Goal Getter: The ABS Of Goal Setting: Janet Thompson Jackson, Founder Of Well Law [E92]

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Legal Department
Episode: E92 - Goal Getter: The ABS Of Goal Setting
Host: Stacy Bratcher
Guest: Janet Thompson Jackson, Founder of Well Law
Date: April 28, 2026

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Main Theme

In this episode, host Stacy Bratcher welcomes executive coach and Well Law founder Janet Thompson Jackson for a deep dive into meaningful, value-driven goal setting for in-house attorneys. Centered around Janet’s unique ABS framework (Anchor, Boundary, Steps), the conversation explores common pitfalls of traditional goal setting and offers practical, wellness-oriented strategies attorneys can use to prioritize, protect, and achieve goals aligned with their core values—both professionally and personally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Problem with "Ladder Thinking" in Legal Careers

[01:36]

• Stacy describes the prevalent goal-chasing attitude in legal careers where lawyers follow a pre-set “ladder”—from law school, to law firm, to general counsel—without interrogating the personal meaning behind each goal.
  • “We as lawyers kind of follow a ladder… we’re just trying to achieve for achievement purposes. And so I wanted to just explore with you a little bit. Where do you think people go wrong with setting career goals?” – Stacy [01:36]

Janet Thompson Jackson’s "ABS" Framework for Goal Setting

[02:36]

• Janet introduces her mnemonic ABS, which stands for:
  • Anchor: Values-based foundation of your goal.
  • Boundary: Protection for your goal through self-imposed guardrails.
  • Steps: Concrete next actions to advance your goal.

A = Anchor: Value-Driven Goals

[02:36–04:48]

• Start by identifying the underlying value or quality you aspire to embody (e.g., stability, leadership, health, family).
  • “People set a goal and they don’t understand really why they’ve set it. It just sounds good, or it sounds like it’s something they can achieve, but they haven’t really thought about what meaning it has to them.” – Janet [03:13]
• Anchoring goals in personal values leads to lasting motivation and satisfaction.

B = Boundary: Protecting Your Goals

[04:48–09:27]

• Boundaries are for self-protection, maintaining focus and resisting others’ urgencies or distractions.
  • “If you’re trying to achieve a goal without a boundary, then you’re driving without any guardrails.” – Janet [04:52]
• Boundaries must be context-specific and sometimes flexible, with attention to competing values.
• Example: Prioritizing family time by setting a firm stop time for work.

S = Steps: Actionable Next Moves

[09:32–10:03]

• Identify practical, manageable action steps toward the goal.
  • “What is the next best action step toward my goal?” – Janet [09:32]
• Focus on incremental progress rather than overwhelming change.

The Crucial Role of "Why"

[10:03–12:40]

• Articulating a compelling “why” is essential for clarifying meaning, accepting tradeoffs, and legitimizing boundaries.
  • “Your ‘why’ clarifies your meaning... The third thing that your ‘why’ does, understanding your ‘why’, is that it legitimizes our boundaries.” – Janet [10:24]
• A strong “why” fortifies your ability to hold boundaries and persist with challenging goals.

Illustrative Example: Ditching Generic Resolutions

[13:25–15:54]

• Example: Resolutions like “go to the gym every day” often fail if they’re not attached to deeper reasons (e.g. health, longevity, family).
• Stacy shares: anchoring eating habits to cholesterol and health has made new behaviors stick in her own life.

Assessing Competing Values & Prioritization

[17:21–23:23]

• The group discusses the tension between external expectations (what is “professional”) and internal values—especially in transitioning from law firm to in-house cultures.
• Prioritizing can mean accepting that not all goals can be achieved at once.
  • “When you have those external pressures coming in toward you, which of these whys are you actually willing to protect?” – Janet [21:48]

Managing Energy and Capacity

[23:41–26:53]

• All actions require energy; using Spoon Theory, Janet encourages awareness of your energy budget.
• Plan boundaries and goals based on realistic energy assessments.
  • “How do I want to use this limited amount of energy that I have during the day?” – Janet [24:13]
• Stacy reflects on her personal tendency to overcommit and the need for awareness.

