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Balancing the Scales of Life
by Virginia Macali, Certified Integral Coach
"What's important is finding out what works for you." Henry Moore
The legal profession is one that focuses on efficiency, working smarter, faster, and longer. Deadlines, billable hours and competing commitments are everyday pressures. While attorneys negotiate this world of complexity with a high degree of success, research shows significant levels of dissatisfaction within the profession. In the midst of success, many lawyers have the sense that something is out of balance. Even the most successful lawyers often ask, "Is this all there is?"
Steven Keeva, senior editor of the ABA Journal, addresses these concerns in Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life. In this book, he presents a challenge:
Have you noticed what happens when you give significantly more time, attention and energy to one area of life than to others?
You may justify that your success in work makes up for your lack of time, attention and energy to other areas of life. The imbalance can lead to feeling less effective or satisfied in several parts of your life. Relationships, other interests, and health may be compromised.
Keeva's Signs of Imbalance
- Working too much
- Spending most waking hours in intellectual pursuits
- Neglecting the body and ignoring the importance of physical well-being
- Having rapid mood swings
- Making play into work by taking leisure activities too seriously or becoming over-competitive
- Neglecting family and friends
- Failing to take time for quiet reflection
Keeva's Signs of Balance
- You have a sense of diversity in your life. You have a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
- You articulate what matters to you and what guides you. You live in alignment with this at work and at home.
- Your see your work serving your values, passions, and sense of purpose in life.
- You are aware of your emotions and responses and take responsibility for them.
Balance is a Practice
"Achieving balance is a practice," writes Keeva. He goes on to say, "It's a challenge and a necessity. When you are out of balance-that is, when you give significantly more attention to one part of yourself than others-you feel it….Practicing balance, like practicing law, is an ongoing affair. You don't just get it, close the file, and move on to other things. You keep practicing. You get better, wiser, more sensitive to nuance." As stated in The Life We Are Given by George Leonard and Michael Murphy, "Any significant long-term change requires long-term practice, whether that change has to do with learning to play the violin or learning to be a more open, loving person." Athletes practice repeatedly to achieve greater effectiveness and precision. Like star athletes, lawyers can practice, improve and excel.
Keeva presents numerous suggestions to help lawyers move toward balance:
- Spend some time thinking about what parts of yourself you're neglecting. Your body? Your spiritual side? Your need for friendship, love or intimacy? Your need for connection with your past and your life story?
- Take ten minutes each morning to think about the big picture. Readings from books on spirituality can be helpful.
- Map out a balanced day, with time allotted for your financial, physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
- Allow yourself to do nothing for five minutes at least once a day.
- Ask yourself a simple question: How could I spend my days in a way that would make me feel excited about waking up in the morning?
- For one week, keep a diary of your time. Notice how much time you devote to each aspect of your life. Then ask yourself if you'd find any adjustments to your time allocation advisable. Are you investing your time in those people, places, and things that you treasure most deeply?
Recently, a lawyer named Joe sought out my services as a professional coach to help him explore the question, "What's missing?" During our initial conversation, Joe described several of the signs of imbalance listed above. He worked too much and spent most of the time at work and at home on intellectual pursuits. In the midst of all of this, as he browsed the bookstore on Friday nights looking for the next great read, he felt empty inside. He realized that all the mental stimulation was not satisfying to him.
As an experiment, Joe took on several practices. He began walking every night after work and went on a reading fast for three weeks. What he found was open time and space to consider the larger picture of his life. Joe started to keep track of how he spent his time every day. He found gaps in the areas of friendship and leisure. Joe started scheduling lunch every Friday with friends he'd lost touch with over the last few years. He always wanted to learn to fly airplanes, but had postponed that to some day in the future. After realizing there was no good reason to postpone this dream any longer, he signed up for the flying lessons. After a few months of taking on the new practices in the areas of fitness, friendship and leisure, Joe looks healthier and happier. He is enjoying his work more than ever. He says that becoming more balanced has helped him to see the bigger picture of his life and live with more freedom, energy and fun.
What are the signs of your life: long hours of work that result in neglect of family, friends, and your own well-being or a richly diverse life where work and home are aligned with what you most value?
Archival Feature:
The Practice of Suspension
Monthly Practice
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