Lost in Wales

My family and I went to Wales for a few days during the Easter holidays. My husband Ben had rented a flat with the most beautiful views of the bay at Barmouth – check it out!

Things had been full-on since January: heavy case load at work, starting a new business, running a house, looking after two kids and getting ill. I was so tired. I was with my favourite people and we were lucky enough to have this gorgeous view and a new place to explore. And yet I felt a bit lost.

In my diary, I saw an entry I had scheduled back in January: “90-day review of gains.” I sighed. “Surely there aren’t any? I’m way too tired. No.” Then I had a stern word with myself and got on with it. I listed all the “gains” I had made over the first 3 months of the year. All the progress I had made, all the things that had gone well, all my achievements.

Since January, I had, amongst other things:

• Launched a website despite having zero IT knowledge

• Had a go at writing my first ever blog

• Started a LinkedIn group for female lawyers

• Settled a difficult case that had been rumbling on for over a year

• Successfully applied for probate for a family member

• Achieved my personal billings target in my legal business

I sat up straight. Pity party over. The cloud over my head lifted, and my grumpiness was gone. I was so proud of myself. I told myself to keep going. Then we all went out for the day.

It is an unfortunate truth that a room full of successful people is not the same thing as a room full of happy people. We strive to reach our goals and are often good at achieving them, but this does not necessarily make us happy.

It has been said that the “pursuit” of happiness is an unfortunate phrase; in pursuing happiness, it will be forever out of our reach, meaning we will never have it. Surely this can’t be right?

The same principle applies to our goals. Many of us have lofty goals which stretch ahead on the distant horizon. If we squint and stand on a chair we can just about see them but they’re hazy. We’ve always been taught to try hard at school, college, university, job applications, promotion applications… keep working towards your goals and you will get there. But will we?

The way around this is to look around and see where you are now. Not tomorrow, or next year. Now. And (this is the really important bit) - measure backwards from where you started from. If you are forever measuring yourself against the goals on your distant horizon, they won’t necessarily move any closer. In fact, they may even move further away, as you adjust your goals to fit your improved circumstances. But, if you begin to measure yourself from your starting point, you will have a new appreciation of all that you have achieved. And your list of achievements will start to amass like gold coins in a treasure chest. You can open this treasure chest whenever you like, to remind yourself of how far you’ve come since you started out.

In their book, The Gap and the Gain, Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy prescribe the effective antidote to the high achiever’s conundrum.

Dan Sullivan, a highly successful entrepreneur coach, describes how when addressing a room filled with high achieving successful people, very few are happy with their lives.

We all have an “ideal”, a moving target that is always out of reach, which means that we condemn ourselves to living “in the gap” as opposed to living “in the gain”. As lawyers we are perhaps guilty of this more than most. We start out with the aim of getting top grades in education and are then forever competing with ourselves and others for the opportunities that follow. If instead you take stock of all your accomplishments, you may be surprised at all that you’ve achieved. You may not have been properly able to appreciate your progress before because you’ve always been measuring yourself against those distant goals on the horizon. Instead, measure yourself against your former self.

Did you start not knowing how to write a professional letter but can now rattle one off with ease? Did you previously struggle to speak up in a team meeting but can now make a meaningful contribution? Did you start as a high school leaver without knowing if you could ever get a job and are now a qualified solicitor? Did you begin with not knowing how to speak to clients but can now speak with authority? You’ve added those very real achievements to your treasure chest and should look at them often as a reminder of how far you’ve come.

This is a really important concept. In measuring yourself not against the “gap” (your distance from where you ultimately want to be) but instead against the “gain” (your progress from your initial starting point) you will be reminded you of how far you’ve come. This simple mindset shift will help you to enjoy your success now, rather than constantly feeling as though you are not good enough. Sullivan and Hardy recommend a quick daily tally at the end of each day as well as a thorough stock check every 90 days, so you properly take account of the progress you are making. Make sure you diarise the 90-day review; otherwise, you won’t do it! Write it down in a beautiful notebook, so you can read it whenever you’re feeling a bit low.

Try it, and see how this changes how you think about yourself and your career. And then let me know what you think. My 90-day review sure perked me up in Barmouth and reminded me to be grateful for where I am now.

Have a great week.

- Rachel

P.S. Quite a few of you have replied to say you’re up for a meetup. Amazing! I’ll arrange a zoom chat and send out the details in the LinkedIn group.