You may have noticed in your own life that when you do things from a place of feeling bad, often the outcome of that action is not as positive as you would have hoped. That has certainly been the case for me. And that’s actually how I learned about this initially. I was focused on getting better results in my life and I worked backwards to find my out of control shitty emotions at the root of it.

Technology has made it not only possible to track multiple global tragedies at any one time, it’s actually difficult to avoid awareness of them. Our brains evolved to manage the drama of a group of a couple hundred people at best, so this is beyond overwhelming. But it does feel like there are some big things out there that really do deserve at least some of our attention, right? There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that our government is complicit in. Climate change is happening before our eyes. And don’t even get me started on our more local dumpster fire. I could keep going, but I’m actually not trying to be a threat signal to your nervous system. How do we choose what to pay attention to?

As a divorce lawyer and coach, I spend a lot more time thinking about the end of relationships than most people likely do. And I’ve been through a divorce myself, so my experience is more than simply academic. My relationship with my ex-husband ended in 2018, and since that time my life has changed so dramatically, it’s impossible not to see it as a significant “before and after” moment.

Until recently, I struggled a bit with how to frame that in my mind. To my brain, the divorce itself seemed very large. But, you’re not supposed to feel that way, right?

I have such a struggly relationship with writing. I feel paralyzed by perfectionism and pressured to produce. Often when I actually do sit down in front of a blank page, I’ll just hammer something out and hit “publish,” knowing it’s neither my best work nor what I really want to say. But it’s done. And done is better than good, right? [she grimaces]

I did. We did it. We moved to the mountains, bought a farm, worked from home, got engaged, had a great relationship, and it freaked me out. Those 5 years had been hard. I was an absolute hot mess for at least 4 of them. Ben and I struggled in our relationship, I struggled in my career, my dogs died, and my identity collapsed.  

And then, one day, everything was as it should be.

My first thought following the realization was something along the lines of, “oh, shit, maybe I am a witch.”

In writing about burnout, I want to make one thing clear: this is no academic endeavor. I learned what I know about burnout by burning out. I’ve quit practicing law twice because I was emotionally and physically fried. 

I reached peak emotional burnout probably around the same time as a lot of other people: March 2020. I tried a lot of things to feel better. I quit my job as a family lawyer and went back to school in a different field. That didn’t help and I needed money, so I went back to being a lawyer. I still felt like shit, so I quit again, and decided to be a life coach (as one does). This is actually what changed everything for me, including, paradoxically, the ability to commit to being a lawyer and owning my own firm.

A few years ago in a coaching class the instructor said something that pissed me off and completely changed my life:

Boundaries cannot be violated by other people.

“What do you heckin’ mean, ‘boundaries cannot be violated’, ya yahoo?!” my brain screamed. My entire experience of life up until that point had felt a bit like one uninterrupted string of boundary violations.

I think I spent some time huffing and stomping around, debating whether to ask for my money back for this coaching course in which the instructors were obviously high.

I eventually cooled down enough to think about this and my life has not been the same since.

Times are a changin’, y’all! The legal industry is in a period of immense disruption. Law firms seem to be scrambling to adapt and the vibe is honestly a bit grim. 

It’s easy to find evidence right now that the world is utterly f____ed.* Finding such evidence seems to be a sport in some circles. But there’s also lots of evidence that this is the absolute best time to be alive, and that’s the lens we’re gonna use today.

The changes in the industry are creating the perfect environment for solo lawyers to thrive. Here are the three reasons why I think now is an awesome time to be in solo practice…

*please choose the adjective that resonates most with you. I suggest “fuddled” if nothing else comes to mind.

If it sounds like AI wrote that title, it’s because it did. I’ve been percolating on this idea to blog about my experience as a lawyer and business owner in part because I genuinely love it, and in part because I think you might love it, too. For blogging, like entrepreneurship, there’s really nothing to do but to do it. So I did some googling last week about how to write a successful blog and found this cool resource that provided comprehensive AI prompts for content generation. Not full articles, but “SEO-friendly” outlines with keywords that you fill in with your own writing.

Was this the magic solution to effortless and friction-free writing? Read on to find out.

This simple truth shattered my feeling of being stuck and helped me finally tackle my crippling anxiety. My emotions are not caused by things that happen in the world, or even things that happen to me directly, they are caused by my brain and the meaning it makes of those things. This allowed me to shake my victim mentality once and for all and gain control over my life.

It’s been really hard for me to commit to my business in the past. It requires me to trust me, which has historically been really difficult. But not trusting me is turning out to be even harder, and I’m really tired, so it’s time to figure it out.

I’m realizing now how important it is to be clear about my definition of success, so I don’t get confused every time I look at the internet. I figured I’d write it and publish it, that way next year when I’m like, I think I’ll go back to computer college and try to get a job at Google, you can just very lovingly slap me. Figuratively. Or literally.