Resilience
Lawyers Assistance
Program
Facilitated by Robert Bircher
What is Resilience?
• Generally, it means bouncing back
quickly from a difficult experience
• Most people have some level of
resilience and that it can be
improved and increased with
learning and practice
• Unfortunately, in general, Lawyers
don’t have it –they score much
lower in this trait than the general
population
• This workshop is about enhancing
this useful life skill
Resilience in Lawyers
• It is easy to see how the ability to try
something, fail , and move on
without a severe psychological
beating-would be a valuable skill
• Larry Richard; a lawyer psychologist says “90% of lawyers
I’ve tested score in the bottom half
of the resilience trait.ie their
scores are 49% or lower. Lawyers
are thin- skinned, defensive, and
slow to rebound from criticism,
rejection ,or setbacks. This makes
them somewhat averse to intimate
relationships…”
Resilience
• We see this in practice here at the
LAP very often-usually with
lawyers who have had a job
setback like criticism, a poor
performance review or being
fired, and sensitivity to
personality conflicts at firms
• In fairness, this can also be caused
by the fact Lawyers are very poor
at sociability (7% vs. 50% for the
general population)
Resilience
• This means lawyers as a group are
poor at emotional connections,
disclosing of their inner life or
remembering the inner lives of
others. In general, Lawyers avoid
anything touchy feely
• This can manifest as gross
insensitivity and disastrous
management of people
• In the near term this realty won’t
change, making it difficult for
sensitive people to survive this type
of culture
Resilience
• Resiliency is a great way to
survive the hard knocks of being a
lawyer
• How do you pull yourself up after
a setback?
• What doesn’t work is rumination,
which is a spiral of morbid self
involvement. Many lawyers get
stuck in a repetitive; self critical
thought pattern that I often say is
Repetitive, Useless and Negative
• RUN!
Resilience
• In their minds lawyers think that this
post mortem analysis thinking is
valuable, which it is –the first time
around! Thinking the same thought
over and over is painful and
pointless-like mowing the lawn 30
times in one day-only the first time
around helps
• Part of the problem here is that
lawyers believe they can think their
way out of this-that somehow more
thinking is the answer-the truth is
over thinking is actually the
problem!
CBT and Resilience
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is
the most common form of talk
therapy and is based on the idea
that your reality is based on your
core beliefs (or narratives) and
can be changed
• What people call “thinking” is
you talking to yourself (self -talk)
and where people get into trouble
is that their own opinions and
judgments about themselves
(within this self talk) are often
very distorted
Resilience
• If you believe that you shouldn’t fail or
that bad things shouldn’t happen to you,
you will be surprised and unusually
vulnerable when these things do happen
• A great core belief to change, if you
want resilience, would be your attitudes
toward failure and suffering
• Resilient people have the attitude that
failure is necessary for learning and
suffering is the worlds best teacher
• If you get fired from your job you can
believe “I am a hopeless loser” and you
will have some very unpleasant feelings
flowing from that belief
Resilience
• If you believe this is a great opportunity
to finally do something different, or
something you really love to do; the
feelings will be excitement and
optimism
• Resilient people are more likely to come
to the second belief, even if they beat
themselves up for a day or two
• An attitude that works is that suffering is
not only inevitable, it is necessary for
most people to make any change at all!
One of the first things I learned about
counseling was the enormous value of
suffering!
Suffering is Necessary!
• In some cases more suffering is
exactly what people need-how many
people stop an addiction before
there is considerable suffering? How
many people go on a diet (that
actually works) without suffering?
• Actually; depriving a person of
suffering is one of the most harmful
things you can do to a person, in
some situations. Parents who do this
with their children are often
depriving them of a learning
experience
Failure is Normal and
Useful
• For almost everyone; considerable
failure is necessary for success.
Very few people succeed in a big
way without lots of failure
• The most useful way to deal with
failure is to look for the lesson
within it(look for the blessing in
the curse)make changes, then
forget it
• Most people that make a mistake
are too busy beating themselves
up to fix the problem
True Grit
• Resilient people stick to their
goals and never quit-much
success comes to those who stick
around despite one disaster after
another
• True Grit does not mean doing the
same dysfunctional thing over and
over and expecting a different
result-it means noticing what
works and making changes
• If one job or area of law doesn’t
work, move on
Character is Built by
Recovery from Failure
• It is arguable personal growth or
change is not possible without
considerable failure-in fact it is
needed for this to occur
• Look at your own life and your
family-it is likely many great
things have come out of disasters
• Resilient people are more realistic
about the usual human “failings”
• Resilient people also avoid the
mental trap of comparison-it is
pointless
Resilience and
Relationships
• Resilient people value their
relationships and reach out for help
if necessary-they are the opposite of
the “rugged individualist” popular in
our culture
• Resilient people let poor
relationships go easily-relationships
will come and go in your lifetime,
few will last a lifetime and few are
meant to
• How many people do you know who
are happily married to the first
person they ever went out with?
