Change Your Habits, Change Your Law Life
If your law practice is not quite where you want it to be, perhaps it’s time to take a look at your habits.
There’s a good chance some behaviors that no longer serve you well have become engrained in your personality. These patterns need to be recalibrated.
“Change your habits, change your life” is a mantra for wellness professionals. It’s also true.
Just ask James Clear, author of Atomic Habits and the popular 3-2-1 newsletter and an expert on behavior modification.
“I’ve been writing at JamesClear.com about habits, decision making, and continuous improvement since 2012,” he says on his website. “My writing focuses on topics like: How to start (and stick to) good habits, how to make good choices and avoid bad ones, how to accomplish more in less time, how to create better systems and processes, and how to achieve meaningful results without overwhelming yourself.”
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Four Steps to Changing Your Habits
“As legal professionals, we dedicate significant time and energy to improving our practice, our knowledge, our business” writes Raleigh lawyer Ashley Banks in this post for the NC Bar Blog. “But how much time do we devote to improving the way we care for ourselves? When is the last time you reviewed your self-care routine, implemented new self-care strategies, or set time aside for self-care planning?”
In her blogpost, Banks explains James Clear’s four-step process for habit change.
Step one: Make it obvious by incorporating cues into your daily routine. Example: changing into your workout clothes before leaving the office is a simple cue for exercising. Another technique is to “stack” habits by reminding yourself that after you do X, you will do Y.
Step two: Make it attractive so that you will want to keep doing it. If your new habit is joyless, you won’t stick with it. Keep it fun and interesting.
Step three: Make it easy by eliminating obstacles to change. Set conditions so that it is difficult or inconvenient to engage in the undesired behavior.
Step four: Make it satisfying. Use positive reinforcement and rewards to stay on the right path.
A final tip: keep a record of your habits.
“Habit tracking, in particular, works great to promote self-care habits because it acts as an obvious cue, motivates you not to break the streak, and feels so satisfying when you check off each box affirming you are one step closer to a better you,” writes Banks.
SOURCES: Making Attorney Self-Care an Atomic Habit – NCBarBlog
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