A focus on lawyer personal development

Investing in new skills and experiences can help your small law firm grow. Lawyer personal development should support all aspects of your life, including business success.

Lifelong learning

Lawyers have spent years learning and honing our craft. We have all survived years of grueling law school and maybe another several years working our way up the ladder in big law firms.

Personal development, however, goes far beyond earning degrees and certifications or meeting career milestones. It’s about more than CLE.

True lifelong learning keeps us connected to topics we care about most and helps us maintain a growth mindset in all aspects of our lives.

As America’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) observes:

“Working on personal development will motivate you to work harder. You’ll experience higher satisfaction when you have a clear path to follow. You’ll see a domino effect on your productivity and the overall productivity of your business.”

If you have hit a lull in your law business, or in your life, a focus on learning and development can help pull you out of the slump.

Consider the following ways to pursue learning and development:

  • Listen to a new podcast. Whether business-focused or not, a quality podcast on a topic of interest can expand your worldview. (Start here for some ideas.)
  • Attend workshops. Again, find something that resonates personally for you.
  • Take a class. Art, language, dance, tennis lessons or something business related. Learning something new, or expanding on something you used to enjoy, helps you use your brain in new and creative ways that will serve you in life and business.
  • Join a new group. Toastmasters, a service organization or a nontraditional networking group can expose you to new people and ideas.

Think about what you love, what interests you and where you want to grow as a lawyer and as a person.

Sustainable growth

We all have finite time in a day, a month or a lifetime. You can’t learn everything or be everything, so a commitment to sustainable development and growth can help you focus on what matters most to you.

To create a sustainable personal development plan:

  • Get clear on your why. What are you hoping to achieve in life and in your law business? try to whittle it down to a phrase or statement that will guide your development decision-making.
  • Pick one or two areas for development. Do you want to improve your health or relationships? Do you want to become a better speaker and land more speaking opportunities? Would negotiation or technology skills enhance your business? Choose one or two areas where you can make impact in the next six months to a year.
  • Set achievable goals with clear action steps. Give yourself a timeline for action and several small steps along the way.
  • Measure results. Start at the end when goal-setting. What does improvement look like and how will you know when you have made real progress?

Remember that your goals and plans should reflect your personal values. Don’t set goals based on someone else’s measure of success.

Finding balance

Entrepreneurial lawyers are by nature ambitious. You would not have pursued law or started your own law firm if you did not have big plans. However, your life is about more than your work.

Creating a personal development plan should help you rein in a tendency toward overwork as you become more clear on the kind of life you want to live. Even small changes can help you move toward a better lawyer work-life balance, such as:

  • Setting regular office hours and clocking out on time.
  • Developing relationships with other lawyers and business owners who also prioritize balance in their lives.
  • Creating structures in your business that support more efficient and focused work, including a dedicated office space and technology that reduces workload.

You know instinctively when you are out of balance, and a clear personal development plan can help you get back on track.

Deepening satisfaction

Ultimately, your personal development will lead to a deeper sense of satisfaction with life and business. When you make intentional choices about how to spend your time, and which areas of life deserve your energy, it places you in control.

Rather than going with the current of whatever comes along, personal development allows you to choose your own course.

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