How do I know that comfort can kill courage, or at the very least, mute it?

I’ve been wrestling with this in my personal life.

There’s something I’ve been wanting to change, and every time I get close to the edge, I step back into the comfort of the familiar.

Recently, a group of WILL members and I had a lengthy conversation about hitting the snooze button.

Let’s say you want to wake up earlier to work out or start a meditation practice.  But boy oh boy, is that bed comfortable!  Especially in the winter.

It takes a clear connection to the why behind your courageous act to get your butt out of bed, right?

This insight was inspired by a podcast I was listening to about the work of William Bridges, who is an expert on organizational change theory.  Bridges was talking about corporate change, but it operates on both the individual and organizational levels.

He said, “Something has to end before something new can begin.”  

Between the end and the new beginning is a wide swath called the neutral zone.

All new beginnings have some loss embedded in them, even if they are positive and sought after.

The neutral zone must be crossed in order to make it to the new side.

Picture crossing a battlefield. Imagine barbed wire, muddy puddles, even dead bodies that you have to cross over to get to the other side.

No thanks, I’d rather stay in my foxhole, right?

But what if everything you wanted was on the other side – the people you love, the ideals you value, and an end to this bloody war…

The hardest part is having to be both the captain AND the soldier.  You have to light your own fire and listen to your own guidance, or else you ain’t moving.

How does this apply to lawyers who want to leave big law?

For them/you, there is loss of:

• Identity – Who you are, everyone knows what “a lawyer” is (even if they don’t know what you do or how soul-sucking it can be)
• Structure – The people you work with, how you do you job, your friends at work, even navigating the IT systems – it’s all familiar and comfortable
• Future – You had an idea of what it would be like, what your future held, and now you have to give that up

Even if the destination is desired, we have to go through loss.

If you want to talk more about this, or have some help as you go through whatever changes you are going through… book a heart-to-heart call with me.

Here to help you stoke the fire within so your courage out-shines your comfort,