Catastrophize: to imagine the worst possible outcome of an action or an event.

My lawyer brain LOVES to catastrophize. I’m really good at it. But it rarely serves me.

The same is true for you if you are a catastrophizer.

You are probably familiar with decision fatigue.

In a nutshell, the idea is that the more decisions you make, the worse your decisionmaking gets. In particular, over the course of 24 hours, people make worse and worse decisions.

But what about INDECISION fatigue?

Self-advocacy in the workplace can be really uncomfortable for women.

Yesterday, I talked about why that is.

But if you want to advocate for yourself more often, you can both decrease your discomfort with it and expand your capacity for taking action despite your discomfort.

Here are some ways to get started:

Most women will come to a point in their career where putting their head down and working hard just isn’t enough any more.

Where self-advocacy becomes necessary or important for you to get what you want.

Or at the very least, to know where you stand, so you can decide what to do next. Leave. Stay, try something different, and then ask again.

“I feel so behind” or any version of that.

Some tips to foster more creativity in your career or business.

I love this quote, but I think it needs some slight tweaks.

Because we have an enormous amount of control over our emotional experience.

Including whether we decide something is “hard.” “Hard” is a subjective thought.

We already get so much messaging about time and productivity before we even make it to the practice of law. (How old do you think you were the first time you heard “Time is money”?)

We have been taught that our time is a commodity. One that should be traded or used in very specific ways. Traded for money. Traded for success. Traded for prestige. Used to add specific kinds of value to the world.

Then, if you become a lawyer who bills hours, you learn to further commodify your time into 6 minute increments.

You can always take a decision off the table. Even if it’s just temporarily.

If you’re waiting on more information that hasn’t come yet...

If you don’t like the reasons you’re thinking about making a decision right now…

If you are constantly vacillating between the options…

Whatever the reason.

Even things I was looking forward to. I rarely experience disappointment, and I’m never annoyed.

Why? Because I always have the thought “Ooh! Free time!”

BUT I used to never enjoy that time.

Because all the time management techniques in the world — no matter how good you get at them — aren’t going to help you feel good about your time without an accompanying shift in some of your current beliefs.

The three most important ones are:

Perfectionism doesn’t allow for mistakes.

Perfectionism doesn’t create room for growth or learning.

Perfectionism leads to avoidance.

Perfectionism forces you to play small.