The Importance of Self-Awareness and Intentionality in Combating Exhaustion

I’m Melissa Shanahan, and this is The Law Firm Owner Podcast Episode #285.

Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast, powered by Velocity Work, for owners who want to grow a firm that gives them the life they want. Get crystal clear on where you're going, take planning seriously, and honor your plan like a pro. This is the work that creates Velocity.

Hey, everyone, welcome to this week's episode.

As we are about to hit the holidays, and hit a bit more space than typically we might have from the day-to-day grind. Oftentimes, at this point in the year we are exhausted. And the more I work with clients, the longer an opportunity I have to work with a client, they don't feel the same level of exhaustion every year because we're really doing the work that matters, that helps everything stay more steady than sprinting all the time. 

It helps people stay proactive instead of reactive. And that alone, especially compounded over time, prevents exhaustion in the ways that maybe you've experienced it prior. I am familiar with exhaustion as a business owner, as a mom, as a spouse; the roles that we play in our lives. You all know what I'm talking about. We all have periods of exhaustion. That's normal, and we're never going to escape them entirely. 

And so what I want to do in this episode, is break down or have a bit of a framework for you to think about exhaustion. What type of exhaustion are you experiencing? And what is the remedy for that? 

There are different types of exhaustion, and if we match the wrong remedy with the type of exhaustion that we have, we're not really doing ourselves any favors. And any remedy we put into place is meant to help. But I am going to give you a way to think about things here that will hopefully tee you up for using the space that you have over the holidays.

Even though I know that there's a level of hecticness that goes up, the workload or the hours that you are spending on work tends to decrease for most people. And certainly exceptions to this are those of you who are transactional attorneys, where you have deals that need to be closed up by the end of the year and so there's a big push on a lot of levels for that. 

I'm sure there's some other practice areas that also line up similarly where the work ramps. But most of you, for most of you, that's not true. Most of you do take a little space, even if it's not as much as you want, you take some space over the holidays.

And even for those of you who feel like you can't, because of the example I was using earlier, there are deals closing, you have got to get the work done. Even you, I want you to think through how you can apply this for yourself in your own world. 

Okay, there are two types of harmful exhaustion that we're going to talk about. And then there is a beneficial exhaustion that I want to reference just so that we're all on the same page. Because not all exhaustion is terrible. But there are some that are pretty detrimental. 

The first is physical exhaustion. When I say “physical”, I'm thinking of the nervous system. Your nervous system is burnt. This is the exhaustion that stems from prolonged stress, or just overextension of your physiological systems. And this really manifests as a taxed nervous system, where even rest itself feels inadequate. Think of this as just running hot, hypervigilant. 

And if you have a moment of hypervigilance, or a day, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way that your nervous system is running. Some signs that this is what you're dealing with is constant fatigue. You have a heightened sensitivity to stress. I'll say more about that in a minute. An inability to relax, and so the heightened sensitivity to stress.

The note that I have in my outline next to that is that you can't quite handle stress the same way that you know that you're capable of. You notice that things that happen, normally, you would be able to compartmentalize and contain it and not let it really crush you. And for some reason, it is taking a toll on you. So you're unable to handle stress in the ways that you know that typically you are able to handle stress.

The inability to relax, that is all about what is going on in your mind. There is a certain amount of tenseness that you experience in your body, typically. Your gears are going. And I can always tell when I'm working with someone if they are in this state, because they can't stay focused. Their brain is hanging on to so many things. 

I will say that, in my experience with myself and thinking about this stuff, and studying this stuff, and then working with clients and observing so many clients move through business ownership, and the stress that comes with that, being a lawyer and being an owner, this very thing is why Monday Map / Friday Wrap was developed for myself when I was back working at a consulting firm, well before I started Velocity Work. 

That was a system that I put into place. It has since changed quite a bit. But the origination of that system being put into place and finding a groove with it was because I was hanging on to so many things. So much of my success depended on me following through on what would look like a wholly unreasonable amount of things to do, to get done, results to create, and things to remember. 

