The main reason why you are not leaving law behind right now

You simply have not made it a priority.

When I ask an attorney what his or her priorities are, he or she will inevitably say family, friends, happiness, peace, health, and stimulating career.

But when you look at what attorneys spend most of their day doing, it becomes clear that their job is their priority.  This is true because what we spend our time on is the best reflection of what we prioritize.  While family, friends, happiness, peace, health and stimulating career may be important, the job is where a lawyer spends most of the work day (and weekend).

But oftentimes this job is one we don’t especially like.  A job many of us attorneys feel doesn’t provide much of a future.  So when we drill down further, we see that this actually doesn’t mean that the job itself is our priority.  Rather, it most often means the paycheck the job provides is the priority; the cash and the security it affords are a lawyer’s priorities.

That is understandable.  Bills need to be paid.  Children need to be raised. No one wants to live in a box.

But many of us also are beginning to realize that we do not want to live an unhappy, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unexciting, unhappy (albeit potentially financially secure) life.

The goal is not to create more time. We know how difficult (or impossible) that can be.  Rather, we need to flip the equation on its head and instead expand our pool of priorities.  We must make happiness a priority.  We must make self-worth a priority.  We must make finding our Unique Genius a priority.  It must click for you, you must convince yourself, you must have that aha moment, you must turn the corner, you must do something, where you finally realize that investing in yourself and working hard to leave the law is not mutually exclusive with achieving financial security.

And a priority creates motivation which in turn carves out the required time.

It’s of course easier to say than to do.  But to leave the law behind, it’s necessary.  Otherwise, you’ll just have one priority.  And we already know what that is.