Healthy Boundaries: 5 tips to help lawyers (and other humans)

You're human; running at 110% is not sustainable. Exhaustion and burnout are serious problems in law. Setting boundaries is essential for lawyers to maintain a healthy balance in their lives. Yet succeeding in law practice can make this very challenging. Here’s 5 tips to help lawyers (and other humans) set and maintain boundaries.

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Madeleine Shaw
Step out of your comfort zone; avoid the panic zone

Quick: you have three minutes to prepare a song to perform in front of the group! Your comfort zone is comfortable… and essential. So is challenging it. But don’t make the mistake of thinking the panic zone is where you need to be. You can be confident outside your comfort zone – it’s all about balance.

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Madeleine Shaw
Play without Productivity

If play is so good for us, smart people would spend lots of time doing it… right? Recently I’ve been revisiting Life Lessons by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler. I was reminded how central playfulness is to our wellbeing, and how often and easily we seem to put it low down on our lists.

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Madeleine Shaw
Should you run from the “tiger”? Ask your truest voice

Humans are wired, for survival, to avoid threats and pain. And we’re wired to prioritise immediate threats over distant ones. Which makes sense. If it’s a choice between fleeing a fast approaching tiger, thereby leaving some food behind and being hungry later, or avoiding later hunger by hanging around for a nice meal as the tiger runs towards you… clearly, it’s an easy choice.

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Madeleine Shaw
Going slow to go fast

I’ve learned, now, that slowing down can sometimes actually get you further than going fast. And sometimes quick, profound change is what’s needed. The challenge is knowing when to use which approach.

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Madeleine Shaw
Phoning it in over the break

Having a framework can really help people make positive change in their lives and can be useful tools to have in the kit. I’m sharing with you a framework I’ve developed to guide me over the summer break.

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Madeleine Shaw
Mixed feelings about Hustle Culture

There are indeed moments of genuine connection and sparks of curiosity and insight on LinkedIn and other social media. Often, I am delighted to read about someone’s exciting news. I enjoy sharing things of value with people. But I rarely think to post pictures of me doing my job. Perhaps I should.

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Madeleine Shaw
Struggling harder looks like...

When we are working hard without having the impact we want, we can respond by struggling harder. Don’t beat yourself up over responding in the “wrong” way - that will only make it worse. Stop, think clearly, and gently, slowly ease out of the mud.

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Madeleine Shaw
The reverse job ad

Over the years I’ve been coaching, many clients have been facing decisions around making a career change. Often, they are struggling with the unknown and finding it difficult to decide what kind of role they are looking for.

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Madeleine Shaw
Being cruel to be kind

Lately I've been thinking about "being cruel to be kind". I'm against it. Why not just be kind? That might (will) mean making decisions other people don't like, but that's very different from treating people with contempt and indifference.

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Madeleine Shaw
Don’t manage change; manage uncertainty

Change management has historically been about helping people, teams and organisations get through a change. The big assumption is that there’s an “other side”, when the job is done and the change is complete. I hear a lot of people talking about getting through 2020, on the assumption that somehow in 2021 things will get back to “normal”. Maybe they will. I’m not counting on it.

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Madeleine Shaw
We can do retirement better

Traditionally, preparing for retirement has been all about finances, with the emotional, relational and psychological aspects left ignored. However, some organisations, particularly professional services firms, are now beginning to “actively prime outgoing partners for life after the firm” through coaching.

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Madeleine Shaw
What is toxic positivity, and how to cultivate healthy positivity instead

How could positivity be toxic? It sounds like an oxymoron. Humans do better when we experience roughly 3 positive emotions for every 1 negative one. Most of us have plenty of negative emotions without needing actively to seek them out. Yet we often do cultivate them. That’s toxic negativity… what about healthy positivity? Healthy, authentic positivity allows room for the inevitable negativity we will all experience from time to time.

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Madeleine Shaw
On gratitude and striving

Contentment comes from appreciating what I have, rather than focusing on what I don’t. Gratitude for what we have is powerfully good for us. But if that means not striving for new experiences, growth, development, achievement – and yes, material things - well, that’s a turn-off.

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Madeleine Shaw
Are you in an “ejector seat” role?

I recently spoke with three separate people in very different roles and organisations, but each having work issues with some similar themes. Each person is finding significant challenge in their role. They are working extremely hard. Each is very highly skilled but having difficulty making an impact. And each is increasingly unhappy about it.

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Madeleine Shaw