Home > Search for "The+Eight+Critical+Success+Factors"

Create A Personal Vision And Change Your Life

Written by

Here we are at the end of the series on creating a Personal Vision for your life and career.  The approach I’ve outlined is certainly not a quick solution to finding success, happiness, and your “dream career.”  But I can personally attest to the fact that it is worth the time and effort.  Having a Personal Vision has made an incredible difference in my life.  My current career is fulfilling on many levels, uses my natural abilities, allows me to do what I am most passionate about, is connected to my most deeply held values, continues to incorporate my interests, gives me work/life balance, and allows me to feel like I am making a difference.  I look forward to each day and am energized by what I do.

How did I get here?   In 1998, when I decided to transition into a new career, I did the exercises and asked the questions I have been sharing in these articles, and then created a Personal Vision that specifically defined what I wanted to do next.  Then I began doing the things I needed to do to make it happen.  That was not the first time I used this process.  I went through the same self-assessment and creative envisioning in 1991 when I left the practice of law to start a company.  Truth be told, I plan on tweaking my Personal Vision and using it as a tool for the rest of my life to keep my career and life aligned with my values, interests, and goals.  To continue to have my life and my career my way, I believe it’s a must.

I share my story with you not to boast, but to reinforce what I have been saying since writing the first article in this series nine issues ago.  Creating a Personal Vision has changed my life, and I’ve helped many lawyers to create Personal Visions that have changed their lives as well.  If you don’t already have a life and career that are “your way,” you can.  But you have to know very clearly what “your way” is.  I hope by now you have some ideas about what that looks like.

Assuming you have done the exercises I have described in the past articles, you have taken some time to unplug from your current life and looked at yourself through different lenses to gain new perspectives.  Following this inside-out approach, you have analyzed your preferences, your abilities, and motivations; you’ve also decided the kind of environment and type of work that best suits you.  You then combined what you learned and integrated those pieces of information into a Personal Vision Statement that gave you some new ideas about the kind of career you want.  You may have come up with a specific direction, or you may be considering some ideas.  Either way, the next step is to translate your ideas into reality.

Whether you have a clear focus or just pieces of a puzzle, how do you take your idea and make it real in your life?  Or, if all you have is the pieces of the puzzle but no real idea yet, how do you turn your vague notion into a more focused idea you can pursue?  The process is the same.

Translate Your Vision Into Reality In Three Steps

Step One:  Write your idea down, no matter how vague.  If you have more than one idea, write each one up but on separate pieces of paper.  If it’s a specific idea, think about when you want to start working on it and identify the steps it will take to get you there.  Also identify the things you still need to investigate.  Ask yourself why this plan is attractive to you.

Step Two:  Talk with other people about your idea.  Go beyond your circle of family and friends and reach out to a wider network—but do not include people with whom you work or family.  Explain why you think your new career might be a good fit.  Use their feedback to help you refine and revise your idea.

If you don’t have a clear idea at this point, you can solicit other people’s input and insights.  Start by sharing information about your background and the factors you have identified that are important for your ideal job.  After they hear about your preferences, skills, abilities, interests, they may be able to offer you ideas about careers, jobs,
businesses, and even people with whom you can talk with next to get more information.   You can also ask people you meet what they do for a living—neighbors, people you run into at the doctor’s office, and other acquaintances.  You can even look at classifieds to see what fields are hot and read books that give you ideas of career options.  Ask people
what they are doing for fun both in and outside of law.  After investigating these broad possibilities, come up with a list that might satisfy the requirements of your Personal Vision.  Pick six to eight that most appeal to you and research them.  Then narrow it down to one or two fields that seem the most attractive to you.

Step Three:  Research your idea.  You can start by tapping into the usual information sources such as the library, the Internet, trade publications, seminars, and trade associations.

The Informational Interview Is An Essential Tool

The most powerful research tool you can use is the informational interview.  These are conversations with people about their careers that will help you gain a better understanding of an occupation or industry, and build a network of contacts in that field.  Informational interviews clarify your Personal Vision and check it against the reality of the workplace.  As an added bonus, they are also the foundation of a successful job hunt.  Once you feel certain about what you want to do, they will also give you valuable information about the field you ultimately choose to pursue and prepare you for marketing yourself.

Researching and informational interviewing operate like a spiral:  The more you learn, the more new and important questions you will come up with.  The better your questions are, the clearer and more useful the answers will be.  Your idea will become more focused as you gather information from talking with people about what they do and know.

These interviews can sometimes take you in unexpected directions and open up possibilities you were not aware of.  For example, when you start to research a potential career path, you may realize it is not what you thought and uncover another direction that more closely matches your Personal Vision.  This will eliminate dead ends.  If you
use the informational interview well, your idea will become more precise and aligned with what you really want.  In addition, when you’re ready to propose your new job to an employer, you will be able to connect your career needs with the employer’s needs.

Whom Should You Interview?

Start by interviewing anyone whose occupation is even remotely close to the one you envision.  (Naturally, talk first to those who are doing exactly what you’d like to do.)  Ask people for introductions to others.  If you read about a position in an article or on a website, try to contact the person directly.  Your goal is to gather information from Start by interviewing anyone whose occupation is even remotely close to the one you envision.  (Naturally, talk first to those who are doing exactly what you’d like to do.)  Ask people for introductions to others.  If you read about a position in an article or on a website, try to contact the person directly.  Your goal is to gather information from

Prepare For The Interview

How you approach someone to ask for an informational interview sets the tone for the interview itself.  Call the person and state who you are and how you were referred to him or her.  You want to make it clear you are not looking for a job and are merely researching options.  Be respectful and appreciative of the person’s time.  Here is an example of what you may want to say:

“Good afternoon.  My name is Amy Patton.  John Smith gave me your name and said you were very experienced in graphic design.  I am investigating making a career change and want to find out as much about the field as I can before making my decision.  I would appreciate it if I could have 20 – 30 minutes of your time at your convenience to ask you some questions about your work.  May I buy you a cup of coffee or meet you some place convenient sometime this week or next?”

Before the meeting, research the field so you’ll know what to ask, and compile a list of questions to bring with you.  During the meeting, listen with interest and an open mind; don’t judge or try to sell yourself.  A good rule of thumb is to let the other person do 90 percent of the talking.  You are there to gather information and obtain a reality-check; you are also creating a future networking contact should you decide to go forward with this idea.  The following is a list of generic questions to get you started.

• How did you decide to get into your present career?
• How did you move into your present position?
• What do you like about it?  Dislike?
• Describe a recent day that you feel was productive and that you enjoyed.  What made it enjoyable?  Productive?
• Describe a recent bad day or unproductive day.  What made it bad or unproductive?
• How much of your day do you spend working with people (or computers, merchandise, etc?)
• What personality attributes, talents, and skills would someone need to enjoy or be satisfied with your job?
• What education, certification and other requirements are required for this type of work?
• What do you see for your own future?
• What do you see for the future of this field/industry/company?  What changes are occurring?
• How can my legal skills or training benefit this field?
• What books and trade publications do you recommend I read to learn more?
• What or who has helped and guided you most over the years?
• What advice would you have for someone just starting out?
• May I contact you if other questions arise?
• Who else should I talk to, and where else should I go for more information?  May I use your name as a referral?

Alternately, make your own list, but keep it reasonably short and focused.

After the meeting, be sure to write a thank you note.  Also, if you leave the interview with a referral or a suggested next step, follow up by letting the person know what happened as a result of their help.

Continue informational interviewing until you have a clear vision for the job you are researching.  You should be able to see what the job entails and how it fits with your Personal Vision factors—your abilities, personality, values, interests, and goals.  You also need to know how your idea meets a need in the workplace so that you can market it to others.

Make Your Case

After you’ve gathered all the information you can, you need to convince others that your idea—whether you want to take on new responsibilities in your current job or change careers altogether—is a good one.  You do this by creating a convincing presentation.

Start by talking about yourself.  Communicate who you are and what you have to offer.  Use what you have learned about yourself:  your abilities, interests, personality, skills, experience, goals, even your stage of adult development.  Then talk about what the person or organization you are addressing needs, and give examples of how you can fulfill those needs.  Thanks to all the informational interviewing you did, you will be able to speak knowledgeably about the field.  Share with others your vision for this job—what it entails, how you would work and with whom, what the potential problems might be, and what the factors are that will make it successful.

You can use this approach for moving into an entirely new career or for just making changes in your existing career.  It takes some time but yields great results for getting exactly what you want.

Change Happens? And Vision Statements Need To Be Retuned

I hope that this series has been helpful and that you have been able to develop a clear vision for your career and life that will bring you great joy and satisfaction.  Even if you have only been able to do part of the process, at least that is a start.  Perhaps you are not at a Turning Point or you need the assistance of a career coach to give you structure and accountability.  Whatever the reason, it is never too late to start this work.

Also, it is never really over.  Once you have crafted a Personal Vision Statement Template and taken the steps to make it real, you will need to renew the process at some point in your future.  One thing is for certain—change will occur.  Remember that our lives move in regular cycles from Turning Points to periods of stability back to Turning Points again.  We all long for change at some point, no matter how satisfied we have been with a career.  The work you do to create a Personal Vision now will continue to help you in the future.  When you reach future Turning Points, use the same process to decide what is right for you.  Keep these articles handy!  And don’t forget to “tune up” your vision as often as you need to.

There’s an inscription on an old English church I think of often, and hope you will, too – “A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is drudgery; a vision and a task is the hope of the world.”