Practical Steps to Uncover Your "Why"

[27:10–28:42]

• Ask:
  • Who do I want to embody?
  • Is it worth the cost/tradeoff?
  • What will this make possible for me?
  • Is it worth the discomfort?
• Prepare to disappoint others for the sake of alignment.
  • “In order for me to live an aligned life, aligned with my values, I need to be willing to disappoint other people.” – Janet [29:23]

The Challenge of Boundaries and Professional Expectations

[29:53–32:53]

• Professional services reward responsiveness—but, setting and communicating boundaries is essential and models healthy behavior for your team.
• Techniques include proactively managing expectations, offering alternatives, and ensuring reliability without sacrificing personal priorities.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On anchoring goals:
  • “What value—what quality do you want to embody? That could encompass a lot of different goals, but there’s an underlying value beneath that.” – Janet [03:45]
• On boundaries:
  • “The boundary is for ourselves. It’s for our own protection.” – Janet [04:52]
• On fortifying your why:
  • “If you have a ‘why’ your value and it has that meaning for you and you are clear on what the trade off is, then it helps you to feel like this is a legitimate boundary that I can hold.” – Janet [11:35]
• On permission to prioritize personal needs:
  • “You shouldn’t have to justify that you want health insurance or that a goal is going to get you to a certain place.” – Janet [20:58]
• On energy management:
  • “Everything that we do is an expenditure of energy… It’s really just about being aware and conscious of how do I want to—it’s not unlimited—and so how do I want to use this limited amount of energy that I have during the day?” – Janet [24:09]
• “Mic drop” on priorities:
  • “Which ‘why’ is worth defending? When someone is pushing back, which of these whys are you willing to protect?” – Janet [21:48]
• On aligning with your why despite discomfort:
  • “In order for me to live an aligned life… I need to be willing to disappoint other people.” – Janet [29:23]
• On being a leader through modeling boundaries:
  • “If you’re doing that, then you’re also modeling for the people who work for you.” – Janet [32:26]
• Managing expectations as a leadership skill:
  • “You can’t just be the department of ‘yes’. There is a limited amount of time, resources, and energy.” – Stacy [32:11]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:36 – The "achievement ladder" in legal careers and why it can be misguided
• 02:36 – Janet introduces ABS (Anchor, Boundary, Steps) framework
• 04:48 – Detailed discussion of boundaries and how to set/adjust them
• 09:32 – The importance of actionable steps
• 10:24 – The three jobs of your “why”
• 13:25 – The importance of tying goals to deeper motivations (New Year’s resolutions example)
• 17:21 – Internal versus external definitions of “professionalism”
• 21:48 – How to prioritize and protect your most important “why”
• 23:41 – Energy management via Spoon Theory
• 27:10 – Questions to uncover your own “why”
• 29:23 – Willingness to disappoint others in service of your values
• 32:26 – Modeling boundaries as leadership

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Episode Wrap-Up

Janet shares her own elusive goal: going to bed earlier. She implemented her own ABS framework (anchoring to health, setting boundaries with alarms/routines, and taking small action steps), alongside data-tracking, to finally succeed. The episode concludes with a reminder about The Well Law app and Stacy’s Goal Getter Substack, emphasizing practical tools for attorneys to integrate wellness and value-driven goal setting into their busy professional lives.