And on top of all that, a workload that didn't fit, wasn't going to work in the number of hours that I wanted to work. So there's too much work, which means it bleeds over into your life. Y'all know what that's like. We all do, right? And then there's this other side of just trying to keep it all together.

This weight of the workload, the weight of it, plus just trying to keep it all together, all the details, nothing falling through the cracks, required that there was a system that was put into place in order to prevent me from experiencing nervous system burnout. 

And so the truth is, Monday Map / Friday Wrap is not some rocket science, that you're not going to find any of those principles anywhere else. No, these principles are out there. I mean, shoot, anybody that is teaching anything to do with productivity, it is centered around principles. There are some fundamental things that if you want to be productive, you're going to have to do. 

And so you will find those things inside of Monday Map / Friday Wrap, just as you will find them inside of the getting things done system or whoever else's system is out there. It's not about this new information that's going to change your life. It's about getting back to the basics, and having a system to rely on to do that so that your brain can calm down, that everything is accounted for. That makes a huge difference in nervous system burnout.

It doesn't mean it fixes everything. It doesn't solve every problem as it pertains to productivity and stress and workload and all of that. But you cannot, at the level you all are working at, you cannot not have a system in place because you will burn out. Your nervous system will be shot if it isn't already. And real space is needed for recovery from that. 

This makes me think of, there's a private client that we still have that started with us right after COVID. And in his consult call, which was June of 2020-ish, I remember him saying… I was asking about his goals and his vision and what he would love to get out of this working relationship, etc.

And he said, "Here's what I care about. That I never have to go back to the way things were before COVID.” That really struck me, and I still think about it to this day consistently. I think I just brought it up with him recently. 

But here's why: COVID gave the kind of reprieve, though it came with its own stress. It did do that, but it gave us space in a way that we were never, ever going to get on our own if the world had just kept on keeping on. The break that it offered allowed so many nervous systems out in the world to heal. 

It doesn't mean that it wasn't with its own set of traumas, with COVID, that's not what I'm talking about. But I'm talking about as it relates to work, your relationship to work, and your relationship to handling the stress of the day to day, the rush of the day to day. When that all comes to a halt, the stimulation on your nervous system comes to a halt, which by the way, is disorienting for many people who are just used to running this hot, used to running this way, that can be very disorienting. 

But eventually, eventually, your nervous system gets to calm down, and gets to calm down, from COVID, for many, many, many, many people. And this client was no different than that. He was sharing, “Wow, I feel a way that I want to keep feeling as I move forward. I'm still willing to work. I still have goals. I still want to make money. I still have a vision. But I never want to go back to feeling that way.”

And I know what he was referring to was the stress level on his body and the pace that was being kept. He basically had experienced, for the first time maybe ever in his entire life, where that was plucked from his experience. Yet he still has a law firm and he gets to choose how he moves forward. Now there is stress that comes with that, but is an entirely different kind of stress. 

So this physical exhaustion, this nervous system level exhaustion, running hard, burning the candle at both ends, just trying to keep it all together kind of exhaustion needs to be recognized so that it can be dealt with in a way that allows you to recoup, rejuvenate, and get back to a baseline that is sustainable. 

Another way to think about this is, it's the kind of weariness that feels like your body has been running a race that you didn't sign up for. You can feel your heart rate is elevated slightly. So many of you now, and myself, we have wearables that will tell us this data; looking at it so that we are understanding the reality of what is going on. So your resting heart rate may be elevated, your mind is spinning, and every ounce of you craves calm but you struggle to find it. 

I think that's an interesting way to think about this, it’s what we crave. And with physical nervous system level exhaustion, calm and peace is typically what is craved in those scenarios. 

All right, let's go to the second kind of harmful exhaustion, which is mental or cognitive depletion. This form of exhaustion is what you'll notice when there's overexertion of your mind or your mental capacity. This is often due, and this happens a lot to business owners. It has a lot to do with constant decision making, problem solving, or emotional labor, like you are picking up someone else's emotional work. 