If you are new to the series, you may want to take a look at the previous articles:
-Personal Vision: How To Make Your Vocation Your Vacation
-Moving From The Stress Cycle To The Balance Cycle
-What Are Your Natural Talents and Abilities?
-The 8 Critical Turning Points Of Your Life
-Pay Attention To Your Skills And Interests
-How Core Values And Family Of Origin Impact Your Career
-Match Your Personality With Your Job
-Use Your Long-Term Goals To Motivate You
-Your Personal Vision Statement: A Template For Change

About the author of this article series: Anne H. Whitaker, vice president of Counsel On Call’s Atlanta office, has more than 20 years of combined experience in coaching, consulting, marketing, law and education. In 1991, she co-founded In-House Counsel, Inc., a pioneering contract attorney placement company in Atlanta. Prior to entering the business world, Ms. Whitaker practiced real estate law in private practice for five years.  She received her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1986, where she served on the editorial board of the Georgia Law Review.  She is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, the Atlanta Bar Association, Lawyers Club of Atlanta, and Georgia Association of Women Lawyers (GAWL) and has created, chaired and spoken at numerous seminars for lawyers on career development and transition.  She provides career development coaching for lawyers, is founding member and co- chair of the Atlanta Bar Career Management Committee, and is a licensed provider of the Highlands Ability Battery and other career-related assessments.   To contact Ms. Whitaker, visit www.counseloncall.com.

Notes
1.  McDonald, Bob, Ph.D., and Hutcheson, Don, E., Don’t Waste Your Talent: The 8 Critical Steps to Discovering What You Do Best, The Highlands Company, 2005.
____
Resources
1. Arron, Deborah, What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyer’s Guide to CareerAlternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law.  Chapter 17 is on researching options and contains specific questions to ask in informational interviews.
2. Lore, Nicholas,  The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetimeof Satisfaction and Success.  Chapter 10 is about researching and informational interviews and gives a good list of questions to ask.
3. Stoodley, Martha, Information Interviewing: How to Tap Your Hidden Job Market, 2ndedition, Ferguson Publishing, 1996.
4. Crowther, Karmen, Researching Your Way to a Good Job, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.(April 1993).
5. Levine, Michael, The Address Book: How to Reach anyone who is anyone (Address Book, 10th ed), Perigee, 2004.  Websites, e-mail addresses, and street addresses to assisting making a personal contact.
6. Kaufman, George W., The Lawyer’s Guide to Balancing Life and Work: Taking the Stress Out of Success, 1999, ABA Law Practice Management Section.  A good resource for having a balanced and fulfilling career as a lawyer.

Tags by users:

Categories: Professional Development - Tags: law career development, law career tips, natural talents, personal vision, personal vision statement, personal vision statement template, professional development, what are talents

Use Your Long-Term Goals To Motivate You

Written by

“In the long run you only hit what you aim at.  Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.”
–Henry David Thoreau

What do you want to be, do, and have in your life? These questions are the adult version of “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Many lawyers I coach have been so caught up in the stress cycle that they don’t know the answers.  They have been busily getting things done on their to-do lists and meeting the goals that have been set for them by their law firms, their families, and others.

They are so busy, in fact, that they may not even realize that they are out of touch with what makes them really happy—the important, not- so-urgent goals that connect them with their true selves and give their lives real meaning and fulfillment.  Knowing who you want to be and the things you want to accomplish and experience in your lifetime are fundamental to defining success your way.

Align Your Goals With Your Values

I am sure you already know how important goals are.  In fact, odds are that you’re already a high achiever, which means you’re probably very good at setting and meeting goals on a regular basis.  That’s how you made it through law school, passed the Bar Exam, and practice law.  However, if you are like many of my clients, your existing goals and plans have nothing to do with your most deeply- held values; instead, they’ve evolved from the stress cycle you are in.  The more closely you match your goals to who you really are and what you want out of life, the more they will help you create a life and career that bring you great fulfillment and meaning.

To see if you know your goals, ask yourself:

  • Toward what end are your efforts directed on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis?
  • Do you know where you are headed?
  • If you do know, is it where you really want to go?
  • Are the goals your own or someone else’s?
  • What do you really want to accomplish between now and the end of your life?
  • Who do you want to become and are you in the process of becoming that person?

These are some of the most important questions you can ask yourself.  Very often the reason people don’t get what they want is simply because they haven’t figured out what they really want.  If you create  clear goals that include the most important things about yourself and then keep those goals in mind when you consider opportunities, you can usually achieve what you are seeking.  But first you need to be clear about how you define your short-term and long-term goals.

Categorize Your Goals

Think of your goals as falling into three categories or levels:

  • Big-picture, higher level, abstract goals.  These include good health, security, love, and prosperity.  They are similar to values. “Achieving financial security” is a big-picture goal.
  • Intermediate goals.  These specific goals support or connect to the bigger goals.   “Saving money,” is an intermediate goal.
  • Action goals.  These are items on your “to-do” list that will help you achieve specific goals.  “Creating a budget” is an action goal.

Use Your Long-Term Goals To Motivate You

You can see how these goals are connected and interrelated. Creating a budget clearly will allow you to save money, which will contribute to your sense of financial security.

But you may not realize how you can use your highest level goals as motivational tools.  If, for example, your higher goal is to be physically and mentally fit into your 90s, you’ll be more likely to keep your action goal of getting up to run at 5:00 a.m. because you’ll think of it as an essential step in achieving longevity.  Simply adding “running 30 minutes 4 days a week” to your daily to-do list without linking it to the higher goal doesn’t give you any motivation to follow through.  Similarly, if you plan on making $200,000 a year, drill down beneath the numbers to identify your true end-goal.  What do you want to do with the money?  Enjoy an active retirement?  Provide for your children?  Answering these questions will help you devise interim and short-term goals that you can keep.

The trick is to make sure that your action and intermediate goals lead you towards the more big-picture goals that really matter to you.

Identify Your Long-Term Goals By Thinking Backwards

To start the process, identify your highest-level goals first, and then decide which interim and action goals will support them.

If you’re not already in touch with your most valued, big-picture goals, here’s an exercise to help you.

Pretend you are near the end of your life.  Your loved ones are with you and you have the chance to look back over your life.  Your grandchild asks you what you are most proud of, what you believe that your life has meant, and what you have accomplished.   How would you answer?  Ask yourself the following questions as
if you are that older person:

  • What has been most important to me?
  • What gave me the most joy?
  • Who have I been, what have I done, and what has meant the most to me?
  • What kind of difference have I made in the lives of others?
  • What has changed as a result of my having lived?
  • What kind of compromises would cause me to be disappointed with myself?

Here’s another exercise: make a list of any and all goals, big and small, you can think of—short-term, long-term, personal, career, family, health and fitness, financial.  Without categorizing or prioritizing them, write down  all the things that you love to do or would love to do, including all that you came up with in your “the end of your life” exercise.

Now, group your goals by category.  You’ll probably end up with a few large goals and many smaller goals, which you can group by sub-category.  For example, you may have several subsets under “Financial Security” or “Health and Fitness.”

Next, look at the goals that aren’t in a category and ask yourself:

  • Is this a goal that I really want, or one I think I should have?
  • How does it add to the quality of my life and my values?
  • Does it inspire me?  How does it challenge me to grow as a person?
  • Does this goal limit me to what I think is possible for me to become or achieve?

Based on your answers, eliminate those goals that don’t feel important or authentic.

Create Two Timelines

Your next task is to plot your true goals on a timeline.   Take a long piece of paper and draw two long, parallel horizontal lines leaving  space for writing in-between.  Label the top line “Career Goals” and the bottom one “Personal Goals.”  (You can tape several pieces of paper together to give you more room, use poster board, or even create it in a document that can expand as you add to it.  Be creative and use whatever method works best for you.)  Once you have drawn the lines, write your current age at the beginning of both parallel lines, and put 100 at the ends.  You can put hatch marks at ages 22, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 as those are considered turning points by many people.

It’s important to consider your life and career together.  We often make the mistake of separating our life into compartments rather than considering it as a whole with overlapping and interdependent segments.  The truth is, all of the parts of our lives are interwoven and affect one another; your career affects your family, your health, your finances, and your parenting—and vice versa.

Write your goals on the timelines, starting with your big-picture ones, and place them on the appropriate line at the age you want to achieve them.  Then add the smaller, intermediate goals.  Be creative—use  colored pens, for example, or draw pictures—to  make the activity more real and enjoyable.  Once you have added all your goals, you’ll probably notice substantial time gaps between your age now and the date you have targeted to achieve the goals.  Your next step will be to fill in those gaps with the necessary intermediate and action goals that will help you attain your long-term goals.

Make sure your intermediate and action goals are smart goals: make them specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based.   If they are vague, fuzzy, or open-ended, they will not be as effective.  For example, saying “I want to
be healthy” is a big-picture goal that sounds like a value.  How can you achieve this goal?  Will you exercise?  If so, where, how much, and how often?  When will you start and how will you know you have achieved your goal?  If you want to become healthier by changing your diet , ask yourself similarly specific questions.

Revisit Your Timelines To Modify Them As Your Life Changes

Once you have completed your timelines, review them and notice where you have placed your career and personal goals.  Are there any goals that you need to reconsider now that you can see how they mesh or conflict with each other?  For example, one client realized she had put the personal goal “to have a baby” at age 35, the same age she hoped “to start a business.”  Seeing this in black and white helped her realize how unrealistic it was; she ended up reevaluating her time frame for both goals.

As you continue to refine your Personal Vision, you will probably modify some of your goals, adding new ones, removing others.  This timeline is a work in progress—a living document that you can continue to use throughout your life.  Refer to it often, especially when making career and life choices.  And don’t be afraid to modify it as needed.

Setting True Goals Makes Your Life Easier And More Balanced

What happens if you don’t take the time to set your true goals?   You might be able to have a fulfilling career and life, but your path will probably prove more difficult and longer.  Or you might find you made unintended sacrifices that resulted in an imbalanced life.  Having meaningful goals that keep you focused on what you want to create for your career and life will help keep your feet moving in the right direction and keep your life in balance.

Take some time during the next two months to examine your short- and long- term goals for your career and your personal life.  Setting goals is like making promises to yourself, and that process alone can yield amazing results.