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For More

• Janet Thompson Jackson: well-law.com
• The Legal Department: Find past episodes and subscribe
• TLD Goal Getter Substack: Mix of free/subscription content for leveling up your legal career

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Transcript

[A]

I'd like to thank Streamline AI for supporting the TLD Goal Getter series. Legal teams don't struggle because of bad lawyers. They struggle because of bad intake and scattered systems. Streamline AI is an intake and workflow automation platform built specifically for in house legal teams. It centralizes requests from emails and forms, structures legal work into trackable matters, streamlines collaboration with the business, and provides real time visibility on workload and performance. With built in AI to help categorize, route and support workflows, Streamline helps legal teams move faster with less chaos. Visit Streamline AI to learn more. Welcome to the Legal Department, a podcast for lawyers who want to learn, connect and grow their careers. I'm Stacey Bratcher. I'm a general counsel and I'm excited to share these conversations to the to help you level up in house. On today's episode of the Legal Department. I'm excited to welcome back Janet Thompson Jackson. She's an executive coach and founder of the well Law app. And we're going to dig a little further into goal setting and why we set goals and how to set really great goals. Janet is one of my favorite people because she has this great energy and is looking at law through the wellness lens and we, we all need that. Hey Janet, how are you?

[B]

I'm great, Stacy. Thanks so much for having me back. I love talking to you.

[A]

Yeah, I love talking to you too. And you know, you're in the Netherlands so you know, we're very far apart time wise, but I always enjoy our conversations and I look forward to speaking with you. And so this is a conversation I'm excited about and I want to take it from a career lens. So, you know, we all have things we think we want in our career and I think that, and I've written about this on my Goal Getter substack that I think we as lawyers kind of follow a ladder. You know, we want to get a great job at a great firm, we want to become a partner, we want to get an in house job, we want to be the general counsel. We're just sort of like plugging along on that ladder and I think that that's wrong. I think that that is sometimes, you know, just we're just trying to achieve for achievement purposes. And so I wanted to just explore with you a little bit. You know, where do you think people go wrong with setting career goals?

[B]

Yeah. So first of all, love your substack, by the way.

[A]

Oh, thank you.

[B]

Great. I'm really enjoying reading those and I go back and read what I Missed. But you're right. I think that people feel like they are supposed to set a goal, and, you know, it's almost some obligation they have at the beginning of the year. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with goal setting, but I do think that we can go about it better. And when I think about goal setting, I think of three main elements. And I love a good mnemonic. So abs, or ABS is my mnemonic for this. And the A stands for anchor. And so you want to anchor your goal in values. And I think that that really is the main missing piece. People set a goal and they don't understand really why they've said it. It just sounds good, or it sounds like it's something they can achieve, but they haven't really thought about what meaning it has to them.

[A]

Can I stop you for a second? Are we going to go through each one and then I dig on as we go, or do you either way? Well, I just want to stop on values for a second because I feel like I just want to understand. When you say values, tell me what you mean.

[B]

Yeah. So what has core meaning for us? So your value, and there are different professional values and personal values, but your value may be stability, or it could be financial stability. It could be leadership stewardship, it could be family health. So there are lots of different values or qualities is another way that you can put it that you. What I say, what do you want to embody? So what value. What quality do you want to embody? That could encompass a lot of different goals, but there's an underlying value beneath that. So that's the first one. The second one is boundary in the abs, and your boundary protects your goal. I always say that if you're trying to achieve a goal without a boundary, then you're driving without any guardrails. You may be going all over the place.

[A]

Okay, so let's talk about what is a boundary.

[B]

Yeah, very good. A lot of times people think that a boundary is something to keep people out. It is for someone else. The boundary is for ourselves. It's for our own protection. So the boundary, if we use that guardrail metaphor, a boundary is like a guardrail that is going to help keep us on the path to where we want to go. And. And it protects us from random roads coming in and crossing through our path that we either didn't expect or didn't want there and disrupting us. So if we don't have a boundary, if we don't have something that's going to protect our goal, then there are a lot of other things that suddenly can look and feel more important and I'm going to get distracted and someone else's agenda or someone else's urgency is, is going to become more important because I haven't put in place what happens when my goal starts to get shaken a little bit.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Does that make sense?

[A]

Yeah. I might want to talk about an example about that because as you're talking about, you know, urgency, I just think about the in house lifestyle, which is, you know, you have a plan for the day and there's a line out the door and you know, something, investigation, subpoena hits or whatever these crazy things are and you do not own your day anymore. And so I'm trying to think in the context of goals. Just an example of how to use a boundary to stay on course with your goals.

