about an exercise we can use to let ourselves fully experience, and thus transcend, that fear.

Our Fear Of Freedom Runs Deep

Instead of fully experiencing the “vertigo” we feel when we grasp how free we are, we tend to flee from it or push it away.  One of the strategies we use to avoid our fear of freedom is to tell ourselves we’re “trapped” in our present patterns of living and working—to convince ourselves, in other words, that we actually don’t have all that choice.

This is what I suspect is going on when, for instance, a young lawyer tells me that, despite his talent, education and substantial salary, he’s “stuck” in his legal career and “living paycheck to paycheck.”  It’s more comfortable for him to assume he has no options in his career than to face the vast array of options that are actually open to him.

We might also say that many of the beliefs and customs around working in our society are collective strategies for helping us escape our fear of freedom.  We have many shared assumptions, or nuggets of “conventional wisdom,” about the limitations on our career options, such as “if you don’t work for someone else, you’re unemployed,” “go work for a big company so you’ll have job security,” “all the business ideas in the world have already been tried,” and so on.  Although they may limit our career fulfillment, these shared assumptions at least give us some sense of security and direction, instead of the seemingly bottomless pit of infinite choice.

We can see the fear of freedom in how fiercely and tenaciously people cling to the common beliefs about working.  If you’ve ever contemplated or made a career transition, you probably know what I mean.  Often, when we’re thinking about changing careers, many of our loved ones and friends react as if our decision is not only misguided, but also immoral or selfish.

The strength of the resistance we meet when we challenge the conventional wisdom around careers illustrates just how deep the fear of finding out how much choice we have can run.  Not only do others hold back from pursuing their own dreams because they’re afraid of making significant decisions in their lives, but they also get distressed when we start recognizing how much choice we have and exploring new possibilities.

Related Areas Of Our Lives Where The Fear Limits Us

Our collective strategies for running away from our freedom extend far beyond just the conventional beliefs about working.  They exist in our approach to our personal finances, our intimate relationships, and many other areas.  For instance, much has been written recently about how each of us has an unconscious “money blueprint.”  We have, in other words, an unconscious vision of what our financial situation should be like, and we always seem to end up in that situation regardless of how much money we make.  The example most often cited for this idea is that of lottery winners who somehow, in short order, lose their millions and return to being poor.

Now, consider this idea for a moment:  perhaps it’s also true that we, consciously or otherwise, design our personal finances to restrict our career freedom and avoid the “vertigo” I’m talking about.  Some of us, for instance, take on large financial obligations such as expensive mortgages and car loans—sometimes called “golden handcuffs”—that effectively tie us to our current jobs.  These self-imposed restrictions make it easier for us to tell ourselves, and others, that making a change would be too financially risky.

As I mentioned earlier, I saw this a lot while I was a lawyer.  My attorney friends would sometimes tell me things like “I’m not sure law is for me, but financially I’m too deep in the hole to make a change.”  It’s true that, despite making a few hundred thousand dollars a year, some young lawyers I knew were deeply in debt.  What they were unwilling to admit, however, was that their own actions had created their debt, and that by making a few sacrifices they could likely get out of it—and maybe even get to a place financially where they could follow their true calling.

Many of them did have law school loans to pay off, but that was far from the only reason why they were “in the hole.”  They had chosen to buy expensive houses, cars, stereo systems, and other material trappings of “success” in our society, and if they really needed some extra cash they could give those things up.  However, it was more comfortable for them to tell themselves and others they were imprisoned in the legal profession than to acknowledge how free they really were.

I’m not making these observations to put anyone down.  I’m just pointing out how deeply the fear of our freedom influences our lives, and not just in the career context.  I myself experience this feeling often when I sit down to write an article, and the vast number of potential topics and approaches to writing a piece seems dizzying.  Similarly, when I decide to take a trip somewhere, the possible number of places I can visit often looks daunting.

When we become conscious of how scared we are of making significant decisions, and how many of our beliefs are rooted in that fear, we develop some choice around whether to act despite our “vertigo.”

Staring Down The Abyss

I’ve found that an effective method for transcending the fear of freedom, beyond just recognizing we have it, is to see the fear for what it really is.  Our usual impulse, when we’re confronted with this fear, is to run away from it, as if experiencing it could actually hurt or destroy us.  Instead of acknowledging the massive number of choices available to us, we pretend we’re stuck in what we’re doing, or distract ourselves with an instant-gratification activity like partying or watching TV to avoid thinking about it.

