Spring Training with Your Coach
Clarify
Identify who you really are, what you truly want, what motivates you and inspires you, what your personal values are – not what they SHOULD be. Resist making
judgments about yourself and your values.
Values are the things that are most important to you: family, relationships, peer respect, money, success, social causes, and so on. Prioritize your concerns or values at each stage of life.
Imagine
Based upon your personal values, imagine the way you would choose to practice law: the type of work, for whom, to what purpose?
Plan
Write down your goals and your plan of action to achieve them. Feel free to amend it from time to time, as the world turns. Half the fun should arise from the process of living. Identify specific, small steps that can lead you to your goal. Schedule those steps.
Act
Accept change for the sake of moving forward on your plan. Think: What’s my next
step. Take those small steps; then take larger ones. Build in a mechanism for accountability: tell a friend of your plans, report progress to your coach, inform your mentor.
Address Resistance
Fight for your own best interests just as you fight for clients.
Internal resistances: fear, self-doubt, and inertia, what your mother taught you
Face fully the sources of internal resistance and explore them in depth. Surrender to them just long enough to decipher the true messages being sent: then respect your genuine, self-protective messages and reject the false incantations of your gremlins.
External resistances: colleagues, critics, family, systems
Defuse external resistance with kindness and a generous spirit toward others. Negotiate for workable compromises that allow you room to grow.
Visualize Benefits
Through the lens of your personal values and goals, develop a clear picture of where you want to go: what your future self, work and life will be. Draw a picture or make a list of benefits and keep these accessible: post the picture over your desk, carry the list in your wallet. Refer to it frequently to maintain your commitment to yourself in the face of resistance.