[B]

Yeah. So it obviously is going to depend on your situation and it may be a boundary that has to be flexible because the boundary has to fit the context. So in your example of, you know, I'm trying to get out the door, your boundary may look very different if you are under a deadline or if you have something coming up that needs to get out the door in a particular period of time, or if your work is such that it's cyclical and you know you're going to have really busy times and then calmer times. So your boundary may look different in those situations. But say you have a boundary of I'm going to leave the office by six o'. Clock. Right. Because you've decided that your value is having some time for dinner with family or with your partner. So you could keep working until 9 or 10 o' clock easily because you have that much work to do that really needs to get done today. But if that's your boundary, if that's your goal to get home for dinner, so your value is spending time, quality time with family on a daily or regular basis. You then have to decide what is more important to me in the moment, getting this done immediately right now, or stopping and having time with family. Now what that means is that on the other side of your time with family, you may end up going back to work from 7 or 8 until 9 or 10. But what boundary you've protected is this family time. That's the value that we're looking at right now. You also have what could be a competing value of what it means to be a professional and what it means to get my work done. I've got these. I have lived this recently and that's a competing value. So I then have to decide how am I going to manage my boundaries to either be able to choose one or somehow choose both. For me, the answer to that particular situation in being able to get both in at least most of the time time is I stop work at 6 o' clock or whatever time, 5:30, I go home and I have 90 minutes with my family and then I go back to work for a certain period of time. And so that means I'm able to honor that family time, but also honor my value of professionalism and getting my work done.

[A]

So using that calendar, there's a way to implement the boundary.

[B]

Absolutely. And it has to be, and I think we'll get deeper into this, but it has to be something that is worth protecting.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And that's where we get in trouble sometimes. And that's when you have to kind of reevaluate the goal. Is this really a goal that's important to me because is it important enough that I'm going to protect it?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. All right, well, what's the S in abs? I love the acronym, by the way.

[B]

All right. The S is steps. So what is the next best action step toward my goal? And you really want. So you have your anchor. That is what is my value based goal? That's my anchor. What boundary am I going to put around that to protect it? And step, what is my next best action step to setting my goal? I think that's a simple way of kind of thinking about goal setting.

[A]

Yeah, no, it's getting started. Yeah, I like that. I like that. So let's go. I think this is around values. But let's dig into. When we talked in prep, we talked a lot about that having a why was very important for being able to set and achieve meaningful goals. So let's talk a little bit about why it's important to have a why.

[B]

Yeah, I love the why. And the why has basically three jobs. The first job is that your why clarifies your meaning. It helps you really to think about the meaning of your goal and the meaning that that goal has to you. What does it mean to me and why is that important? And the second job is to clarify the trade offs. What am I willing to, to maybe even sacrifice my time, my energy and my attention for? What is the trade off here in order to achieve this goal? Your why helps again, if it's connected to a value that helps to clarify that. The third thing that your why does understanding your why is that it legitimizes our boundaries. What I mean by that is one of the main reasons people don't set boundaries is because it makes them feel guilty. I feel like. Right, yes. I feel like I can't inconvenience people. It feels selfish, you know, to set a boundary. It feels like I'm doing something for me. But if you have a why your value and it has that meaning for you and you are clear on what the trade off is, then it helps you to feel like this is a legitimate boundary that I can hold.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so if you just are saying I need to stop working at 5:30 because I need to get home and it's not connected to this value of spending quality time with family and what that means in the long run. But if it's I just need to stop work at 5:30 and I need to get home, I know I'll work some more later. It doesn't really feel that legitimate sometimes like you can tell somebody else, no, I can't go out for drinks or be in this meeting, be in a late meeting or something like that. Do I really feel good about saying that if my boundary doesn't really feel legit to me? So if it's tied to that, that why really is the value if it's tied to that?

[A]

So it kind of fortifies your ability to hold a boundary.