The next article will show you how to integrate all of the eight factors, including your goals, into your personal vision and how to uncover the possibilities for making it real in your life.
__________
RESOURCES

1.  McDonald, Bob, Ph.D., and Hutcheson, Don, E., Don’t Waste Your Talent: The
8 Critical Steps to Discovering What You Do Best, The Highlands Company,
2005.

Tags by users:

Categories: Professional Development - Tags: career and life, fulfilling career for lawyers, goals in life, law career development, long term goals, motivational tools, personal vision, professional development, setting goals, stress and lawyers, stress cycle

Moving From The Stress Cycle To The Balance Cycle

Written by

It is possible to have a career that you are excited and passionate about. A career that truly fits you and brings you satisfaction and fulfillment – even if you feel overwhelmed, frustrated, burned out, out of time, or you don’t have a clue where to start.  In the first article of this series (See Vol. 2 No. 1)  I explained what a Personal Vision is and why it is crucial to you having a satisfying career.  As Steven Covey said, you can “work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.”1  When you create a Personal Vision you decide what wall you want to lean your ladder against as well as what ladder you want to use.

The Eight Critical Success Factors

Your Personal Vision needs to take the whole picture of you into account. There are eight factors that need to be considered: natural abilities, skills, interests, personal style, values, family of origin, stage of adult development, vision and goals.   Some of them are objective, such as your natural abilities, and some of them are subjective such as your vision and goals.  In the next article we will focus on the first of those factors, your stage of adult development.  Before we do that, we need to look at something that is closely connected to it – the Stress Cycle.

You know what stress is but probably are not familiar with the Stress Cycle. Yet chances are good that you are caught in it at this very moment.  The Stress Cycle impacts your daily life and will stop you from creating your Personal Vision if you aren’t aware of it and don’t take action to address it.

What is the Stress Cycle?  If you are unhappy with your career and yet find yourself starting to think things like “I don’t have time to think about whether I’m happy or not right now,” or “I’ll get to it when things are not so hectic in my life,”
you are probably caught in its grasp.  Feeling like you don’t have time for yourself or you are too busy is a natural side effect of being in the Stress Cycle.  Most of my clients are caught in this mode when they first come to me.  Their lives feel out of control and they need help stopping the cycle.

The Elements Of The Stress Cycle

  • Relentless Rush – You never stop.  You feel like you are jumping through hoops, are on a treadmill or a runaway train.  You think you only have time to do the next task or project that comes up.  And there is always another.
  • Short Term Focus – You tell yourself things like “I’ll just make partner (or wait until this large case is over or wait until next year) and then I’ll be able to live my life.”  You focus on the task at hand instead of envisioning a bigger picture of your life.
  • Reactive Decision Making -  You respond to everyday events as though they are crises and have a constant sense of urgency even about little things.
  • Status-Driven Goals – You are focused on gaining things such as a new car, new house, second home, making partner, getting somewhere in life, joining the country club, or wanting more responsibility so you can be in charge and can have a life etc.
  • Outer-Directed Priorities – Your main goals are earning a lot of money and gaining a position of power -both worthy goals if they are connected to your Personal Vision but if they aren’t, then they are empty.

The elements of the Stress Cycle relate strongly to each other – one element leads to the next, and then the next.  Once you get into the Stress Cycle it perpetuates itself and is very difficult to escape.  Often, people feel like they are trapped and helpless to change the status quo.

You are not alone in this.  The truth is the majority of people, particularly lawyers, live in the Stress Cycle.  Why?  Because we grow up in systems that set it up that way.   Here is a snapshot of how life goes for most of us:  Start out in our family, move through the school system to college, graduate, go to law school,  get a job, achieve some success, earn more money, buy more things, move up in the organization, make partner or go in-house, win the big case or close the big deal, gain the boss’s attention and approval, become a boss, retire.   We get so caught up in the effort to keep up with what’s going on around us and what the systems (family, schools, firms, companies) want us to achieve that we get out of touch with who we truly are,  what we really want.

It’s especially hard for lawyers not to get caught up in the Stress Cycle. On top of the system’s demands, lawyers often have personal characteristics that contribute to creating the Cycle.  We are competitive, ambitious and typically impose unrealistic demands on ourselves.  Furthermore, the practice of law trains us to focus on facts and have an outward orientation.  Too often we  get used to tuning out the inward messages that give us insight into how we really feel about what’s going on in our lives and careers.

What The Balance Cycle Looks Like

It may sound hopeless and that there is no alternative to the Stress Cycle in today’s fast-paced, competitive and driven workplace.  Contrary to what you may believe,  however, you can move from the Stress Cycle to the Balance Cycle.

What does the Balance Cycle look like?  The elements of the Balance Cycle include:

  • Long Term Focus – you do things that connect to a fundamental value orgoal.
  • Meaning-Driven Goals – what you do every day should contribute to giving your life meaning.  If it doesn’t, why are you doing it?
  • Inner-Directed Priorities – You move toward goals you have chosen, not the system’s goals.
  • Vision-Based Decision Making – You use your Personal Vision as a template or measuring stick that you compare with every opportunity that comes along.  If the opportunity will move you toward your vision, you take it.  If not, you just say no.

As with the Stress Cycle, the elements relate to one another.  Once you get into the Balance Cycle it perpetuates itself.

Moving From The Stress Cycle To The Balance Cycle: Start By Stopping

How do you get out of the Stress Cycle and into the Balance Cycle? You must start by stopping.  The Stress Cycle keeps you in constant motion and keeps your mind constantly occupied.  You must stop the relentless rush and set aside a significant amount of time to devote to yourself and your goals and look within. And not just for 15 minutes.  The Stress Cycle makes stopping seem impossible because it makes it appear that everything is urgent and nothing can be set aside.  However, you don’t have time to NOT do this work – your life is a marathon, not a sprint.  Creating your Personal Vision is not something you can knock out in a day, or even a weekend.  You need to give both your creative mind and logical mind a chance to work together over a period of several weeks or months.  (I’ll explain
what I mean by that later on.)

You also must get outside of your systems.  Your family, friends, colleagues, boss, fellow church, synagogue or club members, no matter how well-intentioned, will not be of much assistance in helping you get new information about yourself.  You need answers that are different from what they can provide because you need to take a fresh look at your own answers and preconceptions.  You need a process that helps you look within and get a more objective and complete view of yourself.

The vehicle for moving from the Stress Cycle to the Balance Cycle is a Personal Vision.  The answers to making your life more balanced and meaningful are not out there somewhere:  they are inside you.  You need to unplug from the
messages that surround you and focus for a period of time on The Eight Critical Success Factors to see what you can learn about yourself that you may have never known or may have simply forgotten.

If you don’t do it for yourself, who will?

One Lawyer’s Story

Frank, age 41, is a partner at a large law firm.  He has worked for the same firm since he graduated from law school.  He is a successful litigator with a great book of business, including some of the firm’s largest clients. He is well-respected by his colleagues and others in the community.

Despite all of his apparent success, Frank is silently miserable.   He is busier than he has ever been before and feels as if everybody is putting more demands on him.  He is constantly putting out fires and dealing with urgent deadlines, and is tired of dealing with so much conflict.  The hours he is working are getting longer, not shorter.  He does not enjoy the work he is doing and is finding that the things he has achieved do not mean much to him anymore.

Although he is unhappy, he feels as if he does not have the time to even think about changing things.  It is all he can do to just keep up with what he has on his plate.  He can’t fathom adding one more thing to his day, even something as positive as creating a Personal Vision for his life.  He believes that he is too busy to stop and just hopes that at some point things will change.

Frank is deep into the Stress Cycle.  He is a prime example of how easy it is to get caught up in the system and become trapped in the cycle of rushing, urgency, and outward focus.  He doesn’t realize that nothing will change until he stops what he is doing and takes time to assess what he really wants out of life and how he can get it.  Otherwise he will continue to be busy meeting the goals that others set up for him.

How Frank handles his situation and whether or not he does something to move out of the Stress Cycle and into the Balance Cycle will be largely affected by where he is in his life:  his Stage Of Adult Development.  The Stage of Adult Development, the first of the eight factors that everyone needs to consider when creating a Personal Vision, will be our focus in the next article.

In the meantime consider giving yourself some time off every week to reflect only about you and what you want.  You may be surprised at the kinds of creative solutions that bubble up!

___________________
1.     The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal
Change, Stephen R. Covey, 1989, Simon and Schuster.
2.     Don’t Waste Your Talent:  The 8 Critical Steps to Discovering What You Do
Best, Bob McDonald, Ph.D. and Don E. Hutcheson, 2000, Longstreet Press.

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Career Development - Tags: law career, law career development, lawyers and stress, personal vision, stress, stress cycle

Our Responsibilities May Be Hazardous To Our Health

Written by

An old joke that has floated around recovery circles for years tells the story of a relatively young man who passes away. Among his acquaintances, it was a well-known but not acknowledged fact that he couldn’t stop drinking. At the wake, one of the deceased’s old friends who had not seen his widow in quite some time approached her solemnly and after offering condolences, asked, “How did this happen?”

“Oh John,” she said, “the sad truth is Frank simply drank himself to death.”

“Did he ever try AA or another recovery group?” John asked.

“Oh, for heaven sakes, John, no—he wasn’t that bad.”

This is perhaps a not so funny way of highlighting the fact that most alcoholics don’t recover. For many it is simply because they, and perhaps those around them, never are willing to admit that they have a problem.

As many of us now know, lawyers have a much higher rate of incidence of alcoholism than those in the overall population. One group determined that the rate of alcoholism among lawyers is twice that among adults generally.

I believe this is true for two reasons. First, the nature of our business leaves us vulnerable to high rates of depression, stress, long hours and sleepless nights. Relief from alcohol is at times the easy answer.

