Photo by Marissa Grootes via Unsplash
If you had called me a workaholic when I first started my legal career, I might have laughed in your face.
They say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, and that feels very true. I began my well-being journey a little more than 5 years ago. The first vacation I had taken in years, possibly a decade or more, was a bucket list vacation I had postponed more than once and finally took in February of 2020. Ironically, when I returned home, I had to quarantine for a couple of weeks, and then my state went into a lockdown. So, in a weird way, working remotely for those few months felt a little like an extended vacation.
And a rest that I never knew I needed.
The forced pauses led me to my own well-being journey, which led me to become more active in my local bar association’s Health and Well Being Committee and my state bar association’s Wellness Community and, of course, to IWIL.
When I participated in the 2025 IWIL Conference this past January, I found myself drawn to two programs—namely, “The Paradox of Perfection: Why Nothing Feels Good Enough” and “Resting the Case: Why the Legal Profession Needs to Relinquish Grind Culture.”
Needless to say, my workaholic journey is a work in progress, for example, this post has endured multiple edits and drafts to make it “perfect” though I will need be ok with it as it is.
I wanted to share some of my key takeaways from both of the programs—this student was ready for the teachers.
Amy’s 6 Key Takeaways from “The Paradox of Perfection: Why Nothing Feels Good Enough”
1. Pursuing excellence and attention to detail are key to the practice of law. Still, there is a difference between pursuing excellence and falling into the perfectionism cycle, which can cause more harm than good, causing procrastination, severe anxiety, fear of failure, or feeling stuck.
2. The perfectionism cycle has three main phases: 1. Relentless striving for extremely high, unrelenting standards set up to make us fail; 2. Experiencing negative consequences of setting such demanding standards, yet continuing to pursue them despite the cost; and 3. Judging your self-worth based on your ability to strive for and achieve such unrelenting standards.
3. Perfectionism can lead to thinking traps, otherwise known as cognitive distortions. These include: “shoulds” and “musts,” catastrophizing or blowing things out of proportion, mental filters, and black-and-white thinking. Thinking traps can impede creativity or problem-solving and undermine our creativity.
4. Perfectionism is a joy killer and can impact well-being in a number of ways that impair our ability to bring our best self to our best work: stress and overwhelm, irritability, lack of fulfillment, burnout, relationship strain, impaired decision-making, decreased motivation and productivity, distractibility, and other physical health problems.
5. Perfectionism can also have negative impacts for underrepresented groups and communities. For example, a stereotype threat may lead people in underrepresented groups to feel pushed to overcompensate in order not to be the stereotype, which can lead to some of the perfectionist behaviors that create additional anxiety for them.
6. A strategy for addressing perfectionism is to interrupt the perfectionist behaviors. To break the cycle, 1. Identify the perfectionist thoughts and standards—take a moment to reflect on the thoughts or behaviors you want to change; 2. Challenge the thought, then reframe the thought; and 3. Monitor and reduce the behavior by setting limits to the behavior through a growth mindset, practicing self-compassion, reframing thoughts, or keeping a list of positive outcomes from the month.
Amy’s 6 Key Takeaways from “Resting the Case: Why the Legal Profession Needs to Relinquish Grind Culture”
1. Taking breaks and periods of rest can be modeled by leadership at firms and in our offices. A crucial question to consider is who is allowed to rest (take breaks, vacations, time off, leave the office) and whose work is deemed necessary to forego the same. And why?
2. Lawyers need rest for optimal physical and mental performance, just like other elite performers, athletes, and, well, everybody.
3. Our bodies have natural cycles and are generally preset to need a break every 90 minutes or so for maximum performance.
4. Sleep is only one type of rest. Rest also includes taking a break, going for a walk, socializing for a few minutes, or just doing something you enjoy that gives you a boost, even for a minute or two.
5. “Rest” does not have to be all about big moments but can also be about smaller moments spread out throughout the day.
6. Your brain can either focus (task-positive) or wander (task-negative), but not both simultaneously. Your most creative thoughts often come when you let your mind wander and integrate your thoughts.