We flee from our fear because we have labeled it as something “bad” that we aren’t supposed to be experiencing.  Like physical injury or disease, we think, the anxiety we endure when we contemplate how much choice we have is something we’re supposed to avoid.  Ultimately, however, the “vertigo” we experience when we see the massive scope of our choices is just a sensation that arises in our bodies.  Perhaps, for instance, it’s a tension in our shoulders, or an icy feeling in our throats.  In itself, it’s neither good nor bad.

We can experience this for ourselves firsthand by doing a simple meditation.  To do this, find a comfortable, quiet place to sit, close your eyes, and contemplate all the things you could choose to do with your life right now.  Imagine yourself, for instance, leaving your job and moving far away to live in an ashram, playing bass in a reggae band, or going into professionally making quilts.

Contemplating these choices, which are probably quite a departure from what you’re used to, may bring up some fear.  Considering possibilities outside your normal understanding of what you can do for a living may highlight the huge number of options open to you, and this can be frightening.  Your initial impulse may be to turn away, but see if you can continue breathing, keep your body relaxed, and focus on the scenario you’re imagining.  Keep breathing and holding your attention on the visualization until the sensations you’re feeling pass away.

By doing this exercise, you prove to yourself that you can survive fully experiencing the fear of freedom, and even act and make decisions in spite of that fear.  The more you do this meditation, the less intense and intimidating the sensations will seem.  This can give you more freedom to explore career possibilities, and other possibilities in your way of living, that you may have shied away from considering before.

Here’s another way to put this idea that may be helpful.  You’ve likely been places in your life where you’ve been confronted by a lot of stimulation.  Perhaps, for example, you’ve taken in a stunning sunset over a forest or some mountains, or entered a packed dance club or concert hall filled with people, sounds and flashing lights.

In these situations, it may have taken you a moment to adjust to getting bombarded with all that sensation, but you probably developed a tolerance for it fairly quickly, and perhaps even started enjoying yourself.  Similarly, recognizing the amount of choice you have in life may seem like too much to take in at first, but if you simply allow yourself to experience the anxiety that recognition may create for a while, it starts to feel more manageable.

It may seem more comfortable for us to tell ourselves we aren’t free to make changes in our lives, but this approach robs us of much of the adventure and fulfillment life offers us.  When we become willing to “peer over the cliff” and recognize the awesome scope of our freedom, working and living develop a richness they may not have possessed before.  As spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti said, “if you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and go out into the river of life, then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you.”

(This article appeared in the Avenue of Authenticity blog carnival, located at www.chandraunplugged.com.)

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If we’re excited enough about the calling we want to pursue, we tend to do our best to ignore this advice.  Sure, maybe some of it sounds reasonable, we think, but the joy and fulfillment we could experience if we succeeded at what we really want are worth behaving a little unreasonably and taking a shot.  However, as determined as we might be to heed the voice of our passion rather than our reason, others’ pessimism can still fill us with persistent, nagging doubts.

I’m going to suggest here that, in fact, many of the typical objections people make to our desire to change careers, while they’re well-meaning, aren’t “reasonable” at all.  Instead, they’re often rooted in ideas about working in our society that have little basis in logic or economic reality.  We can see this if we look carefully at the assumptions behind the discouraging words we usually hear about career transitions.  I’ll deal with four of the most common objections we tend to hear below.

As this post is long, I’ll include a menu here to help you navigate between its sections:

1. I know someone else who did what you want to do and failed.
2. So many people would kill to do what you’re doing right now.
3. So many people are already doing what you want to do.
4. You’re too old to make a change.

1. I know someone else who did what you want to do and failed.  Everyone seems to know someone who entered the field you’re interested in and “didn’t make it.”  Some people will give you this advice even though they don’t know the “failure” they’re speaking of personally—they may only know about this person secondhand, or the person may actually be fictional.  One friend, for instance, tried to convince me not to write “self-help” books and articles because a character in the movie “Little Miss Sunshine” apparently tried and failed to do that.

When someone tells you one of these anecdotes, it’s important to understand how they define “success” and “failure.”  Perhaps, for instance, the person giving you this advice defines “success” as earning a certain annual income—rather than, say, achieving a certain level of fulfillment or enjoyment in what you do.

If you don’t share this view of success—if, for instance, you think of success in terms of satisfaction or happiness—you might not agree that the person they’re talking about “failed” at all.  If they’re making less money than they did in their previous career, but they’re feeling more fulfilled, perhaps they’ve actually “succeeded” on your terms.

But even if you do agree that the person your friend is talking about “failed” in their venture, that person’s story isn’t compelling evidence that you will fail as well if you follow in their footsteps.  A whole host of factors that aren’t present in your life could have caused their failure.  Perhaps, for instance, they didn’t have enough startup capital, they didn’t invest enough in advertising, they gave up at the first sign of trouble, or something else.  Given all the variables that conceivably could have influenced their situation, it’s impossible to know whether you’ll end up with the same result.