Second, many who do drink alcoholically have developed, through years of training, strong streaks of independence and at times perhaps arrogance; as a result, they simply can’t and won’t believe that they can’t handle the problem on their own. Because of this, the percentage of alcoholic lawyers is skewed because many simply never try to seek help.

Legal Training Fosters Unhealthy Behaviors

I didn’t become an alcoholic because of practice-induced stress. Looking back, I realize that I was an alcoholic long before I even decided to attend law school. But I did develop a certain sense of invincibility with my legal expertise. The piece of paper that told me I was a “professional” helped me believe that I wasn’t one of “them,” and that if I ever did develop problems, I’d deal with them.

Many believe that substance abuse among lawyers actually begins when they’re in college. What factors then lead to substance abuse?

According to Professor Dubin, at least 10% of lawyers have some sort of problem with a form of addictive behavior. Though this is a high number, it closely echoes society as a whole. But during lawyers’ careers, this percentage increases to an estimated 20%. In fact, short-term or chronic symptoms of depression, stress or other self-destructive behavior can, at one time or another, affect 33% of legal professionals.

Others correlate this increase from pre-law school to career involvement with the competitive nature of our business—we’re driven to achieve material success and prestige, and need to feel as if we can pull our weight with billable hours.

Several years ago, at an ABA-sponsored program on stress management and burnout, Standish McCleary, a psychologist and former lawyer, identified some reasons why lawyers are above the norm for depression and often become addicted:

• Time constraints and deadlines
• The high-stakes nature of the work which can cause clients to lose their property, freedom, and even life
• High expectations for level of expertise and
• Consistent scrutiny and critical judgment of work from opposing counsel or courts
• The conflict-driven legal process (“opposing counsel must always be determined to prove us wrong”)
• An ever-present threat of malpractice
• An understandable and at times admirable tendency to assume the clients’ burdens
• The demise of professional cordiality and loss of close fellowships
• Professional training requiring us to notice and anticipate the negative and downside in all situations

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

1. Notre Dame Magazine, autumn, 1999; “I know I’m Not Alone,” by Rick Hoel, The Complete Lawyer, March, 2008

2. “Addiction and Lawyers: Substance Abuse in the Legal Profession”, quoting Professor Larry Dubin at The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

3. “The Devastation of Depression: Lawyers Are at Greater Risk — It’s an Impairment to Take Seriously” by Michael J. Sweeney.

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Practice Marketing - Tags: aba, american bar association, law practice marketing, law school, legal training, responsible lawyers

Your Personal Vision Statement: A Template For Change

Written by

“I have learned this, at least, by my experiments; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Are you living your life your way? Is your career what you want it to be? How do you feel when you think about going to the office? Is it with a sense of excitement and anticipation for what you will be doing, or does it feel like drudgery and something that you have to do to make money? This article is a part of a series that’s all about what you can do to ensure you have the kind of life you want—where you wake up and look forward to your day, and at the end of the day feel fulfilled and satisfied with what you have accomplished. You can have your life and your career your way.

Over the past months I have taken you through a process of thinking about various aspects of your life by considering eight critical success factors that make up your Personal Vision. I hope you have been able to do all or even some of the exercises and explored how you envision your life, picking up information about yourself along the way. The next step is to combine what you have learned and integrate those pieces of information into a Personal Vision Statement. Your Personal Vision Statement is a unique, complete expression of what is important to you and how you want your life to be. It will be the guide for crafting your life going forward.

You Need To Both Analyze And Synthesize

The creative process for creating a Personal Vision uses both the left and the right sides of the brain. Almost all of the exercises I have recommended previously have tapped into the left side of your brain, the part that is logical and arranges things in order. As a lawyer, you use that part of your brain even more than most people. Every time you analyze a client’s case, research, write a memo or brief, prepare for a deposition or for trial, or simply debate, you are relying heavily on the left side of your brain. The left brain operates like a computer and works through words; it plans, figures things out and tells you what makes sense.

But you also have to engage the right side of your brain, which thinks holistically, solves problems in a nonlinear fashion, and discovers new ways to put together disparate elements. The right brain is not tied to the present, to facts or realities; it has insight into new possibilities and can solve different problems simultaneously. I’m sure you have had times when you are more relaxed and all of a sudden a solution to a problem you have been wrestling with springs to mind, seemingly out of nowhere. That is your right brain providing you with an insight. It has been behind the scenes subconsciously working on the problem for you.

Many lawyers I work with are skeptical at first when I talk about using their right brains. But the right brain can be a great friend when you are creating a life that is truly yours rather than continuing down the path that others have set for you. You’ll need both sides of your brain to write your Personal Vision Statement—and you can do it in three steps.

Step One: Gather Information

First you need to put your left brain back to work again. Gather together the results of all the exercises you have done. (If you have not done them all, then take some time and complete them before doing this.) Spread them out in front of you so that you can see what you have written. There should be information about you in all eight areas: your abilities (hard-wiring), personality, skills, interests, values, goals, stage of adult development, and family of origin. You can create a Personal Vision Statement without one of those areas, but it will be incomplete. It’s very much like preparing a recipe and leaving out an important ingredient—you won’t get what you really want.

Once you have the information in view, think about what your purpose is for creating a Personal Vision Statement and write that at the top of a blank sheet of paper. Some examples are “What I need to be satisfied in my life” or “What I need to have balance in my career and personal life.” Next, take your time and look through the information you have gathered about yourself in each of the eight areas. Select the key things in each area that you want to have in your life and write them on your sheet. You may also identify some key things you know you must avoid, so put those down, too. For those who crave more organization, create a grid with a “must have” and “must avoid” box for each success factor. However you do it, complete your list and then set it aside for the moment.

Step Two: Conduct A Guided Imagery Exercise

Now, switch gears and focus on your right brain. It already has been working behind the scenes over the past months, during the self-discovery phase, as you completed the exercises.

To access the insights you’ve gained, try the following guided imagery exercise.

Make sure you’re alone and that you won’t be disturbed. Sit in a comfortable position, take some deep breaths and relax your muscles, and tune out the world around you for the time being.

Then, ask yourself to envision your ideal day. Imagine that you woke up one morning and found that someone had left you millions of dollars, no strings attached. You have a virtually limitless bank account that you can draw on any time you want with no need to worry about earning money again. You can start each day asking yourself, “What do I want to do today?”

Now read over the following text and questions and think about them each, without writing anything down. See what images come to mind as you ask yourself the questions. You can also speak and record your answers and play it back while you listen with your eyes closed.

“Imagine yourself in your bed waking up in the morning. Imagine yourself thinking about your day ahead and feeling curious, excited and energetic about what is to come. Today is your ideal day.

•    What is your relationship like with your spouse or partner?
•    What is your relationship like with your children?
•    What is it like with your parents?
•    Who are your friends?
•    What things do you do together? What do you talk about?
•    How do you feel about your life?

Now describe what a typical day would be like and picture yourself preparing for your day, however you would like to.

•    What would your routine be?
•    Where would you go?
•    What would give your life and career meaning?

Imagine what your work day surroundings are like.

•    Where do you work?
•    How is your schedule arranged?
•    What are you doing?
•    Who is in your day?
•    Which talents are you using?
•    What are you working to accomplish and what are your activities?
•    How much variety do you have?
•    What is the pace of work like?
•    How much challenge is there?

What gives your day and life the most meaning? What would be the most important thing you would do with your life?”

This is the end of the guided imagery.

Open your eyes and write down, tape record, or tell someone all that you can remember about your answers to the questions.  (This brings your left brain into the process as it translates what the right brain has summoned up and is trying to communicate.)  Include any images that came to mind with as much detail as you can; don’t leave anything out even if you don’t understand its meaning.   It does not have to make sense right now.  You may have to repeat this exercise or try additional integrative exercises before you understand the message your right brain is trying to give you.  (I’d be happy to send you some other guided imagery exercises if you email me.)  I hope  the ideas and images you gain from them will help you start to crystallize a vision—an image of what you want your future to look like and how you want to live in it.

Step Three:  Write Your Personal Vision Statement

Even if the details of what you’ve learned so far are unclear, you can use the left side of your brain to start to develop your Personal Vision Statement.   Refer to what you have written for the exercises above and think about how you want your life to be.  Picture it as if you are living it already.

Start writing your Personal Vision Statement by describing that life in detail in the present tense.  For example, write, “I am…,”  “I have…,”My family is…,” and “My career includes…”  Make sure you incorporate all eight factors, and include who is in your life, how you spend your time, and what you are doing for work (both paying and non-paying).   Afterwards, you can create a vision statement focused just on your career, but first craft one about your whole life.   This will probably take a great deal of reflection and refinement, so don’t expect it to come out fully developed the first time.

A Personal Vision Statement Helps You Make Concrete Changes In Your Life

This statement can help you in many ways.  One of my clients, Keith (2), realized from the exercises  that he had chosen the right career path but needed to make some focused and strategic changes in the way he was practicing law.  His Personal Vision Statement was his template for those changes; it helped him add meaningful and interesting aspects to his practice and let go of some of the more tedious aspects.  His feelings about his work changed dramatically and he was able to move out of the stress cycle into the balance cycle without revamping his
entire life.

Another client, Melissa(3), was at a turning point.  She was ready to leave the practice of law, and used her Personal Vision to craft what her new life needed to look like.  The insights she gained from doing the exercises gave her some
creative ideas to explore.  Using her Personal Vision as a template for making choices about her next steps, she eventually left law for a new career that was more fulfilling.

If you still are vague about what it is you want to do, or you have some ideas but are not sure if they are pure fantasy or real possibilities, take heart: there is a process that you can go through to clarify your  ideas and insights.  We will
explore those in the next article when we also discuss ways to turn your dream into reality.

In the meantime, unplug from the day-to-day routine when you can and tap into your creative side.  You may be pleasantly surprised at the new ideas that come to mind—get  ready to listen.