And as lawyers, this is sometimes a part of the gig. So not only do you have it from the lawyer aspect, but you also have it from the ownership aspect in running your own business and running your own law firm. So when you feel like your brain has just reached its capacity, then you will start to feel foggy, sluggish. Unable to function in the ways that you know your brain is capable of. You're just not as sharp as your normal, what you know your normal is. 

It's almost like carrying a mental weight so heavy that even the simplest thought feels heavy to lift, to navigate, to think through. It's not your body that's tired, but your capacity to think and to feel, that is what's utterly drained. 

Some signs or signals that this is really what you're dealing with is when things start slipping through the cracks. And not because there should have been a task created for it, and because it wasn't created, it slipped through the cracks. Maybe that's the case. But more just the way that you think you weren't ahead of the game.

You weren't thinking in a way that prevented something from falling through the cracks. There's a sense of coordination overload. 

Also excessive multitasking. If you are multitasking constantly, it means a ton of context switching on your brain, which is difficult for the brain. It's a heavy lift. It may not feel heavy to you at the moment, but it uses a lot of energy. So if you are used to “multitasking,” which no one is good at, then you're going to feel a bit of this if that's normally just how you roll. 

And then also, constant decision making. I know all of you know what it's like to come home after a long day where you have made a bunch of decisions all day, every day. That's part of the job as an owner, is to make decisions and move forward. Make decisions and help people execute. Make decisions. You have to make a lot of decisions. 

Sometimes, when you come home the last thing you want to do is make another decision. So this is where a loved one asks you, “Where do you want to eat? What do you want for dinner?” It's like, “I don't know. I just want someone to tell me what I'm eating.” It's that kind of depletion cognitively that doesn't give you any room for anything else. You are cooked, totally cooked.

So we talked about two kinds of harmful exhaustion, physical/nervous system exhaustion, and then mental or cognitive depletion, that level of exhaustion. There are methods to tackle each of these, but you have to have an awareness of exactly what you're dealing with.

Because if you put the wrong solution with the type of burnout that you have, it's not really going to do anything. It might feel nice, but it's not going to help you recover. So it's good to figure out which one you are dealing with. And then, then you can figure out which methods of recovery are going to matter the most for you to get you back into your normal baseline more quickly.

And one more thing I should say about these two types of harmful exhaustion. You can have both. Both can be true for you. If you're listening and you're thinking, “Well, both of those sound like what I'm dealing with,” that doesn't surprise me. But still, having an awareness of each and being able to segment them can be useful.

Before I share some of what I have to share with you for rejuvenation and recovery, in terms of ideas, just please know these are ideas. This is not advice. I do not think that you need to put yourself on to do some protocol with everything I mentioned here. I can't know what's best for you. You know what's best for you. You make your own decisions. You talk to your doctor, to your therapist, to your coaches, those closest to you. You do your own research to figure out what protocol makes sense.

But I do suggest that you create a protocol for yourself. And by doing that, it's almost like you're creating a schedule for yourself on how to make sure that you're taking care of you in a way that's going to get you back to more of an equilibrium. 

Alright, so here's some ideas. Some things to continue to do research on to figure out what you want to implement for the nervous system exhaustion. So if you identify with that, you have to think about you're running hot. The pendulum is swung one way, towards one of the spectrums where you are just running hot. 

You have to think of how you can place yourself in situations where the pendulum is at the other end of the spectrum, it is swung entirely the other way, and you need to spend time on that end of the spectrum. So when we think about the kinds of activities that might be on the other end of the spectrum, it is things that are calming.

It is the things that provide rest, peace, a sense of calm. Any stimulation that promotes that sense of calm instead of stimulation that promotes the running hot. Things that I came up with, that I'm going to share here just to get your gears turning: 

Going for walks. Just out for a walk. Not for the sake of getting a bunch of exercise, that's not what I'm talking about. A walk with the intention of calming down. Listening to nature or the sounds. Tuning into the sights, like a mindful kind of walk. Those could be very rejuvenating.

