Stress doesn't really scare me. It is part and parcel of our lives. Why, might you ask, would anyone say that? Probably because in the second half of my work life, I have found the secrets to a relatively stress free career.
Article after article has been written about stress. It’s the same old, same old: manage your stress, have a plan, stay positive, visualize your last trip to Hawaii in the sun-soaked terrain, exercise daily and get regular hot rock massages. That, or have a glass of good merlot, get in the bathtub with lots of Evelyn & Crabtree and listen to old Doris Day songs. I don’t know where some of these authors get this stuff, except to say that they must live in Dreamland, somewhere east of here. Have they ever worked in a law firm?
I used to be the most stressed-out person I knew. I averaged 90 hour weeks in the legal field
as an executive in a $5 billion corporation, traveled three weeks out of four, answered to some big shots who thought they owned the planet, and managed hundreds of people. It wasn’t much different when I was a paralegal manager.
There were critical deadlines to meet, difficult attorneys to juggle, anxious clients to handle and something called a “minimum billable hours” requirement, now referred to as “suggested” hours in a more politically correct and less actionable environment.
I recently looked at a picture of myself during that era. I was holding my new-born niece, Cristina, a joy to behold and I looked like I just escaped from a train wreck and stopped by to say howdy.
Several years ago, California Lawyer magazine published an article by Richard Carlton, author of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” that cited: “Among members of the medical community, there is a growing acceptance that stress from long working hours, such as 70 hours a week or more, may contribute to the onset of clinical depression. A study of 10,000 adults by a team from Johns Hopkins University discovered that among all the occupational groups represented, attorneys had the highest prevalence of signs and symptoms of clinical depression.
In fact, the rate of depression among the attorneys studied was 3.6 times the norm for all occupations.” The article further stated that, “Psychologists observe that attorneys, who are trained to be impersonal and objective, often apply the same approach to their personal problems and are reluctant to focus on their inner emotional lives.”
Wow. Examining the state of mind of those around you in relation to why your atmosphere seems stressful is very revealing, indeed.
First, let’s debunk some myths about workplace stress.
Myth #1: Stress is normal for anyone working in the legal community. The stakes are high and when the stakes are high, so is the stress. Anything can go wrong at any time. Stress is even good for you because it pushes you to perform.
Some people think that if you’re not too busy, you’re not really crucial to the organization, particularly when you are rewarded for high billable hours. But stress does not mean you matter. It either means that something is wrong at work or that you’re not doing a good enough job of
matching your tasks to your time. Worse, it also means that you get less work done, because stressed people are less efficient, worse communicators and worse at making good decisions. To accept stress as a normal condition of work is bad for people and bad for business.
There are also certain delusions we create for ourselves. Declaring that you thrive under stress is a justification for procrastination. Sure, there are people who can’t figure out how to deliver anything until the last minute. But this is a crisis in confidence (fear of starting for fear of failing) as opposed to stunning brilliance unlocked by stress.
Myth #2: Stress is caused by working too much. But then, why do some people work 80 hours a week and feel great, while some people work 30 hours and get seriously stressed? Here’s why: stress has nothing to do with the number of hours you work, and everything to do with how you feel during those hours. If you work 100 hours a week feeling great, having fun and
taking pride in what you do, you won’t be stressed. If you work 30 hours a week feeling inadequate, bullied or unappreciated you will be stressed. Stress at the workplace does not always cause unhappiness. Your workplace happiness hinges more on whether or not you like your work than on whether or not your work is stressful, according to Alan Krueger, professor at Princeton University.
Myth #3: Stress is cured by working fewer hours. Most workplaces react to
stress by reducing employees’ workloads, responsibilities or working hours and in serious cases by giving people long sick leaves. According to Danish medical researcher Bo Netterstrom who has studied workplace stress for 30 years, this is a mistake.
Netterstrom claims people hit by stress need to increase their confidence at work. While
time off can be necessary to treat the immediate symptoms of stress, a long absence from the workplace does exactly the opposite. When people return, they’re even more vulnerable. Worse, some never return to work at all. Reducing work or leaving work temporarily doesn’t fix any underlying problems. When employees return to work or to “normal” work conditions, nothing has changed and the stress returns quickly.