[B]

Absolutely, yeah.

[A]

And holding the boundary is key, achieving whatever the goal is.

[B]

Absolutely, yeah. And because what we find, and actually there have been studies done on this that if people don't have a specific, sometimes it's called even a motivation. If people don't have a specific motivation or why or value behind the goal they're trying to achieve, chances are they're going to give up on it.

[A]

Interesting, interesting. So if we're just doing it because it's just what we should do or the next thing without having some sort of thinking about why and making it actually important and meaningful.

[B]

Yeah. I mean I'll give you an example that we see all the time in January and that is someone saying I want to get in better shape. So they don't even say that. What they say is I'm going to go to the gym every day, where I'm going to go out and run every day. So they usually kind of peter out

[A]

by February 1, February, maybe they make

[B]

it through the whole month. But if instead of saying I'm going to go to the gym every day or I'm going to get out and run five days a week, if they say my numbers, my blood pressure, whatever Numbers are higher than I want them to be and I want to be healthier or my parent died at an early age and I want to prevent that. Or I just want to be healthier for my family or I just don't feel great and I want to feel better. Yeah, if they say that. So then the value becomes either longevity or health or being around for your family or for your friends or something like that. The value is not just this idea that I want to get out and run. It's that I have this bigger goal, this bigger reason that I want to be healthy. And the interesting thing about that is that that may end up translating into not going out and running five days a week because I heard that that's what I should do. It may end up causing me to have a conversation with a trainer or someone who can put together a plan for me that I'll actually stick with because now it's really important for me to stick with it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, let me on that. This is just an example, it's not a career example. But my cholesterol is high. And so every year, okay, let me just say every year I start out, this is, you know, true confession time on the legal department. Every year I say I want to eat more vegetables. Like I'm going to drink a green smoothie, I'm going to do athletic greens, I'm going to do all this. And every year, like it's too much friction. I don't do it, whatever. I'm back on the carbs in the meat having again got a value that my cholesterol was high. And so shifting to a more plant based veg forward diet is a good solution to that. And cholesterol as we all know, causes heart disease. I want to live a long time. So I have, I got to say, still sticking with heavy veg in 2026. So. All right, I think you're onto something.

[B]

Yes, absolutely. And I think that one of the big questions to ask yourself is when you think of your how do I try to hold on to this goal? What do you want to embody? What do you want to be? What do you want to embody? What kind of leader do you want to be? How do you want to show up and what do I need to do to get there?

[A]

Legal intake shouldn't live in slack and spreadsheets. Streamline AI centralizes requests, manages matters, streamlines collaborations and gives legal leaders real time visibility into their team's work. Built for in house. Legal Streamline AI. When we started off and you Were giving the example about getting home for dinner or whatever. You said, being a professional means I show up as. And that really struck me because I think we all have kind of these internal expectations or values that we are how we define what being a professional is. And just like you're saying, how do I show up? And so that can mean anything. Like I stay till whatever time, or I don't leave until my email box is 0, or like, all these things. And I think it's important to kind of peel back and figure out what are you telling yourself about what it means to be a good professional.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. That's a really good reflection to have. And when I work with people, when I work with clients, a lot of times they'll say, well, you know, to me, I need to be professional. Well, what does that mean to you? And where does that come from?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because sometimes that image or that belief comes from what they've seen other people do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But it may be not who they want to be. So we always come back to, what do you want to embody? How do you want to show up as a leader? Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And especially if it's an external expectation. Like, if you think you're meeting an external expectation. I think just thinking about coming from a law firm and then moving in house. So in a law firm, being complete, being perfect with your legal answer, doing all the research, et cetera, is the value. Because that's what people are paying you for, to be right in house. They're paying you to be fast and solve their problem. They don't want to wait for you to have read every case and talk to every regulator, et cetera. They want to know, you know, 80%, 70%, is this a good thing? So making that shift for people can be hard because you have been grown up in this life where being perfect and right is what it means to be a professional lawyer.