Warm baths, maybe with Epsom salt. Some of the practitioners I've seen this year have recommended that for me. I've never really been a person who takes many baths. But it has been helpful over time, just consistently over time. This is not something novel to the world and wellness, but it is something that's made a difference for me in my world. So I'm sharing it here as an idea.

Stretching and/or restorative yoga. Again, I am not a yogi. I've taken yoga classes, but I have never, ever really been into yoga. But I will say that restorative yoga classes are not like typical yoga where you’re active, where you're moving. It is holds with stretches.

And then on a more practical level, unstructured downtime. I am a big believer in that, no matter what. But especially when you're feeling like your nervous system is burnt and taxed, giving yourself some space to do whatever you feel like doing. Giving yourself downtime, without a schedule that you need to stick to. Or something that's supposed to be enjoyable that you're going to plug in. 

You can put those things in your calendar. But you also need to just put space in your calendar where you don't have to do anything or be anywhere. You can do whatever you feel like doing. And if that means you sit on the couch and veg out, that's great. If it means you read a book that you've been wanting to read but you never make time for, maybe you dig into that. Because you have some unstructured downtime that you get to choose what to do.

Again, think about doing activities that are the opposite. You're spending time in the opposite end of the spectrum from the way that the pendulum has been swung mostly lately. And unstructured downtime would be the opposite. Because normally there's a ton of structure and you're go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. So how can you spend time on the other end of the spectrum? 

And the more time that you spend to balance out, the closer and closer you'll get to equilibrium. If you are truly burnt out, you need to recognize that you're going to need more space than you probably want to give. It takes some discipline to give yourself the space to do the things that I'm sharing right now. I know you all can identify with that. 

Sure, it sounds lovely. It sounds like, “Man, I wish I could go for walks. I wish I could spend more time in nature. I wish I actually made time for an Epsom salt bath every night, or stretched, or had more unstructured downtime.” Or-or-or… You fill in the blanks for what matters to you.

You wish that you could spend more time on the other end of the spectrum than you normally do, but if you really had free reign to do it, there is a neurotic part of you that kicks in, that is so used to running hot, that it is very difficult to actually spend time on this other end of the spectrum where you give yourself some reprieve. 

So some of this is discipline. And if this does sound hard to you, then you do need to schedule stuff. You do need to plan out and put in, “Okay, I'm going to do acupuncture and I'm going to set an appointment for it here, here, and here. I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to go for a walk, and here's when I'm going to do it. And I'm going to ask a friend to come.”

You have to plan for these things because your default is to run hot. So if you want to be able to balance out, so that you can hit more of a middle ground in terms of the activation of your nervous system, you are going to have to take the reins.

If it was innate to you, you would just do these things. But I doubt anyone listening, and I include myself in this, it's not innate to just relax and do all these things that are very good for us so that we can make sure we're balancing out against the way that we typically run. It's going to take some intentionality and some planning in order to make this useful for yourself. 

Okay, let's go to some solutions or things you can do for when you are mentally or cognitively depleted. Now remember, when you feel depleted in the ways that we talked about earlier, mentally and cognitively … so many decisions that you're making … and you just you're spent mentally. You have been darting around multitasking, handling a lot mentally or cognitively, and so it's left you a little foggy, a little slow, a little less sharp than normal, this can be a chronic state that someone lives in. 

It's tough because you start to just have your own version of normal with these states of being. So if they're sneaky, you don't even necessarily know that you are not feeling at your best mentally. Or from a nervous system perspective, if we're going back to the first example. But you wake up in the mornings and you're just not as sharp from the get-go as you once were. 

And then, sure as the day goes on, you get depleted and so you really notice it at the end of the day. But when it starts stacking, when you get a little less sharp day to day, starting out your mornings, then it’s sneaky and you just become a person who's a little less sharp than they used to be, generally speaking. 

So sometimes our brains just need to be reset, they need some space. And this one, I think is easier to overcome than the nervous system one. I'm speaking from my own experience here and from working with clients who have experienced burnout at different levels. I am not an expert. Again, I don't want to act like some doctor here.