____
Notes
1.  McDonald, Bob, Ph.D., and Hutcheson, Don, E., Don’t Waste Your Talent: The
8 Critical Steps to Discovering What You Do Best, The Highlands Company,
2005.

2. and 3.  Keith and Melissa are real clients whose names have been changed.

Tags by users:

Categories: Professional Development - Tags: career, developing skills for lawyers, how to develop the skills of an attorney, personal vision, professional development

The 8 Critical Turning Points Of Your Life

Written by

Do you enjoy your career? Is it what you want it to be? If not, do something to change it. In the previous two articles in this series, I described how you can do just that: create a Personal Vision for your career that takes you as a whole, complete person into account. This will move you from the Stress Cycle into the Balance Cycle and set you on the path to a career that fits you and brings you greater success and satisfaction.

Your Stage Of Adult Development Has A Major Impact On How You View Your Life

To begin crafting your Personal Vision, stop what you are doing and take time to reflect on who you are and what you want (I know this is counter-intuitive to most lawyers but it is doable and it does work)   this includes considering each of the Eight Critical Success Factors [1.McDonald, Bob, Ph.D. and Hutcheson, Don Evans. Don't Waste Your Talent: The 8 Critical Steps To Discovering What You Do Best. Atlanta, Longstreet Press, 2000.] that I referred to in the previous articles. (See Personal Vision and Moving From The Stress Cycle ) In this article we will focus on the first factor: Your Stage of Adult Development. Your Stage of Adult Development has a major impact on how you view your life, your choices, and whether or not you are motivated to make a change. So knowing your stage of life gives you a backdrop against which your own life and career will make more sense.

People Usually Become Open To New Ideas When They Are At A Turning Point

First you need to know if you are at a Turning Point. Turning Points occur at predictable times during our entire adult lives, about one in every seven to ten years. They are not single points in time but usually spread out over one to three years. Each Turning Point is initiated by a crisis or a time when we feel like our lives are unraveling: They develop out of the Stress Cycle. We make decisions at all Turning Points that affect the course of the next seven to ten years of our lives, so understanding what they are and when they are likely to occur is critical to your Personal Vision. The Personal Vision you craft when you are 20 will be very different from the one you create when you are 50.

People usually become open to new ideas when they are at a Turning Point. They feel more clearly and sometimes painfully how their lives do not express who they are, they recognize the gap between how they are living and what want out of life, and they begin to consider alternative directions. At all Turning Points we start looking for answers and try to find something new. Often the search for change is only outer-directed, such as a new job, a new hair color, or maybe even a new wife or husband. This rarely leads people any closer to what they truly want to be doing, and may result in another round of the Stress Cycle. Instead, you must look inside first to discover the answers that can truly change your life.

Questions You Might Ask Yourself At One Of The Eight Turning Points

Each Turning Point offers a window of time during which you have more energy and interest to examine what you have and to search for something better. The vast majority of lawyers I have coached for career and life transition have been at a Turning Point stage in their lives, usually Stages Three, Four or Five.

Let’s take a look at the eight Turning Points and the questions you can be asking yourself at these stages:

Stage One: High School To College (17 – 18 Years Old)

It is during this time that people decide whether or not to go to college and if yes, which college to attend. Questions to ask at this stage include:

-What relationships are about to change for me?
-What are my plans for a career? Why?
-What are my main talents?
-What dreams do I have about the kind of life I want? Why?

Stage Two: College To Work World (22 – 27 Years Old)

This typically includes the transition from the family to the work world. Most decisions are entry-level decisions such as career choice and what relationships to enter. For lawyers who have taken the traditional route   college at 18 and law school at 22   this stage corresponds roughly with law school and the first years of practice. The key questions should be:

-Who am I?
-What do I want from my career?
-How can I put myself in a position to do what I do best?
-What kind of lifestyle do I want and is what I am doing leading me to that kind of lifestyle?

Stage Three: Age 30 Assessment (28 – 33 Years Old)

Regardless of the career direction in which we launch, we do some reassessment around age 30. It is often characterized by a great deal of tentativeness and exploration. There is significant pressure to commit, which leads to reassessing whether you want to be part of the “tribe”, whether that tribe is the law firm, the corporation, or even just continuing to be a lawyer. Good questions to ask include:

-Is this what I want to be doing? Is it getting me what I want? What doesn’t fit?
-Am I really using my most important talent(s)? Are there some talents I have that I don’t know about yet?
-If my career keeps going the way it is now, where will I be in 10 years?
-Is that where I want to be? Why?
-What do I really want in life? Is what I am doing going to get me that? If not, I need to do something different. If so, what else should I be shooting for? What do I want to add to make my life fuller?

Some lawyers decide to make big changes and switch careers; others choose to get serious about the career they are in and to turn up the heat on getting to the top. Whatever gets decided at this Turning Point, people move into their 30s and a period of stability – a Building Stage. They are rededicated to earlier goals or have shifted to new ones.

Stage Four: The Midlife Transition (38 – 45 Years Old)

This can be one of the most important and significant times in many people’s lives. Or it can be a disaster. Our society often thinks of midlife as a crisis, but it is really no more important than any of the other Turning Points. It may just be the first time many people have become aware of change in their lives. Most get a glimpse of the possible limits to their lives and that the end of life is foreseeable although still distant. They may suddenly realize that there is a huge gap between the person they feel they are and the person they are living as, and that awareness can be overwhelming, sudden and intense.

Big questions here involve how to use your talents and focus on your values. We turn an invisible corner sometime around age 40 – half our lives are over – so the question “Does what I am doing seem worth doing?” speaks up more loudly. One of the worst outcomes is doing nothing at this stage and shoving your feelings under the rug. As with the previous Turning Point, whatever gets decided at the Midlife Transition, people move into their 40s and a period of stability – another Building Stage.

Examples of questions to ask are:

-How do I feel about my family? My work? What changes would I like to make in the balance of work and family?
-What new direction in my life would be fascinating or interesting?
-What values do I need to pay attention to and how can I incorporate them in my life?
-What goals do I have for the next 20 years of my career? What needs to happen to accomplish them?

[This was the first part of this article]

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Career Development - Tags: critical turning points, turning points in career

Self-Assess Before Deciding To Leave The Law

Written by

This is the second article in a series of six articles that explore non-traditional career options for attorneys both within and outside the law.

You know you are unhappy; what you don’t know is what to do about it. At this stage, the most natural questions lawyers ask themselves are, “What kind of job can I get with my law degree and experience? Who will hire me?” Those questions won’t help you. Whether you are in law school or out in the “real world” practicing law, you need to shift your initial focus.

In the 17 years I have coached lawyers, I have learned that it is more powerful for you to ask, “What do I want to do?” Stop looking to others to tell you what you can do next. My guess is it hasn’t worked that well for you anyway. Instead, start directing the course of your career and creating your own personal list of options. As I mentioned in the previous article, there are many opportunities for lawyers within and outside the law, and you really can find success on your own terms. But you have to start by knowing what those terms are and what is right for you before forging ahead to the job search stage. To do this, spend some time figuring out what will make you happy. Giving yourself the gift of time to do some self-assessment is absolutely critical to charting your own course and finding work that you will enjoy.

Transitions Aren’t Always Comfortable But They’re Necessary

Does the idea that there are no immediate answers to your urgent question of what to do next depress you? Does the prospect of unlimited options overwhelm and possibly even paralyze you? If so, it might help you to know that those feelings are very normal and common. Just the thought of making a nontraditional career change can make most lawyers feel vulnerable, isolated, and insecure. On top of that, the notion that there are no quick answers can be overwhelming. Lawyers often lead extremely pressured and hectic lives with little time for anything else. Not knowing what you want, worrying that you may not be able to find a job that will pay you as much, and the fear of telling family, friends and colleagues that you want to make a change can all contribute to feeling paralyzed and staying stuck. I encourage you to put up with the unavoidable discomfort and uncertainties that come with transition and take this next step anyway. You may want to find some support, though, so consider talking to someone who is also going through a career transition so you can share thoughts and impressions, or perhaps work with a career coach.

Answer A Five-Question Self-Assessment

The following questions and exercises will assist you with some soul-searching and reveal a lot of key information about you, why your current job is not a good fit, and what you need to have in your next career to be happy. It’s the fundamental first step to crafting you own, personal definition of a successful career. As Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the popular What Color is Your Parachute?, explains, “Most job-hunters who fail to find their dream job fail not because they lack information about the job-market, but because they lack information about themselves.” 1 I suggest you get a journal to record and process your answers and ideas.

1. What isn’t working for you? This question helps you figure out whether you are in the wrong career or just in the wrong job. If you are already sure you no longer want to practice law at all, it will help you begin to hone in on what to avoid in the next career choice. That’s helpful because if you have not identified what you dislike now, you may be likely to experience that same problem elsewhere.

Think about your current job and identify the root(s) of the problem. Be specific; think about it from all angles: the work you are doing, the environment, your typical day, what’s missing. Now do the same thing for any prior jobs you have had as a lawyer. Many miserable lawyers have met with me for the first time feeling so burned out that the only option they can see is to leave the law completely. After doing some self assessment, they sometimes discover that the cause of their misery is actually the people with whom they are working, the schedule they are keeping, and/or the area of law they are practicing. Making a few changes allowed them to practice law in a way that they loved.

2. What is working for you? Now think about what you enjoy in your current job. It’s easy to forget the good things when you are dealing with negative challenges and living in the stress cycle. Again, think about it from all angles and get specific. Go back in time and do the same thing for any prior jobs, legal and nonlegal, you have had in the past.

3. Why did you go to law school? Take a moment to reconnect with your original motivations for taking the LSAT and investing three years of your life and a lot of money to venture down this path. Was it because you wanted to do some good in the world or because you didn’t know what else to do? Did you seek the prestige and high pay commonly associated with being a lawyer? Maybe you come from a family of lawyers. Maybe no one in your family had ever gone to law school before you. Perhaps you were attracted by the intellectual stimulation it promised. Whatever the reason, reacquaint yourself with your original reason(s). These underlying motivations are clues to what is most important to you as you move forward.