[B]

Absolutely. That is such a good example. And it is. Well, I don't want to get off track, but it's that learning how to. Okay, how do I stop? When do I know that it's okay? I've done enough research, I have a good enough answer that I can actually stop. And that is, I think, the hardest thing. Thing to transition to, because before I had plenty of time to, you know, continue to do this research until I am 90% sure.

[A]

Yeah. But I mean, it does go back to what is the expectation or what does it mean to be a good lawyer? And so reflecting on that and learning in your company, you know, in your Firm, what that means.

[B]

What's the culture of the environment that you're in? It's really important to understand that. And obviously that changes, especially if you're going from a firm to in house or to some other environment or to government work.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Another different culture where expectations are different.

[A]

Yeah. A lot of holidays there. I want to dig in about the whys. And you talked about, you know, it might be your family goals. It might be, you know, stability, you know, all these things. There are so many different whys, you know, and we all have different things that are important to us, you know, and just some examples I've been thinking about again as I'm writing, kind of some reflection in the substack. You know, I need to make a certain amount of money. I need a job with benefits because I have a sick family member or I need to live here to be close to my. You know, there's. Or I need to be at XYZ firm because it's very prestigious. You know, there's so many. So many things that. And I don't think that you should judge yourself about, like, oh, this is important to me, but it shouldn't be. Right.

[B]

Like, oh, right.

[A]

I really struggle with that. Where we're too hard on ourselves about what's important. It's. It's fair. It's fair that you need health insurance, you know.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Is there a way to score and figure out, like, what's the most important one or what we should be putting more leverage on?

[B]

Yeah. And I think that it's a matter of. Because I agree with you, you know, you shouldn't have to justify that you want health insurance or that a goal is going to get you to a certain place. But I think that when you're trying to figure out what direction to take, think about, as I said before, what do I want to embody right now? Who do I want to be? Not what do I want to have. Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up? So that's one also, which why is worth defending. When someone is pushing back, when you have those external pressures coming in toward you, which of these whys are you actually willing to protect?

[A]

That's a mic drop moment right there.

[B]

Yeah, there you go.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

Yeah. And so that's a question that you could ask yourself. Another question is, when I think about these different areas, where am I really willing to put in the time and the attention? Because this takes energy.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And then one that I think is really helpful is if I don't choose this in two years or in a year, am I going to regret it? How am I going to feel about that as I project into the future if I don't choose this right now? So sometimes it's just about prioritizing. I may want to meet all of these goals. I was talking to someone yesterday who is coming up on her 60th birthday, and she had a list of things, both professionally and personally she wanted to do. And she said, I want to do all of them. I want to achieve all of these goals. And I said, okay, let's prioritize because all of these are not going to get done at once. So let's talk about. And in prioritizing, you're still going back to your values. What value is most important for you to embody right now, this year and this quarter?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And then that's going to tell you which of these goals is the one that I should be paying attention to and protecting right now. The other one may need to wait until the second half of the year or next year.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's good. You know, I want to. We didn't really talk about this in prep, but in some of our other conversations, you've talked about thinking about where your energy is. Yeah. You know, like, as you're thinking about a certain goal or dream or whatever, like, where's the energy? Can you talk about that?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So we don't realize that everything that we do is an expenditure of energy. What we think is, we think, especially in the practice of law, we think about our output in the office for work that we're doing, and it produces a certain outcome. But even as we are just thinking about things, as we are going about our time in a, you know, day to day, minute to minute, we're making choices about how we use our energy. And so it's really just about being aware and conscious of how do I want to. It's not unlimited. And so how do I want to use this limited amount of energy that I have during the day? And you also have to be aware of your own. It's very subjective. And I think that you and I may have talked about the spoon theory and a lot of people have heard about this where everybody has a certain amount of spoons that they have at the beginning of the day. And it started with someone who has a chronic illness, the person who came up with this theory, and so her spoons were limited. If you have 50 spoons at the beginning of the day to use, and all of those spoons represent an amount of energy that you have. She may have started her day with only 20 spoons. So she's already behind and she has to be very careful. But for the average person who doesn't have chronic pain or some reason that their spoons are limited, we still have a number of spoons. And if it's going to take you, I don't know how many things you do at the beginning of your day, you're an early riser. So you may already, by the time you get to work, you may have used 10 of your spoons. You know, I don't know. Some people may have used five spoons by the time they get to work. How many spoons are you using during your workday? And you can think of this as spoons or something else. How many are you using during your workday? Because if you use all of your energy during your workday and then you're expected to have some quality time with your partner or with your family or with your friends after, have you reserved any energy for that?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