Here’s another way to think about it.  You wouldn’t jump into a career transition simply because you knew of one other person who did the same and “succeeded.”  You wouldn’t start writing operating system software, for instance, just because you knew Bill Gates did the same thing and became mega-wealthy.  That example alone doesn’t prove that you’d make a lot of money selling operating systems.  Why, then, should one example of a “failure” stop you from following your bliss?

2. So many people would kill to do what you’re doing right now.  Translated into less melodramatic language, this means that, because “so many people” out there would supposedly feel satisfied if they had your job, you should feel satisfied with it as well.

First of all, if you’re interested in a career transition, ask yourself:  is the idea that others would enjoy doing what you do really true?  Look at how satisfied you and your coworkers are with the job you’re in right now.  Is the lack of fulfillment you’re experiencing unique to you, or are others feeling it as well?  And if both you and your colleagues aren’t satisfied with your working environment, why should we assume a huge number of unidentified people would be perfectly okay with it?

But even assuming lots of other people actually would be satisfied doing what you do, does this mean you have to share everyone else’s taste in careers?  Are you somehow morally or logically required to want what “most people” want?  I don’t see why.  If anything, this argument actually supports your career transition.  After all, if somebody else really would be happier than you are in your current job, why not step aside and let them have it?

There’s a more grating version of this advice, which roughly goes that “starving people in far-off places would do anything to have your job because it would pay them enough to eat.”  The implication of this seems to be that, if you leave a job poor people would take in a heartbeat, you are somehow responsible for, or condoning, poverty in the world.

Now, it’s unfortunate that there are people living in poverty, and of course I believe in doing all we can to change this situation.  However, this has absolutely nothing to do with whether you should make a career transition.  Staying in your current job wouldn’t do anything to help disadvantaged people—nor would changing your career do anything to make them worse off.

3. So many people are already doing what you want to do.  By this, people mean the competition would be too stiff for you to succeed in the field you’re interested in, and thus you shouldn’t bother trying.

It’s probably true that a lot of people are doing what you want to do.  The world being as heavily populated as it is, there are “so many people” involved in almost every career or vocation out there.  Whatever field you choose—whether it’s pet acupuncture, tornado chasing, platypus training, or something else, many other people are already doing it.  If we vowed never to do something lots of others were already doing, we’d hardly be able to do anything at all.

What’s more, a lot of people almost certainly do the kind of work you’re doing right now.  And despite all this competition, you’ve been able to survive, and perhaps even thrive, in your current career.  Yes, it’s true that in a new career you may have to accumulate skills and experience to become good at or recognized for what you do.  But that was also true when you were entering your present career, and you developed the knowledge and experience you needed to succeed.  Thus, there’s no clear reason why the presence of “so many people” in your area of interest is a problem.

Now, the argument that “there’s too much competition” may sound more compelling in the context of starting one’s own business.  Sure, there’s always more room for another person to do the same 9-to-5 job, but if other companies are already in the field you want to enter, isn’t that a more valid concern?  I think not.  To get a useful understanding of how competition will affect the performance of your business, you need a lot more information about the market than just the number of competitors.

For example, I heard this kind of concern from some people when I told them I was going to write books and articles on career change and personal development.  “There are so many self-help books out there,” one friend said.  “Why should people buy yours?”

On the surface, this may sound like a serious concern, but let’s dig a little deeper.  Yes, there are a lot of “self-help” books, but people who read titles in that genre tend to buy multiple books over their lifetimes.  It’s not as if the average “self-help” reader just leafs through Think And Grow Rich or The Power Of Positive Thinking and declares themselves, well, fully “helped.”  In other words, the mere fact that someone has read another self-help book doesn’t mean they wouldn’t read mine.

Moreover, self-help books are divided into many subgenres.  There are self-help books on relationships, raising children, personal finance, and much more.  Even within these subgenres, we find what we might call sub-subgenres, such as personal finance books specifically for women.  The mere fact that someone bought a book on, say, raising adopted multi-ethnic children for single parents probably wouldn’t make them any less likely to buy a book on career transitions.  Thus, the existence of a lot of self-help books, generally speaking, doesn’t necessarily diminish my prospects for success.

There are many other observations I could make in the specific context of the “self-help book” market, but the point is that assessing how competition will affect you in the market you’re interested in entering is a complicated task.  To get a reliable analysis that took into account all the relevant factors, you’d probably need to work with a professional economist.  In any event, simply knowing how many other players, products, and so on exist in the space you’re interested in doesn’t tell you much.