Resilient Relationships
• If a relationship needs to end-let it
go-staying in relationships that are
dead or dying are corrosive to self
esteem
• Rather than beat yourself up about a
relationship ending-be grateful for
the time you walked the path of life
together
• As a family lawyer and mediator I
have been involved with hundreds of
relationship endings and if I had the
power to magically put these people
back together I wouldn't-they
needed to end
Career and Resilience
• In the totality of your career legal
jobs will come and go-and this is
how it should be-lawyers move
around a lot-the average is 3 jobs
per decade-I worked at 7
firms(including 3 of my own) in 25
years
• It is very rare to find a lawyer who
articled and did his or her entire
career at one firm
• Resilient lawyers know law firms
and jobs will come and go like the
seasons-non resilient people fight
the natural flow of life and falsely
believe that change is bad
Career and Resilience
• I counsel a lot of people who
leave a firm or get fired –the
resilient message is-learn
whatever lesson is there(usually
this is simple and clear) and then
move on
• Changing jobs is natural and
normal-again if I had the power I
would not put lawyers back into
places where the fit is poor-you
got fired or quit for a reason-listen
to it and move on
Unemployment and
Resilience
• Many unemployed lawyers spend
more time beating themselves up
than looking for work in a
productive way
• Resilient lawyers do what works and
move on-they accept the fact that
rejection is normal-it is like going to
a shoe store-the shoe you like fits or
it doesn’t-and if it doesn’t-there is
nothing wrong with your foot and
there is nothing wrong with the
shoe-you just keep looking
• Look at your feet-if your shoes fit
you are already a resilient shoe
shopper!!
Resilience, Grieving and
Loss
• Loss is part of life and sooner or
later all of us will suffer significant
loss-including the death of loved
ones
• Resilient people know the difference
between healthy grieving and
unhealthy depression
• With healthy grieving you will feel
sad but it won’t impact your self
esteem, your sadness gradually
disappears, you carry on with life
and it doesn’t discourage you or
your plans
Resilience, Grieving and
Loss
• Unhealthy grieving(a.k.a.
depression) impacts your self
esteem, the feelings go on and on,
you make the loss about you
personally, you are demoralized and
you thoughts are negative, distorted
and exaggerated
• Acceptance of that which you
cannot change is another trait of
resilient thinkers-wishing the world
was different is not a winning
strategy
• You will likely never have all your
ducks in a row-and even if you do-it
won’t be for long
Resilience and Fear
• Lawyers can get a distorted view of
fear since they are trained in law
school to find problems in any
situation-this is useful if you are
reviewing a contract –it is a disaster
if you apply it to your personal life.
Lawyers also are very skeptical(in
the 90th percentile)-very useful in
law, but can create irrational fears in
real life
• Combined with the above; lawyers
also believe they can think their way
out of things-in fact their faulty
thinking is the problem!
Healthy and Unhealthy
Fear
• Resilient people know the difference
between healthy fear and unhealthy
fear(a.k.a neurotic anxiety)
• Characteristics of healthy fear-the
danger is real(not imagined),it soon
disappears when the danger has passed,
the fear is valid and results in positive
action; there is no shame involved
• With unhealthy fear the danger is
exaggerated , imagined, distorted or
incorrect, it never ends, you don’t take
useful actions, you are paralyzed with
inactivity; you may feel ashamed
Perfectionism and
Resilience
• Resilient people know the difference
between perfectionism, excellence
and competence
• Perfectionism is a joy robbing
neurosis and is the enemy of
resilience
• Perfectionism involves motivation
by internal self criticism, excellence
involves motivation by creativity
and enthusiasm
• Perfectionists see failure of a task as
failure as a human being; people
pursuing excellence see mistakes as
an opportunity for growth and
learning
Resilience and
Perfectionism
• Competence is simply doing a
good job-perfectionism is the
enemy of competence-you are too
busy beating yourself up to simply
fix the error and move on
• To state a blinding flash of the
obvious-perfectionism is
impossible to begin with!
Resilience and Optimism
• Resilient people are optimistic
• They focus on what is within their
power to control-pessimists try
and change others or hope the
world will change to suit them
• Resilient people take the long
view “This too shall pass”
• Resilient people don’t globalize
failure in one area, to all other
areas of their life
Resilience and Cognitive
Distortions
• Resilient people learn to eliminate
distortions from their thinking-see
attached sheet of the most
common distortions
• Resilient people deal with real
problems; not mind manufactured
ones-there are enough
catastrophes in real life as it iswhy add more?
Resilience and Criticism
• Resilient people do not hurt themselves
with criticism-they know that without
their active participation criticism cannot
hurt them
• Resilient people never make the
criticism about themselves
• They separate their self esteem from
“other esteem”
• They just notice the criticism, make a
change if they want to, accept it if it is
true and make amends if possible, or
decide they are not going to change
anything
• They come to realize criticism is the
breakfast of champions
Resilience and
Connections
• Resilient people have good
relationships and put time and
energy into them
• When a crisis comes they have
lots of people help them out
• Reclusiveness is the enemy of
resilience
Resilience, Change and
Decisiveness
• Resilient people expect change,
love to change and waste no time
worrying about having to make
changes
• They know deeply, that nothing in
life is certain- except change!
• Resilient people are good decision
makers and decide to do it, decide
not to do it now or decide to
delegate it-they waste no time in
ruminating or hoping more
thinking or worrying will help