Congratulations! Your personalized stress response type results are in!
Based on what you’ve told me, your lawyer lifestyle is telling you that your stress type is:
FIGHT
The first thing you need to understand is it’s not your fault!
As lawyers, we’re encouraged to hustle and grind day in and day out. We’re expected to over-perform every single day. We have to juggle a thousand little details and work with clients dealing with some of the most challenging things they’ll ever encounter, so they aren’t always pleasant or easy to work with.
The profession we chose leads us to overwork and overwhelm. We wear them like badges of honor as we work ourselves into burnout mode.
After a while, your nervous system is in a perpetual FIGHT response, which is why you fly off the handle over insignificant irritations even when you aren’t at work. You have trouble controlling your temper even though you do your best.
That’s your nervous system stuck in FIGHT mode. When something unexpected happens, your nervous system reacts in the way it’s come to operate—with anger, defensiveness, and resentment.
But What Do I Know?
Hello! I’m James Ferguson, a former trial lawyer.
Why do I know so much about living in FIGHT Mode? Well, because I experienced it for myself!
Just under ten years ago, I went through a professional burnout that nearly cost me everything: my partner, my health, my home, my dog, and my life. Ironically, it didn’t cost me my career. It’s funny the things we can save at the cost of everything else.
Fortunately, that crucible experience transformed me. It allowed me to let go of what wasn’t true and embrace what was. In doing so, I freed myself from many false and limiting beliefs and behaviors that got me stuck in that rut.
Once I made it through that wilderness, transformed, I vowed to help anyone that I could in hopes they could avoid my burnout experience. That’s how I transitioned from trial lawyer to professional coaching.
I believe that we are all living just a small portion of our true potential. It often takes a few insights supported by a sustained change to radically shift our lives into greater ease, happiness, and connection with who and what matters to us.