Finally, even assuming the amount of competition in the area you’re considering does make success unlikely, who says you can’t “beat the odds”?  Why should you assume that you’re average rather than exceptional?  Is “I’m no better than average” an assumption you’d accept in other areas of your life?

4. You’re too old to make a change.  That is to say, you don’t have enough years left in your life to achieve success in a new career.  The reasoning behind this seems to be that, if you enter a new career, it will take you a long time to accumulate a certain level of money, prestige or fame.  You might not have enough remaining years to reach that level.  Or, you’ll have to spend years of your life “starting all over” that you should be spending enjoying the fruits of your labors.

This concern is a great illustration of the conventional understanding of career satisfaction in our culture.  The main assumption here is that the primary purpose of working is to ascend to some degree of wealth or prestige, and that once we climb to that peak we’ll feel happy and fulfilled.

However, the common thinking goes, we shouldn’t expect the work we do in reaching that peak to be enjoyable.  Rather, it’s just a series of sacrifices we must make to reach the goal we’re interested in.  Thus, if you’re “too old,” at the time you make a transition, to reasonably expect to reach that peak, you’ll be left unfulfilled at the end of your working years.  To put it in the starkest possible terms, as many people do, you’ll have “wasted your life.”

This assumption neglects the possibility that we can actually enjoy the climb, or the process, of getting where we want to go.  For instance, maybe the process of starting your own business—brainstorming product ideas and strategies, finding customers, locating funding, and so forth—can actually be rewarding in itself.

I know I enjoyed that aspect of my own career transition much more than I expected.  Watching my business ventures expand from nothing to something, all through my own efforts, has been deeply rewarding.  Thus, even if the “worst-case scenario” came to pass—if we didn’t live long enough to see our business “make it”—at least we’ll have been able to enjoy pursuing our own passion, rather than doing what someone else thinks we should be doing.

Moreover, we often see people reach that fabled peak—the pinnacle of their careers, in terms of money, status or whatever else—and realize with a shock that getting there hasn’t brought them the fulfillment they were seeking.  They make innumerable sacrifices to reach their career goal, trusting the rewards at the end of the journey will compensate them for their suffering, but it just doesn’t turn out that way.  Celebrities and wealthy people who, despite their success, abuse drugs and alcohol to “take the edge off” come to mind.

It seems that, if we really want career satisfaction, we have to develop some ability to enjoy the process of getting where we want to go, rather than simply keeping the faith that the end goal is worth the pain.

Even if we only think of success in terms of garnering a certain amount of money, fame or other perks, the “conventional wisdom” here assumes that you’ll be essentially “starting from scratch” if you change careers.  None of the skills, goodwill or clients you accumulated in your old job, supposedly, will be transferable to your new one.  I’ve already written about how this idea is often false.  It’s more likely that the skills, savings, clients, and most importantly your character—the persistence and ingenuity you’ve developed while working thus far—will follow you wherever you go.

Also, I’ve noticed that people who believe they’re too old to change careers, or suggest that someone else is, are often stuck in a rigid, traditional concept of what a career is.  To them, a career means an office building, a cubicle, a hierarchical job structure where raises and promotions have as much to do with seniority as with ability, and so on.  Anything else—say, a business you run out of your home—means “unemployment” to them.

In a “traditional” job setting, it’s true that advancement takes a long time because, among other things, your superiors need to observe your performance for a while to see if they’re willing to promote you, your colleagues would get upset and leave if you “rose through the ranks” quickly and they didn’t, and so on.

But in other work environments, your compensation isn’t limited by the same factors.  If you own a business, for example, your career growth depends on people’s demand for your products or services, not how those who are “up the chain” feel about you.  The bottom line is that the speed at which you can “advance” in your career—whatever that means to you—varies widely depending on the work environment you’re in.  In other words, you may be able to climb the mountain faster than you think.

Finally, notice that the argument that “you’re too old” can cut both ways.  I could just as easily argue that you’re “too old” to remain in a job you no longer find interesting or fulfilling.  If you’ve been working for a while in a field you dislike, in other words, haven’t you suffered enough?  Isn’t it about time you pursued something you’re actually interested in?

If you’re contemplating making a career transition or starting a business, and you find yourself bombarded from all sides by these and other nuggets of “conventional wisdom,” take a moment to seriously consider whether what you’re hearing makes sense.  On close examination, many of our common assumptions about the job market and entrepreneurship just don’t hold up to scrutiny.  Keep this in mind whenever others put you down for thinking about pursuing your passion in what you do.

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