Shut down your inner naysayer
As someone who’d been self-employed since his mid-twenties, my dad understood the ups and downs of being your own boss. He knew the worries of watching your business dip with a downturned economy. He knew the responsibility of providing for your own retirement because there would be no company plan. He knew the fear of losing everything when a cancer diagnosis prompted your health insurer to cancel your policy though you’d never been late with a premium. He didn’t want his children to face similar stresses.
So when his son announced he was leaving a secure management job with a major retail chain so he could gamble on law school, Daddy was not happy. Some parents may dream of their children becoming doctors or lawyers. My dad dreamed of company pensions.
To drive home the point that my brother should rethink his choice, Daddy scoured the newspapers and presented him with articles about failing attorneys. Yep, believe it or not, if you look hard enough, you can find articles about starving lawyers.
My brother was confident in his decision, shrugged off my dad’s concerns, and is now a successful partner in his own law firm. My dad couldn’t be prouder. And the major retail chain where my brother had his “secure” management job? It went belly-up before he finished law school.
The rest of us may not have people sending “starving lawyer” clippings to dampen our enthusiasm for new ideas … but it doesn’t matter. We have that little voice inside our heads telling us “That will never work!” How can we shrug off our inner naysayer? With these comebacks:
• Why? Sometimes we get so bogged down in negative thinking that it becomes reflexive. We automatically think “I can’t” without bothering to consider what’s stopping us. The next time the voice in your head shouts, “No!” follow up with an immediate “Why?” And don’t let yourself off the hook until you provide a reasonable answer. “Because I said so” won’t do.
• But wait … When things have been going wrong for a while, we tend to stack the wrong things together until our minds see nothing but a mountain of unattainable goals. But wait … remember when you did accomplish your goal? Bet it’s happened more than once, too. When negative thinking threatens to shut down an idea before you’ve had a chance to think it through, grab a sheet of paper and start listing all the other ideas you’ve had that actually worked out.
• What about … ? Okay, let’s say you’re the unluckiest person on Planet Earth and most of your ideas have bombed. That doesn’t mean your next idea is destined to fail. Think about all the other people you know who’ve had wild and crazy ideas that have worked out just fine. Who’s to say you won’t be the next person to succeed in spite of yourself?
• What have you got to lose? Finally, weigh the pros and cons of pursuing your idea despite your reservations. What’s the worst that could happen? Are you trying to lose weight but convinced you’re doomed to fail again? The worst that could happen is you’ll eat a little healthier, move a little more, but not achieve the dramatic results you wanted. Still, you’ll probably feel and look better than you did when you started. And if you go out job hunting but come home empty-handed, so what? At least you’ve put your name out in the marketplace. You never know where that might lead. Unless you’re talking about making a large monetary investment in a risky venture, you probably have little to lose by trying—and everything to gain.
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Thanks, Deborah
Your brother is a great lawyer 🙂 Good article!