“If you can take it, you can make it.
Over the recent holiday season I took the opportunity to go to a few movies with my family. Unbroken was one of the movies we saw. The quote cited above was the primary lesson shared in this movie about the former Olympic athlete and WW II concentration camp survivor Louis Zamperini. Without giving away the plot, I will say that his life story was a lesson in resilience!
Okay, I must admit that diverse lawyers working in a majority environment is not quite an enemy concentration camp, but some who brave the waters daily may feel their challenge in a similar manner. In fact, working in a demanding arena such as big law or in a large corporation can cause high stress for anyone, no less a minority of any kind. Therefore, the third element in this series outlining hurdles diverse lawyers face is resilience, also known as grit or tough mindedness. Resilience is needed in order to survive and thrive without completely losing your bearing. So… how resilient are you?
From my research and training, I can share some key areas of awareness important to building resilience. Check out the book The Resilience Factor, my source document for this article. Below is a quick start and executive summary. As always, you can also seek counsel from a mentor, coach or trusted advisor to support your growth. Bottom-line, resilience comes down to how you manage three things: Yourself, Others and Your Environment.
Self Management – Your ability to manage and control your reactions to circumstances and people is important to your resilience. We cannot always control circumstances that happen to us, but we can control our reaction to them. This is one measure of resilience.
Problem Solving – Your ability to accurately and thoroughly evaluate problems or their causes is a place where we all can get sidetracked. Some of us think we are responsible for everything and inappropriately beat ourselves up for mistakes. Others blame someone else all the time. Both extremes distort the situation and diminish our resilience.
Communication and Other-Awareness – Reading the cues that people around you provide help you understand how they are feeling or what they may be thinking. Your ability to understand your clients is critical to your effectiveness. Lawyers are trained professionals who help their clients be safe and secure. It is imperative to understand them in order to strategize and support their needs. In addition to this, we must also understand when to seek help, resources and support. The impact of missing communication or other-awareness is stress, misunderstandings, wasted time… you get it.
Optimism – A dose of realistic optimism keeps us all afloat when the going gets tough. Obviously over-optimistic thinking may cause you to make bad decisions, while pessimistic attitudes are blinded to opportunities for success. Find your most balanced place on this continuum.
Most of the lawyers I know are competitive by nature or certainly achievement oriented. This fuels you to get through law school and pass the bar. But, as a diverse lawyer seeking success in the profession, resilience is imperative. Although you can study it, resilience is not something that you read, memorize or analyze. Resilience requires your active and personal involvement. It’s most often an inside job. How are you doing with your resilience? What can you do differently next quarter?