But these are important things to think through as an owner. You have to take care of yourself. And as we enter the holidays, it can be a nice time to evaluate and figure out how you're going to give yourself what you need over any breaks that you get over the holiday season. 

So again, here, think about how to spend time on the opposite end of the spectrum that you normally do cognitively. And we talked about how it's a lot of decision making, a lot of dartiness, a lot of multitasking, a lot of context switching. Like your brain is back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. 

In order for rejuvenation to happen, you have to spend time where your mind doesn't go back and forth. For some people, this is meditation. A lot of people I know have a hard time with meditation. A fair amount of people I know love meditation. But meditation is definitely the end of the spectrum that you want to spend more time on.

I have found, over time and talking to many clients, you can engage in activities that have a meditative quality. Something that lets you get into a flow state. There is an author named Steven Kotler and he has written a lot about flow states and how to achieve them and the benefits of them. I always like seeing his stuff. 

I usually get his newsletter just to see what he has to say, because I think this is such a healthy place for our brains to be, is in a flow state, more of the time than we do spend, on average, in a flow state. This could be cooking. It could be baking. It could be doing art of some kind, drawing, painting. It could be cleaning. It could be gardening or yard work.

Something that's repetitive, that really lets your brain get into a hum. That lets your brain get into a flow where the actions are being taken and your brain doesn't have to think hard about the actions being taken. 

Now, for me, this is not cooking or baking. I don't mind cooking or baking, but it feels like work for me to do that if I'm going to follow a recipe. I guess if I'm not following a recipe, then it feels way better, right? I could just kind of flow and do what I want to do if I'm whipping something up. 

I have a client that loves baking. That is recipe heavy, she follows recipes. It is her happy place. It is where she relaxes her brain; it's in the kitchen, and it's baking. I think that's amazing. So to each their own. 

But you really have to think about what would feel free for your brain, and not taxing on your brain. I mentioned cleaning, but also organizing. Some people like to open up a messy drawer, and it feels like a sense of a state of flow to people to organize that drawer. That's not necessarily me either. But I know that that is true for a lot of people so I'm mentioning it here.

Immersing yourself in hobbies purely for enjoyment. One of my best friends, who is a wildly successful business owner herself, she relaxes by playing games. She plays backgammon with her husband. Every morning they have coffee and play backgammon, and then she gets going on her day. 

There's something about it that really sets her morning, the tone. And her brain has spent time in a flow that she credits with being able to stay focused throughout the day. She credits backgammon in the mornings with that. 

Now that I feel like I've wrapped up the points I wanted to make about the two kinds of harmful exhaustion, I want to talk about one other kind of exhaustion. And I want to talk about something else that by thinking through it, you set yourself up for success to prevent or recover from or prevent these harmful exhaustions. 

So let's talk about the kind of exhaustion that maybe is not harmful, but it's still a form of exhaustion, which is beneficial exhaustion. What I mean by “beneficial exhaustion” is the kind of tiredness that you experience at the end of a day when you have left it all on the field. You've done a good job. You are proud of the work you did. You can see results from the work that you put in. 

It's not that you've been just doing a bunch of miscellaneous things, you actually have something to show for it. And yeah, you've left it on the field. That's the best way I know to say that. At the end of a day like that there is this sense of tired that comes from being fully utilized. You put your strengths to use. You showed up in the ways that you needed to show up. 

In many cases, clients feel this a lot when they actually honor the plans that they make. So with Monday Map / Friday Wrap, they'll set their plans. It's a Tuesday, they woke up and they abided by their calendar period on a Tuesday. The end of that day feels good. It feels productive, like you really accomplished something. You did what you were supposed to do. 

That feeling at the end of the day is tired, but not like the life has been sucked out of you. That's the difference. And the reason I'm bringing it up here is because sometimes people associate, well, they should be tired at the end of the day. But yeah, that's what it's like to work hard.