4. What is your definition of success? This is very personal: only you can decide how to define a successful career and life. As author and columnist Anna Quindlen wrote, “When your success looks good to the world but doesn’t feel good in your heart, it isn’t success at all.” 2 To answer this question, I invite you to dig a little deeper and take a look at eight different components of your life that have a major impact on what will make you happy in the long run. I talk about these eight career factors in a series of articles that I wrote for previous issues of The Complete Lawyer, and will reference relevant articles after each point.

? Your Stage of Adult Development. Whether you are at a turning point or in a building stage has a tremendous impact on how you view choices and make decisions (The 8 Critical Turning Points Of Your Life).

? Your Natural Talents and Abilities. Think about how you are hardwired and what you naturally do well. If you work against your abilities, work feels like labor and tasks can feel like torture. If you work with them, everything is easier and more fun. Talents are completely different from acquired knowledge, skills, and interests. You cannot change them and you need to know what they are (What Are Your Natural Talents And Abilities).

The sad truth is that many people often find themselves in jobs that do not allow them to capitalize and utilize their strengths. In a recent Gallup survey of more than 10 million people worldwide, only one-third of workers said that they have the opportunity in their jobs to do what they do best every day. 3 However, those people who do have the opportunity to use their strengths in the workplace are “six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life” than their co-workers.4

-Your Skills and Life Experience. This refers to what you have learned in life, your expertise. Unlike natural abilities, which are set for life, skills can be practiced and learned. On the flipside, if you don’t use them you can lose them (What Are Your Options? Exploring Alternative Careers).

-Interests and Fascinations. Consider what draws your attention, and gives passion and energy to your life (What Are Your Options? Exploring Alternative Careers).

-Your Core Values. What do you think is worth doing in life? What you hold most near and dear to your heart? (How Core Values & Family Of Origin Impact Your Career).

-Your Family of Origin. Think about the messages about work and success that you received from your family (How Core Values & Family Of Origin Impact Your Career).

-Interpersonal Style. This refers to your personality and preferences, and how you interact with those around you. (Match Your Personality With Your Job).

-Your Goals. Ask yourself what you want to do in life, and what you want to accomplish (Use Your Long-Term Goals To Motivate You).

Once you have examined these various aspects of your life, go one step further and create your personal vision statement (Your Personal Vision Statement: A Template For Change). You can really have fun with this part: play around and discover what your ideal workday would look like.

At the end of this process you will know more about what is important to you and what you really want to be doing. Then you will be ready to decide if you are going to be able to achieve those things as a lawyer, or if you need to look elsewhere. For example, would switching practice areas be a possibility? Working as a lawyer doing labor and employment law could be as different from being a divorce lawyer as it is from many of the non-legal jobs. Or maybe you still like practicing law but it takes so much out of you that there is no time left for anything else. If you could find a way to have more work/life balance, you might actually like practicing law again.

Don’t give up on being a lawyer until you have done some self-assessment and examined the possibilities for change. In the next article we will take a look at some nontraditional ways of practicing law that you can consider in the mix.

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Career Development - Tags: law career development, leaving the law, self assessment

Match Your Personality With Your Job

Written by

This is the seventh in a series of eight articles exploring The Eight Critical Success Factors1 necessary to create a personal vision for your career. If you’re new to the series, you may want to take a look at the previous articles. (See Anne Whitaker’s articles.)

Who are you? This isn’t a rhetorical question I’m really asking you who you are. If you’re saying to yourself, “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a husband,” you’re answering only part of the question. What you do your role in life, how you earn your living is but one component of your identity.

Who You Are Is More Important Than What You Do

Figuring out what makes you tick is a complicated and important task, perhaps the most important one. Most of us are so caught up in the daily stress cycle that we haven’t focused on this question or if we have, the treadmill of our busy lives has taken us far away from the answer. But the answer remains critical if you want to create a meaningful, energizing and exciting career.

Personality Is Your Unique Way Of Being In The World

In addition to roles, values, interests and abilities2 (which we have explored in previous articles), personality is a big part of who you are. In fact, your personality pattern is having a huge impact on your life at this moment, whether you know it or not. What do I mean by personality? Think of it as your way of being, the sum total of your preferences, and your unique patterns of interacting with the world.

People have been thinking about personality for a long time: the ancient Greeks, for instance, believed that each individual is born with one of four distinct temperaments. Building on that concept, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of personality in the 1920s called “psychological types.” Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers created a practical application for Jung’s model the MBT” (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator)3, a detailed test instrument to measure psychological type which has been refined and improved over the years.

Understand The Components Of Personality

You’ve probably heard of and/or taken some version of the MBTI as it is often administered by schools, companies, and law firms. This test measures a person’s preferences or temperament by using four basic scales:

- extroversion vs. introversion (E/I)
- sensate vs. intuitive (S/N)
- thinking vs. feeling (T/F)
- judging vs. perceiving (J/P)

The various combinations of these preferences result in 16 personality types expressed by their corresponding letters such as “ENFP” or “ISTJ.” Each type has its own interests, strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, and some career fields and job descriptions attract more of some types than others.

This doesn’t mean that every ENFP is alike. Human beings are much more complex than that. But people with a particular type do have some basic characteristics in common that predict how they behave and what they prefer.

Life Is Change, But Your Personality Stays Constant

Many people think that personality is flexible and changes over time, depending on their environment or perhaps how much therapy they have had. It is true that you can learn new, more effective ways of behaving and interacting with people and even “unlearn” old, stifling patterns of behavior that hold you back. It’s also true that you may act differently at work than at home. Nevertheless, your basic temperament or personality, unlike your job or roles, remains the same throughout your life.

Skeptical? Do the following experiment. Write your name on a piece of paper. Now write your name with your opposite hand. How did it feel when you used your preferred hand? It probably felt natural, effortless, and easy. But when you used your non-preferred or non-dominant hand, it probably felt slow, uncomfortable, and tiring. Of course you can practice writing with your non-dominant hand to improve your skill, but your basic preference for your dominant hand will never change. The same is true for your personality type.

Are You A Listener Or A Talker?

Now let’s look at the first and perhaps most well-known dimension of personality type: Extroversion/Introversion. This dimension relates to how we interact in the world and where we get our energy.

See if this description of an extrovert applies to you: You enjoy being with people; it energizes you. You like to talk with people a lot during the work day; in fact, you talk more than you listen, preferring to discuss problems out loud with coworkers and friends. You seek out others, needing them to recharge and feel connected especially at the end of a hard day. You enjoy going to the grocery store or mall because you may run into someone you know, and love parties where you can work the room. What you don’t like is feeling isolated or being stuck in a structured environment.

On the other hand, maybe you’re the kind of person who needs time to yourself on a regular basis. You tend to be quiet and methodical, preferring to think ideas through before discussing them with others; in fact, you listen more than talk. When you do talk with others you get to the point quickly though you’d almost always rather send an email than have a conversation. You want meetings to have a purpose and defined time limit, and you don’t enjoy brainstorming. At the end of an exhausting day, you need to go home and relax by reading or watching TV (anything but talking.) For you, a trip to the store is for one purpose only: to get what you need and get out. Spending long periods of time with many people in business or social situations feels like work and leaves you feeling drained.

For Most Of Us, Personality Is A Mixture Of Traits

Do you recognize yourself? I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t: both examples above are pretty extreme. In reality, even the most outgoing extrovert enjoys being alone at times and the most extreme introvert wants to be with people sometimes. But everyone has a natural preference for one over the other; it’s a question of which you prefer more often, or if you are midrange on both.

If you’re more introvert than extravert, you’re in good company: the majority of lawyers are introverts. In fact, one study showed that 57 percent of lawyers are introverts, compared to 25 percent of the general public.4 Preferring introversion doesn’t mean that you don’t like to litigate, do public speaking, or be with people. It just means you need more alone time to reflect on things than someone who prefers extroversion.

Also, you may be midrange on both, which means that you have more choice about your interpersonal environment. If you are a combination, you need to make sure you have a good balance between being with others and being by yourself.

Match Your Personality With Your Job’s Personality

Now that you have a sense of who you are, think about where you work. Is your office quiet or noisy? Are you expected to do your best work with others or by yourself? Do you know what’s on your agenda each day or is your schedule a work in progress?

Angela, for example, works in a busy office where she’s expected to make herself available to her colleagues and clients. She counsels, advises and interacts with people all day long. Because she’s an extrovert, she thrives in this environment. Attending impromptu meetings, thinking on her feet these activities make her feel alive.

Larry, on the other hand, looks forward to coming to work at his quiet office where each attorney is granted a full measure of privacy and autonomy. An introvert, he closes his doors and spends his day poring over documents, researching and writing. When he does meet with clients, he gets right down to business. He likes meetings to be scheduled in advance and attends each with a list of goals or issues to discuss.

Angela and Larry are lucky their work environments match their temperaments. But what if they were to switch jobs? Angela would feel as if she were crawling the walls sitting in an office by herself; Larry would spend every moment feeling anxious and drained.

Clearly, to have a rewarding and satisfying career you need to make sure that your personality matches your work environment. The right job will allow you to be who you are and will suit the way you like to do things naturally. Otherwise, you’ll feel like a right-handed person who’s asked to write with her left hand. Nothing will feel effortless. You’ll be working against your natural preferences instead of working in concert with them.

Assess Other Dimensions Of Your Personality

Remember that extroversion/introversion is just one of the four dimensions of personality; getting the other three dimensions into alignment with your work life is just as important.

To assess your natural strengths and inclinations or “personality type,” I recommend you take the MBTI, preferably the newer MBTI-Step 2. While it is not perfect (the test consists of subjective questions and is self-reporting,) it is perhaps the most widely-recognized and validated assessment available for testing personality type. I suggest you work with a career counselor or coach who has experience interpreting the MBTI for lawyers.

