Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I practiced law for 10 years and now I help unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. On this show, I share advice and strategies for aspiring former lawyers, and interviews with former lawyers who have left the law behind to find careers and lives that they love.

Hello, this episode is for those of you who are listening and are just absolutely sick of listening to yourself complaining about your job, which, let's be real, is many of you. Because one of the things that comes up all the time with people when I'm working with them, either in the Collab or working together one-on-one, is they'll tell me, "I just was constantly talking to family and friends about how much the job sucked," or often, "I was constantly talking with my coworkers about how much the job sucked. We were basically trauma-bonding about how terrible it was, and that was the entire core of our friendship." Eventually, there's this sense of, “I can't just listen to myself complain about this. I really need to do something.”

One of the things that stops people from starting the process, even when they are in that place of “I do not want to listen to myself complain about this anymore,” is that I think sometimes it feels like, “Well, if I can't make a move immediately right now, then I don't really have a choice. I just need to keep doing this job and I need to just get over it.” I wanted to talk about that today and, in particular, the fact that if you're in a position where you're like, “I cannot listen to myself complain about this anymore. I am exhausting myself,” you can start the process of figuring out what's next right now—today—without it being like, “Because I'm going to leave tomorrow, or because I'm going to leave next month.”

There are lots of people who come into the Collab, for example, who are not planning to leave their jobs in the next year or even two years. There are plenty of people who are on a three-to-five-year timeline for all sorts of reasons. I think one of the things that can be hard to convey is the ways in which being part of a group that is moving in that direction—even if you are moving in that direction very slowly, even if you know you're not going to be getting out of the law anytime soon—can be so helpful and supportive. Because the things that are causing you to complain about your job constantly are also the things that the people in that community do not like.

Instead of being the one person in your group of coworkers who’s like,

“This sucks, and I actually want to get out,” which is very common. A lot of people will talk about having close friends who are coworkers and spending a ton of time talking about how terrible the experience is in their workplace. But then, often the person who I work with is the only one who’s like, “This is terrible, and therefore it means I should leave eventually.” That can actually feel very isolating.

It can feel good to have the shared camaraderie around, “We’re all suffering,” but then, at a certain point, it actually, for a lot of people, is more demoralizing than if you're working with someone who's just like, “I think this is great.” Because if that's how someone feels, you're not really bonding a bunch about it. But if you're talking to someone who seems to feel the same way that you do, but then it's kind of like, “Oh well, what’s there to do?” that can be really disorienting.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people don't have reasons for staying. I'm not saying that you can't feel like, “This sucks and also I'm staying,” because there are lots of reasons to make that choice. But if you are someone who is like, “This sucks, and I actually do want to leave, that is something that I want to accomplish in reality at some point,” then being in a community with other lawyers who are also in that headspace is super helpful—even if, like I said, you're not going to be leaving anytime soon.

I know I've talked about this before when I've talked about my own story, but I pretty much knew by three years in that I was not going to be a lawyer forever, most likely. Certainly, by six to seven years in, I was virtually certain. A huge part of what made continuing bearable for me—other than having found a bridge job that was basically the best possible legal job that there was for me because of the fact that there was some balance and all sorts of other things—was also, you heard him on the last episode, being married to Ed. He is also a lawyer, or was a lawyer, and he understood where I was coming from.

If there were times where I was like, “Oh my goodness, this thing is driving me nuts,” there was someone there to be like, “Yes, you're not crazy,” and not just to validate the experience, but to be someone who I could talk about future plans with. So if you are sick of listening to yourself complain about your job, first of all, know that you are in good company. This comes up with most of the lawyers who I work with. I remember feeling that way—I am just exhausted by thinking this job sucks.

Also, there are things that you can do to support yourself, even if it's not “I'm immediately leaving.” I already mentioned finding other lawyers who get it piece. The other huge thing—which will be literally not at all surprising to anyone who listens to the podcast—is therapy. Let’s say you are someone who wants to leave but you need to get different pieces in place—whether it’s finances or other things—and so you're on a two-to-five-year timeline, it’s a trajectory, but it’s not an imminent exit.

When I say I think lawyers should be in therapy and therapy is so important to this process, therapy is wonderful and it's also something that takes time. Different amounts of time for different people, depending on all sorts of factors. But if part of the process of figuring out what it is that you should do that is not practicing law involves not just getting a better sense of yourself but also working through some of the things that may be impacting how you think about what you should be doing as a job in therapy, that work is complex. It's not something where you’re going to go into therapy in three sessions and be like, “Okay, I have resolved all issues.”

So if someone comes to me and says, “I need to do something. I'm so sick of hearing myself complain,” other than finding other people who get it, the other thing I will always strongly recommend is, if you don’t have a therapist, find a therapist. It can be as simple as telling a therapist, “I'm doing this job. It's not the right fit. I don’t know what I should do next. I feel there are some things that I need to explore around that,” it doesn't have to be super complicated. It doesn't have to be any diagnosis that is a great jumping-off point to dig into a lot of different things.

That is what I have to share with you today. If you're sick of hearing yourself complain about your job, you're definitely not alone. We have basically all been there, and there is a lot of cause for hope.

If you're interested in joining the Collab, which is, of course, my community and program for lawyers who are figuring out what it is that they want to do that is not practicing law, you're always welcome to do that. It's open all the time, and you can go to formerlawyer.com/collab and literally all the information is there. I appreciate your attention today, and I will talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening. I absolutely love getting to share this podcast with you. If you haven't yet, I invite you to download my free guide: First Steps to Leaving the Law at formerlawyer.com/first. Until next time, have a great week.