But if you are noticing that the way that you feel at the end of the day is like the life has been sucked out of you, something is wrong. Something is being exhausted in a way that is harmful, not beneficial. When I say something is “wrong”, I don't mean ‘oh my gosh, drop everything, and you had a day where you feel like there's some harmful exhaustion going on. 

No, I just mean, you should be in tune with this, and you should make adjustments accordingly because you are in tune with it. And not get to the place where you are a shell of yourself, period, and it's going to take weeks and months to fully recover from where you've gotten yourself because you haven't been tuned in. You've just been running hard.

The narrative that we have in our minds is what will keep us going. If we tell ourselves, “This is what it takes. This is the way it has to be. I don't have a choice,” it's almost like you become a victim of your circumstances. You will find yourself in a burned-out place that is not going to be a cake walk to recover from. 

And when you find yourself there… because all of us will at different points. And hopefully, the older we get, the more we practice these things as the years go by, we get better and better at that. I have noticed that for myself. I have noticed that for clients. But it doesn't mean you're immune to getting yourself into those situations at some point again in the future. 

And the more tuned in you are to your state, and the type of exhaustion that you are experiencing, the better you can pivot when needed, or make adjustments as needed. And the smallest of adjustments can go a very long way. It doesn't take a lot.

At the end of the day, when you notice it does feel like the life has been sucked out of you, and you do notice that it is more of a cognitive, mental thing, where your brain is tired, versus your body, like your whole system is tired. Like you need to lay horizontal for a very long time. That kind of feeling, tuning into those and making adjustments at the end of a day where it feels like that, can set you up so that you are not starting from a depleted place or as much of a depleted place the next day.

Being in tune with it is what it's all about. I also want to say here that I highly recommend that you consider who your support team is. Make a list of those people. Maybe it's a loved one. Maybe it's a therapist. Maybe it's an acupuncturist. Maybe it's a doctor of another sort. Maybe it's a personal trainer. Maybe it's someone in the church or a spiritual advisor. Who is your support team? Maybe it's an executive assistant. 

Make a list of these people and make sure that you are actually utilizing your support team in the ways that make sense. Do you have consistent appointments with those who you think you need? Are you keeping those appointments with those that you have made? Are you delegating the things that really shouldn't be handled by you, and because you are handling them it is contributing to a form of exhaustion that is harmful?

You really have to look at the support team. No one does this on their own. No one has a healthy, thriving business that grows in the ways that the owner wants it to grow, where the business stays healthy and everybody wins, without a support system and team in place. 

And I don't just mean a team that works inside of the firm. I mean a support system for you as an individual. So who is your support? How can you rely on those, or lean on those, or utilize those so that you can help yourself stay more balanced as it relates to exhaustion? 

All right, my friends, we're going to close it up here. I realize I'm not the foremost expert on all things wellness and balance. But listen, there’s some low-hanging fruit that we all have an opportunity, as the world in terms of work tends to slow down a bit, we have an opportunity to spend the hours of our day very intentionally. 

I want each of you to think about what kind of exhaustions you are currently experiencing, so that you can decide what you want to spend time doing in an effort to recover. Some enjoyable things, right? These shouldn't feel like chores.

But this felt like the right time to spit this information out because we're gearing up here, you will be making plans, and you have an opportunity to be intentional with the space that you're given. I hope that you do it in a way that lines up best for you and for your nervous system and for cognitive ease so that you come back next year rejuvenated. Maybe more rejuvenated than you would, had you not stopped to think about these things and give yourself what you need. 

All right, everybody, have a wonderful week. I'll see you here next Tuesday. 

Hey, you may not know this, but there's a free guide for a process I teach called Monday Map/Friday Wrap. If you go to VelocityWork.com, it's all yours. It's about how to plan your time and honor your plans. So, that week over week, more work that moves the needle is getting done in less time. Go to VelocityWork.com to get your free copy. 

Thank you for listening to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. If you're ready to get clearer on your vision, data, and mindset, then head over to VelocityWork.com where you can plug in to Quarterly Strategic Planning, with accountability and coaching in between. This is the work that creates Velocity.