In addition to the MBTI, you can read one of the many books on personality type and temperament.5 Or take an online “mini quiz” to help you determine your temperament.6 While these are quick and fun to take and you may learn something about your personal style, they are not as thorough as the MBTI and have not been validated by research.

Strive For Goodness Of Fit

Next time we will look at the eighth and final Success Factor your Goals. In the meantime, take time to get to know yourself better and learn more about your personality preferences. And then try to align your work role with your work environment so that you’re working with your natural tendencies, not fighting them. This way, you’ll allow who you are to be a positive force in your work life.

As Isabel Briggs Myers said, “Whatever the circumstances of your life, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire.”

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Career Development - Tags: law career, law career development, legal tips, personality, tips for lawyers

Pay Attention To Your Skills And Interests

Written by

If you have been following this series, you know that a key to a satisfying and successful career is to have a Personal Vision for your career and your life. (See Personal Vision, Moving From The Stress Cycle, The 8 Critical Turning Points, and What Are Your Natural Talents) However, creating your Personal Vision and examining the various areas of your life we call the Eight Critical Success Factors is not a quick fix and does not happen overnight. You have to slow down, take some time and ask yourself questions that are very different from the typical law-related issues you focus on every day. The process I have been talking about is really a journey, and it is well worth the effort. Creating a Personal Vision1 is perhaps the most important work you can do to make your life more fun, more productive and more meaningful. It helps you define what success means to you, achieve goals that really matter, and can help you overcome almost any obstacle. Gandhi, Churchill, and Benjamin Franklin all had Personal Visions.

Skills And Interests Help Give Your Personal Vision Substance And Structure

By now, I hope you have spent some time assessing the first two Critical Success Factors, which I covered in the previous two articles. If you have, in what Stage of Adult Development are you? Are you at a turning point or in a building stage, and how does that impact your decision making and stress cycle? Also, what are your Natural Abilities and talents and how are you hard-wired? Your abilities form the foundation of your Personal Vision so it’s important you learn what they are.2 If you haven’t looked at these two areas of your life, focus some time this month on them. I suggest you start a Personal Vision Notebook, if you have not already done so. That will give you a central place in which you can record your thoughts and answers when you do the various exercises I recommend.

In this segment we move on to the third and fourth Critical Success Factors of your life Skills and Interests. Just knowing your natural abilities is not enough; you need to be able to plug that information into your life so that you can use them all the time. Skills and Interests help you do this and give your Personal Vision substance and structure.

Your Skills Work Hand In Hand With Your Abilities

Let’s start with Skills. Your skills are what you have learned in life through schools, on the job training, CLEs, etc. Unlike your natural abilities, which are set by the time you are about 14 years old and will not change, your skills are learned and can continue to be nurtured and developed. Your experiences have created an extremely valuable asset for you to take into the next stage of your career, and there are several reasons why you need to consider this asset when crafting your Personal Vision.First, you need to know what your skills are because they work hand-in-hand with your abilities. What you are naturally talented at doing can be greatly enhanced with skills and experience. Also, your skills complement your natural abilities because what you are not naturally gifted to do can be compensated for with training. For some careers you need both skills and natural abilities to be successful. For example, a 14 year-old boy may have the natural abilities needed to be an excellent surgeon, but he will still need to get the education and skills to put it into practice.

So knowing what you do well and whether it is because of your abilities, skills or a combination of the two is a critical component in career planning. It allows you to understand why things are the way they are for you. A lawyer named Allen, for example, discovered that he did not have the natural abilities to be a litigator and that he had compensated for years by developing skills through education, training and experience. It explained why so many aspects of litigation left him feeling drained. He also learned that he had both the natural talent and the skills needed to be a writer, which was why writing was something he did easily and well.

Evaluating your skills also helps you decide which ones you would like to continue using, which ones you need to develop further, and which ones you want to abandon completely. The mere fact that you have a skill does not mean you need to use it. You will enjoy your work more and do a much better job if you focus on those skills that you both enjoy doing and can do well. On the flip side, if there is a skills gap in your current position or you dislike the skills you are frequently employing, that is critical information. Either one of those things can be the source of great stress. With Allen, he realized that since he had become partner he was not getting to write as much as he used to and he missed it. He decided to focus on ways he could bring writing back into his life on a regular basis.

Transferable Skills Are Especially Important If You Are Considering A New Area Of Practice, A Different Kind Of Job, Or A New Career

Another reason to identify your skills is so you can evaluate current and future career opportunities in terms of the “transferable skills” you already have. Transferable skills are especially important if you are considering a new area of practice, a different kind of job, or a new career. Legal training is really quite broad, and many skills that you have developed as a lawyer can be transferred to other fields. For example, lawyers have developed good analytical skills, oral and written communication skills, and negotiation skills. The training starts with the first day of law school and is honed by the practice of law thereafter. Lawyers take those abilities for granted because peers in the profession have developed the same core skills. And even if that weren’t the case, most people are simply not aware of the richness of their own skills. We tend to take what we do well for granted, and so many times overlook our most powerful and effective skills because we have always used them so effectively. Our most significant skills don’t seem important because they are so easy for us. When asked to name their best skills, most of my clients will focus on something that was difficult for them to learn.
Remember Allen? His most important skills remained invisible to him until he took some time to learn more about them and uncovered a pattern that he was previously unaware of. He saw that some of the things he had done in high school and college were similar to what he did best as a lawyer, with writing being just one of them. The exercises he did gave him a fresh perspective about his skills and he suddenly saw how he could use them in many other fields.

An Exercise For Assessing Your Skills

The following exercise is a good one for assessing your skills. Make a list of at least twenty accomplishments things that have happened in your life that you are proud of or feel good about. Include both on the job and off the job situations and cover the full range of your life, not just adulthood. It may be that you completed a project, created something, learned a new skill, won a difficult case, closed a deal, mentored a worker, or turned a difficult situation around. Write them in your Personal Vision Notebook and then answer the following questions:

-What skills appear in the stories? Note them beside each story.
-Are there themes? Do they fall into natural groups? How would you name them?
-Of those skills, which do you enjoy using?
-What skills have you consistently used? Which are underutilized?
-Are more of your stories work related or non-work related?
-Are there patterns?
-How do your skills enhance or build on your natural abilities? Which skills help you compensate or strengthen areas in which you are not naturally as gifted?

You can then expand your list:

-Identify other skills you have that weren’t revealed in your list of accomplishments. Take a look at your calendar over the past couple of months to refresh your memory about your activities and then analyze the skills that you were using for each. You can then run them through the same questions above.
-Which skills do you want to build or acquire to help you in your current job? Or, which skills do you need to develop if you intend to expand your career?

When You Find Ways To Include Your Interests In Your Career, Your Life Changes Dramatically

Once you have a better understanding of your skills, it’s time to examine your Interests, which are the people, places, things, and activities that grab your attention. They are what fascinate you, pull at you. There are varying degrees of interests, from things that you are most passionate about, which is usually a short list, to things that interest you. Your interests may be for either an activity, like playing golf, or a subject matter, like antiques. For example, you may be passionate about baseball, the subject matter, but do not enjoy playing the game. You also may not enjoy the area of law in which you are practicing but really love taking depositions.

We often neglect this factor because we tend to assign our interests and passions to a box labeled “outside of work.” Instead of viewing interests as something you pursue once you leave the office, you can find ways to bring them into your career. They may or may not be a part of a career direction but can add “spice” to career choice and balance to the work world. Interests can sometimes give new energy to your career.

When I talk to people who have had full and satisfying lives and ask them how they found the career that suited them so well they all say some version of the same thing. “I always did what interested me.” When you pay attention to what you find personally interesting and fascinating and find ways to include it in your career, your life changes dramatically. Instead of keeping “interests” and “work” in two separate compartments of your life with no connection between them, you get to include this exciting component in your career. You can be more creative, happier and enthusiastic. Work doesn’t seem like work you are engaged and enjoy what you do. The fact that somebody pays you to do it can seem like icing on the cake.

Are you surprised that interests can have something to do with your work? Most people, especially lawyers with billable hour requirements, are very surprised to learn this. Many feel resigned to their situations and have learned to ignore or push interests deep down in the name of “adulthood” or “responsibility.” They have turned off their interest radar and thought generator. If you have learned to ignore what really interests you because you are too tired, too busy, or too stuck in your job, you have a lot of company. The truth is, interests can give your life more richness, texture and substance. You can learn to take them more seriously and make a place for them in your life. Or even create a life in which they can play a regular role.

An Exercise For Assessing Your Interests

The first step is to get in touch with your interests. There are those you already know about and others that may be more hidden or forgotten. Start by answering the following questions, and don’t forget to record your answers.

-Who are the people that interest you the most?
-What places, ideas, and books interest you?
-What school subjects were the most interesting?
-What activities satisfy you the most?
-What do you do in your spare time for fun and relaxation? What do you wish you did?
-Write down 20 of the most enjoyable experiences of your life, drawing from all stages of life and include career and outside of work.

Think about events that were fulfilling, fun, and so engaging that time seemed to fly by. Think about experiences that were easy and lifted your spirits. Now look at those experiences and identify what made them so enjoyable. Was it the subject matter or the activities you were doing, or both? What was it about them that interested you? Add those interests to your list.

Now that you have a list of interests and passions to work with, start to identify what part your interests play in adding balance to your life.

-Is there a common theme or pattern in your list of interests?

-Separate your list of interests into four categories:

1. “Must haves” for your career. How can you begin to add these in?
2. Good for a hobby. Are you finding time for them? If not, how can you?
3. Need more research. Make a plan to get more information.
4. Do not need to include at this time.

