Secret #4 Eating Apples Requires Attention
Nothing happens instantly, in legal careers or in life. When we described the 10 Secrets of Extraordinary Legal Careers based on our interviews and experience with thousands of lawyers, one of the most significant secrets they shared was Secret #4 Eating apples requires attention. We shouldn’t eat an apple just to be finished with it, but to enjoy the experience. Nor should we practice law just to get to the end. Ours is a noble calling, work that not everyone is suited to perform. There are many joys to practicing law and our job, in part, is to appreciate them.
Legal careers are meant to last a lifetime. We begin in our 20s and can practice six or more decades. We don’t travel in a straight line from LSAT prep to grave. Life simply doesn’t work that way. Detours are a normal part of lawyer development.
The happiest lawyers are the ones who learn to enjoy their careers and their lives, not in retrospect or with aged perspective, but as they are happening.
Have you mastered this vital skill yet? Are you learning from your coaches and mentors?
At the end of each work day, do you stop to appreciate all you’ve accomplished, or are you so focused on what is left to be completed that you fail to acknowledge your own contributions? If not now, when will you do so? There’s no time like the present to begin to appreciate the extraordinary career you already have.