Myth #4: Stress is cured by working more. Falling behind at work from time- to-time is a
given in this 24/7, Internet accessed, Blackburied work world. Believing that if you work really hard for a while you’ll catch up and then stress will go away is a fairy tale. It won’t “just go away” for two reasons:
1. Workplace stress does not come from falling behind at work. It comes from how you feel about falling behind.
2. In most law firm environments, people will always be behind. There is simply too much work. Finishing all your assignments basically means getting more work along with the
career enhancing opportunity to push your billable hours even higher.
A temporary push to reduce a pile of work or meet a deadline is fine. But all too often
that temporary push becomes the new standard. So the solution to stress is not to work harder to catch up because in most law firms, this is impossible. The solution is to feel good about the work you finish and not to get stressed about the work you don’t finish. It’s not that you should stop caring or not look for a solution. It’s that you should avoid a vicious circle: being stressed makes you less productive which means you get less work done and become more stressed.
Myth #5: Stress is cured by focusing on stress. There’s a lot of the literature and training about workplace stress and the typical content is:
- What is stress
- Symptoms of stress
- Health implications of stress
- How to fight stress
This is often presented by stress consultants who privately garner their own list of stressors. At this point, I have one big ho-hum for all of that. Focusing on stress is not the way to remove it – it’s a great way to create more stress. A better strategy is to focus on what gives you peace and energy.
The Truth About Stress
Work does not give you stress. Feeling bad about work gives you stress. This means that changing your work hours, responsibilities, priorities or work environment is meaningless, unless it also changes the way you feel at work. Those stress management courses will not do the trick either, unless they can achieve just that.
Most common sources of stress for legal professionals undefined deadlines, lack of control over time, difficult clients, escalating intensity, no margin for error – are outside of a paralegal’s personal control. What truly determines how much stress these circumstances cause paralegals is the degree to which these “givens” are perceived or interpreted as threatening. Any perceived threat – real or not – triggers our body’s “fight-or-flight response.” Over time, it is possible to modify how your body reacts by paying attention to how you perceive situations as threatening.
Ask yourself whether an issue really justifies your current reaction to it – or, whether or not it will matter at all a month later. Practiced regularly, you can keep matters in perspective so that stress is relative to the importance of the situation.
What Do I Do Now?
Given that I have knocked a number of standard stress articles, I do have a few suggestions that personally helped change my life around. Everyone can find a way out of stress and some may wish to seek professional counseling. Let me share a few things that I found helpful:
1. You can’t change things if you don’t acknowledge them. Ok, so I’m quoting a TV psychologist. But he hit it right on. When it was first brought to my attention that I was stressed out, I was in total denial. Because I was fearful of being accused of failing and I wanted to do a great job, I denied I was stressed-out. To me, it was a sign that I couldn’t deal with the job. What I really needed to change was my responses. Acknowledge what is. Without that acknowledgement, you cannot take action.
2. Learn to really laugh.
How long has it been since you laughed out loud, long and hard? I mean a good belly-laugh. If you’re stressed-out, it’s probably been awhile. Laughter releases endorphins, natural pain-killers. It boosts immune function by raising levels of infection-fighting T-cells, disease-fighting proteins called Gamma-interferon and disease-destroying antibodies called B-cells. In short, it’s great medicine.
3. Make a friend at work. When you have someone you can confide in, someone with whom you feel secure, trust, can share the ups-and-downs of the workplace, you feel better. The environment somehow doesn’t seem all that bad.
4. Make a decision. The only way to transform your life is to make a decision to change and honour that decision. Decide how you want to live your life and then set about with
complete certainty to create it. The most critical time in my career came when I decided that I wanted to create the environment that was right for me. I no longer wanted a fancy office in a Class A building in the middle of a prestigious district. I wanted to own my own business, work from home and call my own shots. I haven’t looked back. And, I’m one happy camper.
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