The goal is to identify what interests you want to include in your Personal Vision at this point in your life, and how you are going to do that. If you are staying in your current career, how can you restructure things so that your interests are a part of it? If you want to change careers, what part do you want interests to play? Is there a way to include the “must haves” you have identified?

Let’s go back to Allen one last time. As he continued to do work on his Personal Vision and identified his areas of interest, he rediscovered that he had a real love of writing that went beyond the legal writing he did as a lawyer. He had forgotten how much he had enjoyed writing for his high school newspaper years ago. The pressures of college, law school, being an associate, making partner, and having a family had caused him to push that interest deep down, and he realized that adding it back might give his life more joy. He decided to start writing articles for the Bar Journal and a few other lawyer magazines, and found he really enjoyed it. He then wrote a couple of short stories for a magazine, and found that to be even more invigorating. After attending a seminar on how to become a published novelist, he decided to try his hand at writing fiction, and is now working on his first book. He has found renewed creativity and energy in his days just by adding this interest back into his life.

In the next issue, we will take a look at the next two Critical Success Factors: Family of Origin and Values. In the meantime, consider your Skills and Interests and how they can help you create a more fulfilling career and balanced life. Maybe you will uncover a couple of hidden gems.

Tags by users:

Categories: Law Career Development - Tags: areas of interest, assessing skills, legal writing, new career, skills of lawyers, successful lawyers, transferable skills

Ensure Sufficient Retirement Income

Written by

In my last article I reviewed the “rule of 25” as a means of calculating how much retirement income you will need to live a good life in retirement. It’s a handy rule, but it doesn’t take into account two important factors: inflation, which may increase the amount of retirement income you’ll need; and the state of the market when you’re ready to retire. In real life, timing is everything.

Pop quiz: how many “down” years (measured by the S&P500TM) did the U.S. stock market experience from 1982 to the end of 1999? Answer: just one—in 1991 when the market dropped a modest 3.17%. What about the heart-stopping “crash” on October 19, 1987? Despite that 25% drop on a single day (measured by many indices of the market), the year’s markets ended “up.”

If you were a little slow to realize the market had turned “bull” in the early 80s and didn’t begin investing until early 1985, and if you hadn’t time to consult your financial crystal ball about the bear market of 2000-2002, $10,000 invested in the S&P500TM at the beginning of 1985 would have grown to more than $150,000 by the end of 2007 for an annual, compound return of +12.1%. During this specific 23-year period, there were just four “down” years and 19 “up” years. Twelve of those 19 “up” returns were in the “double digits.” Two of the four “down” returns were similarly “double digits.”

Let’s make the financial statistics a little more relevant. Suppose you retired in 1985 during the early stages of a long-term bull market with $1 million of capital invested in the S&P 500TM and that you planned to pull out $75,000 a year. After eight years, your portfolio would be worth almost $2.5, more than $8.7 million on 12/31/99 and $9.2 million on 12/31/07. In fact, during the 1985-2007 period, you could have regularly pulled out $155,000 a year and still have more than $1.3 million at the end of 2007.

On the other hand, if you had retired at the beginning of 2000 with the same capital and yearly withdrawal plan, eight years later, on 12/31/07, your portfolio would be worth just $337,000. Even without the current slump in the stock market (as of July 2008), it’s virtually certain that you would outlive your money. In retrospect, to end up those eight years with your original principal intact, you could only have withdrawn $15,000 a year toward your retirement needs. Timing really is everything!

Even if we could “time” the market (and there’s substantial evidence that timing does not work), most of us envision a specific time during which we’ll transition to living off our capital rather than relying on our billable hours. If we could somehow know the market will soon peak (or trough), we might be willing to adjust our retirement date to accommodate our remarkable prescience. Most likely, however, we’re going to have to take our chances with market undulations and cycles. Therefore, we need distribution strategies that can increase the chances that we will have sufficient income throughout our retirement years.

Stratify Investments Into “Buckets”

One strategy involves first sorting out the various categories of investments in the $1 million retirement portfolio. For most, funds will span the traditional asset classes of equity and fixed investments, including cash, money market, certificates of deposit, short/medium/long-term bonds, mutual fund, ETFs, individual stocks, REITs, real estate, etc. Each of these investments has historic characteristics of risk (as measured by volatility) and return, and these critical factors tend to be inversely proportional.1

From these categories, create a series of three or more conceptual “buckets.” Bucket One holds cash and near-cash investments with durations of less than one year. Ideally, this should be planned two to three years before retiring. If necessary, existing assets can be re-positioned to assure that Bucket One holds sufficient resources to meet at least one year’s retirement income requirement, and possibly as much as three years’ income. This helps assure that volatile investments such as stocks, mutual funds, and even intermediate/long-term bonds will not have to be cashed in during market periods that depress liquidity values. Bucket One is also used—at least conceptually—to receive all sources of income including social security, other retirement income resources such as monthly annuity payments, as well as interest, dividends and gains from the other buckets.

Bucket Two holds investment categories that are typically associated with medium-term holding periods (three to five years), such as bond mutual funds and balanced mutual funds. The income this bucket produces is poured into Bucket One. Similarly, as these medium-term investments are sold and reinvested, gains will also revert to Bucket One until sufficient reserves are re-established (again, one to three years’ worth of income needs).

Bucket Three holds the longer-term investments that have the highest volatility of all portfolio assets, but also have the highest potential for long-term gains. Dividends and gains will flow back to Bucket One, once again subject to the reserve needs of that bucket.

Additional buckets can be used according to the type and diversity of portfolio investments. As you can see, this approach does not dictate the nature of your investments; that depends on your risk tolerance and preference to manage (or not manage) a portfolio. Rather, the “bucket” strategy is about stratifying your investments along the risk/reward continuum, allowing you to consume income from those investments with the least likelihood to lose principal while giving higher risk/higher return investments sufficient time to perform on their return expectation. In essence, the bucket method describes a process for organizing your investments for maximum lifetime sufficiency, whatever those investments might be. Note that the need for ongoing investment management and occasional reallocation still applies.

Assess Your Risk Tolerance

A second strategy involves a little less discipline and organizational skill. Recognizing that a typical 65-year old has a 20-year life expectancy, you would take 80-85% of your current $1 million portfolio and invest according to your risk tolerance for maximum income, living on investment return and principal over those 20 years. The 15-20% portion not already allocated is specifically invested with a 20-year time horizon, presumably with greater risk tolerance than that which will be applied to the larger segment of the $1 million portfolio. While most of us would not employ an all-equity allocation to our entire portfolio, it’s entirely possible that such a strategy could be reasonably applied to this 15-20% segment invested for the long-term.

At age 85, only two conditions prevail: either you succumbed to life expectancy statistics, or you survived them. If you are still alive, you have—by the formula suggested below—completely exhausted your 20-year income portfolio and now look to your “I beat my life expectancy” portfolio to take care of your income needs for the rest of your life. For example, a $150,000 initial allocation of the original $1 million could grow to $400,000 at an average 5% return; grow to $700,000 at an average 8% return; and grow to $1 million at an average 10% return. If then converted to an immediate annuity at age 85, the monthly income could range from $5,300/month based on $400,000 to as much as $13,250/month based on $1 million on a single 85 year old male. A joint annuity (with the monthly payment for as long as either spouse is alive) for the lives of spouses (both age 85) range from $3,950 based on $400,000 and $9,875 based on $1 million.[2]

As for the first 20 years in which you are distributing income and principal, here’s the recommended formula, assuming a constant 5% return:

Year 1: distribute 1/20 of the initial value (1/20 of $850,000 = $42,500)

Year 2: distribute 1/19 of remaining value (1/19 of $847,875 = $44,625)

Year 3: distribute 1/18 of remaining value (1/18 of $843,413 = $46,856)

etc. until…

Year 20: distribute remaining value (1/1 of $107,395 = $107,395)

If your long-term investment skill (and a cooperative market) results in an average 8% return, the annual income ranges from the same initial $42,500 up to a 20th year portfolio liquidation value of $183,417. Needless to say, however, the market does not increase in smooth increments of return! Volatility will have a significant effect on each year’s balance for which the applicable distribution percentage will be paid. Thus, average returns are used here to illustrate the methodology, but investment professionals should be consulted for “volatility studies” that can suggest probabilities of success based on different investment strategies within the 20-year timeframe.

Que Sera, Sera?

These two distribution models do not take into account considerations for income taxes, or the possibility that you may have testamentary intentions that work against the concept of “spending” principal.

But they do exemplify the types of strategies that can help us have sufficient income for the much longer life expectancies than, on average, our parents experienced. Unless we’re fortunate enough to start with a substantial amount of retirement capital relative to our income needs, those needs cannot be satisfied with conventional thinking such as “buy bonds and live off the interest.” Similarly, “Whatever will be, will be” is not an investment strategy. We will need to more actively explore retirement solutions that can produce adequate income for the 30 or 40 years of thriving through and beyond mid-life to which we’re all entitled.

__________________

FOOTNOTES

1. Money market accounts and short-term bonds tend to assure safety of principal in exchange for nominally low rates of return. The July 1, 2008 90-day T-Bill yield of ~1.8% can today be considered a “safe” rate of return with no risk and very short duration. To achieve a rate of return much higher than this, a certain amount of risk (either volatility and/or liquidity risk or penalty-for-early-withdrawal risk) will need to be taken. While risk is a key factor in our investment decisions, exposure to risk is directly proportional to time: the quicker you need your money back, the greater the risk you won’t achieve your objective. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that no rolling 20-year period since 1926 (i.e. 1926-1945, 1927-1946 etc) has produced a negative return when underlying investments were in the broad equity market.

2. These suggested immediate annuity monthly income value are calculated by insurers based on mortality tables in effect in 2008 and are not necessarily indicative of rates that might prevail 20 years from now.

Tags by users:

Categories: Retirement Planning - Tags: attorney retirement, financial planning, lawyer retirement, retired attorneys, retirement for attorneys, retirement planning