Fear is something most of us do not embrace. We do not like the discomfort it engenders. We try to avoid fear. At all costs in some cases.
However, is that the right approach? Is it most likely to lead to the best result?
When I read an article in a recent edition of my bar publication, Washington Lawyer, I asked myself those questions. Fortunately the article helped me find the answers.
The premise of the article was that, because fear and lawyering are intertwined, the sooner we confront our fears and develop coping mechanisms, the better off we are as lawyers. You have to admit that sounds logical.
But it turns out that fear is not all about logic. Fear also is emotional and many times very illogical.
The author, a volunteer in the DC Bar’s Practice Management Advisory Service and Lawyer Assistance Program, has counseled many lawyers over many years. He unequivocally believes that those lawyers who are aware of fear and are not paralyzed by it have the greatest success and satisfaction. So, there is a real benefit to becoming comfortable with fear.
The key, according to the author, is to turn fear into an ally. To do that, you must reject the logical, which tells you not to fear but provides no way out, and embrace the emotional, which leads you to investigate the fear and offers a solution. In other words, you need to get in touch with your emotional intelligence, something that an ABA study demonstrates most lawyers lack to their detriment.
The investigation of a fear involves asking yourself the following questions: What is going on around me to make me fearful? What is my fear trying to tell me? What can I do about the situation causing the fear? And how will my actions affect me and others in my surroundings?
This process requires you to become proactive and get out of your comfort zone of avoidance. Most of you know what your comfort zone is, that it can become constraining, and it can foster fear. So it also can be a dangerous place.
Here’s how it works in one example that may hit home with you. Currently, law employers are insisting that lawyers return to the office in what is now a post pandemic world. But many lawyers are resisting. Giving up the comfort zone of practicing law on the sofa in sweats and returning to the harsh reality of a sterile office environment and a cold break room, not to mention the bothersome commute, can be fear inducing. But when the fear is faced and subjected to the questions suggested above and evaluated objectively, the quandary of returning to the office or not resolves itself easily and naturally.
The nature of the fear and what it is telling you is quite obvious. What to do about the fear and how your actions may affect you and your surroundings are the nagging issues. Putting it to those tests should lead you to the conclusion that refusing to return to the office could cause you to lose your job. And this time and place in history is not a good one for finding new employment. The inquiry process also will remind you that it is the team players who typically advance in the profession. Presumably you want to be one of those who advance.
So, it is really quite simple. Face your fears. Come out of your comfort zone. And help yourself become a satisfied and successful lawyer. Because there will be many other fears on your path to success, and you want to become very adept at facing them. There will be the first deposition, the first trial, the fear of losing a client, the big deal that is in danger of being lost, and the list goes on and on.
Getting started early in becoming comfortable your fears and dealing with them is a very good idea.