And so it's a matter of really being very aware of how we're using our energy and, and what choices we're making around that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I do. And you know, I have a lot of energy in planning and having ideas about what I want to do, but I think I am not as aware of the energy output for all of those things. And so I've gotten myself in a situation where I always say I'm my worst boss because I drive this girl really hard and I'll be at something and I'm like, why am I here? Like, why did I do this to myself? I tell my assistant all the time, self inflicted wounds when we look at the calendar. And it's crazy. So it's all me. So let's.

[B]

But there's an awareness, Stacy. There's an awareness there and that's really important. You know it. And so if we're not aware of it, we can't do anything about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So right now you're just making a choice. You have the awareness, but you're making a choice. You can make a different choice.

[A]

This is why I love talking with executive coaches, because they're always so gracious and reassuring and make you feel good about yourself. So. Thanks, Janet. Let's talk about how to determine your why. Like what are the steps that you recommend people to follow to figure that out?

[B]

Yeah. So in figuring out your why, I think that you ask yourself a series of questions and some of these We've. It sounds like I'm just repeating myself, but the first question really is, for me, what do I want to embody? Who do I want to embody? How do I want to show up as an emerging leader, As a leader, as a parent, as a partner? How do I want to show up? What do I want to embody? And so I think that's one of the first questions. Is it worth the cost for me? What am I willing again, what's that trade off? What am I willing to put into this? Because it is going to take some energy. What is this choice that I'm making? What does it make possible for me?

[A]

Oh, I love that kind of question. Yeah.

[B]

So I'm looking into the future. What does this make possible for me? How does this add value to my life? And then on the other side of that, is it worth the discomfort that may come from it, that it may bring? So if I'm making a choice, let's go back to that first boundary of I'm leaving at a particular time. There is some discomfort in saying I'm not available for during this time, this block of time. I'm sorry, this is uninterruptible time for me. You can catch me after this, you can catch me before this. But there's this block that you can't interrupt that is. Can be highly uncomfortable for people to say, for sure.

[A]

For sure. Yeah.

[B]

Is protecting that goal because my why Again, your why is your value. It is your reason. It's your motivation. It's your meaning. Is it worth protecting and is it worth being uncomfortable? And something that I learned a long time ago that has served me very, very well is that in order for me to live an aligned life, aligned with my values, I need to be willing to make other people uncomfortable or to disappoint. Let me put it this way. I have to be willing to disappoint other people.

[A]

Yeah. That I gotta say, for lawyers, I think is hard.

[B]

It's hard, but it's a hard truth, Stacy. Yeah, I think it's a hard truth. If you are living your life, trying to make everybody happy, then you're going to have a very difficult time.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think that they're. It's gonna be full of conflict because if you're making everybody else happy, then you are not making yourself happy, at least some of the time.

[A]

Yeah. And I'm more thinking like sort of at work, you know, where, you know, you have to be a defender of your calendar and your time and the spoons. Right. You have to do that. And, you know, there's been so, I mean, I. Countless times where I'm like heading out the door and somebody says, oh, just one quick thing. Let me just. Can I just real. And you know, it is hard, as you're saying, it is hard in the moment to feel like you're disappointing that person because you have, you know, you're going to the next thing or you're trying to get home for dinner or whatever, those, you know, however else you're going to spend your spoons. So I think particularly for folks who are in professional services, and again, I'm more talking about, you know, not like letting you know, relationships and that kind of thing, but just the expectations around professional services that were client first and those sorts of things. That it's a boundary that is a challenge for many of us.

[B]

I think that that's absolutely true. I think that what we also need to do is as professionals, we live by our reputation. So if people know that they can count on us, that we are going to come through, that our work is going to be quality work, first of all, that's important. And then I think that we can. I think this is particularly harder for people who are just coming up, you know, more entry level, but then we can assure them that the work's gonna get done. And so having also some set responses. So when you said, you know, you're on your way out the door and somebody says just one thing, is it possible to say, I really want to hear what you have to say and I want to respond to it. Can you send me a voice memo and I'll be able to listen to that and respond to you in the next few hours. I'm going to be unavailable during this time, but as soon as that's over, I'll be able to respond to your voice memo. How can we help people to understand that I'm still paying attention to you, I'm still meeting your needs, but there's gotta be a little bit of give here.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Setting expectations about how people work with you. I mean, that's.

[B]

Managing expectations.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And that I think that really is a leadership skill for people, that you can't just be the department of. Yes, I'm here for you anytime, anywhere. Because there is a limited amount of time, resources and energy. So. Absolutely.

[B]

And if you're doing that, then you're also modeling for the people who work for you.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Because what we know is that you can say, take a break, take vacation, have this myth of Work, life balance. But what I like to say is have some work life harmony, some integration. You can say that all day long, but if they're not seeing you do it, they're not going to do it.

[A]

Yeah, no, for sure, because it sounds like it's a fake thing. Oh, take time off. But when I'm off, I'm still answering emails and there you go. Yeah, yeah. So I usually have a fun last question, but on this Goal Getter series, I'm a little more serious working us too hard. But I'm trying to ask folks, like, what is a goal that has eluded you and do you still want to achieve it and what's your plan?

[B]

Yeah, actually there is a goal that had eluded me and I used my own steps. And so I was having a really hard time putting down work and honoring a reasonable bedtime that I wanted to keep. And it was impacting my energy during the day and being able to really focus during the day. And it was this matter of closing the laptop and having a routine. And I kept on saying that I was going to do it. And I had great whys. I understood, I knew what my value was and it was my health and my focus and attention during the day and just my cognitive load and all of that. So I had really good reasons, but I still wasn't doing it. And I had competing. It was those competing values that I talked about. It was important to get this work done and finish things. And so I felt like I had a really good reason to stay up. And I finally just started thinking about why is now a good time to do this? And I started thinking about what I wasn't getting done, the level of disorganization that I was starting to feel. So I started looking at the cost and really, literally writing down, what is this costing me? How do I feel in the morning? So I started collecting data. And that's what I really encourage people to do, collect data. Because the data is not going to lie. Then I decided, okay, this is not the outcome I want, so what can I do about it? I then created a routine. I literally have an alarm go off on my phone to tell me it's time to start winding down. That gives me some space. I do it and now I have a routine that actually works. I've been doing it for about a month now and it's working well for me. It's not always on the minute, but I've given myself a range. Instead of, I'm going to be in bed by 10 o' clock, I give myself a range. So that works. And I took little baby steps. What was my next step? And I took the steps that I'm telling you. And so it did elude me for a long time until. And what got me was looking at the data of this is what it's costing me.

[A]

Yeah. Hey, well, good for you. That's really cool. Thank you. That's really cool. And if you want to hear more from Janet, check out episode 47 of the legal department. And do you want to talk about the well Law app and where to where people can find that?

[B]

Absolutely. Please go to well-law.com and the well Law app is a wonderful resource if I may say so myself, for people who just want to have a handy way of being able to get some more well being and some self care.

[A]

Hey, before you go, if you want more content from the legal department, check out TLD Goal Getter on Substack. It's a mix of free and subscription based content to help you legitimate level up your career. That's TLD Goalgetter on Substack. Hope you check it out.