Jenn Deal Coaching

This is a common mindset trap, especially for women in law. The demands are high, the stakes feel enormous, and there’s often a subtle message that you could always be doing more or better.

So, when you’re not getting explicit praise or feedback, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that you’re somehow falling short. It sounds like:
▫️“If no one’s complimenting my work, maybe it’s not good enough.”
▫️“They haven’t reached out, so maybe they’re disappointed.”
▫️“I haven’t heard anything back…what if I missed something?”
▫️“I’m a little slow on work. What if no one wants to work with me anymore?”

This constant second-guessing creates a cycle of self-doubt that drains your energy and confidence. And what’s more—there’s no actual evidence to support these fears.

Here’s the shift:
What if, instead of assuming the worst, you assumed that you’re actually doing just fine? And what if you started looking for the evidence that supports your success, instead of your worries?

Here’s how to start:
1️⃣Track Small Wins: At the end of each day, note one thing you handled well. These small wins are proof of your competence.
2️⃣Check the Facts: Before you assume a negative outcome, look for real feedback. Ask for clarity if you need it—don’t rely on assumptions.
3️⃣Trust Your Professionalism: Remind yourself that if there were issues, you’d likely hear about them. Silence is not a signal of failure.

If you work with me, in our coaching sessions, we’ll work on strengthening that self-trust, so you stop questioning your worth without cause. Together, we’ll identify concrete ways to measure success that don’t rely on constant feedback or assumptions. Just sign up for a call with me at the Book an Appointment link in my bio to hear more about how coaching can increase your confidence and decrease your spin outs.

It’s time to break the habit of looking for what’s wrong. You deserve to feel confident in the work you’re doing each day!

Overachieving sounds like such a good thing.

In reality, it isn’t good or bad. It just is.

But when it comes from a place of tying your self-worth to achievement and external validation, it often leads to the opposite of what overachievers want.

Overworking and underperforming.

Overpromising and underdelivering.

Constantly hustling for your self-worth and coming up short because you don’t actually give yourself the time and mental energy to do things well.

This kind of overachieving isn’t sustainable, doesn’t work, and leads to a lot of negative thoughts about yourself.

I like to overachieve. I like to overdeliver. I like to overperform.

And that’s okay.

But I also don’t make it mean anything about me if I don’t.

If I CHOOSE not to.

I decide when I want to overachieve and why.

Do I like my reasons?

Or am I hustling for my self-worth? Hustling for external validation?

Or am I equating overachieving with overworking or how much I work? (They are not the same).

If I don’t like my reasons, I don’t do it.

It sounds simple.

And it is.

But it isn’t easy.

You have a lifetime of socialization to start unwinding.

A lifetime of messaging that our society values productivity and achievement above all else.

A lifetime of tying your self-worth to productivity and achievement.

BUT that unwinding process is so worth it.

Even just a little bit of unwinding. A little bit of awareness. It will create shifts for you that you can’t imagine right now.

A ❤️ note to you:

It can feel daunting when you start to think about unwinding any kind of social conditioning. Longstanding thought patterns. Longstanding stories about yourself and your life. It helps to have someone in your corner that has 100% belief in your current wholeness and an objective eye to help you see where the stories and conditioning are holding you back. I love helping lawyerswith exactly this. Send me a DM or sign up for a free call with me at the Book an Appointment link in my bio. Let the unwinding begin.

No one really is.

Especially not when it comes to the kind of multitasking we try to do at work. Going back and forth between emails and substantive work, trying to draft something while we are participating in a meeting, etc.

But we sure do love telling ourselves we are good at it.

And if you’re a woman, you’ve probably been taught the myth that you are better at it (or at least that you should be).

Multitasking is often a product of anxiety. And creates more anxiety.

First, you overfill your plate because you are anxious that you aren’t doing enough or are too worried about what someone will think if you say “no” (or both).

Then you get anxious about how full your plate is and how behind you are, so you try to juggle multiple tasks at the same time to stop that anxiety.

Which means you are taking longer to do things and doing them poorly because humans aren’t good at multitasking. Which creates more anxiety.

So much unnecessary anxiety.

Multitasking harms productivity. It lowers your cognitive function. It reduces efficiency. It leads to mistakes and worsens your performance. Because you aren’t multitasking - you’re just task switching and giving it a prettier name.

Yet, we still pretend we are good at it. Or chastise ourselves because we aren’t. Because we think being a good multitasker means something about us.

We’ve been taught our entire lives that our value as human beings lies in how much we do. How productive we are. How much we achieve. So of course we think being able to multitask is a good way to measure our own value.

But multitasking has no moral value. So the fact that you aren’t good at it (because you’re human), doesn’t mean anything about you.

Once you ditch the idea that you can be or should be good at multitasking, you get to solving the real problem: why you feel the urge to multitask AND why you have so much on your plate that you think you have to.

I’m sure you know that intellectually. But trying to do the former and not the latter can sometimes feel like a tightrope walk over a canyon with no safety net.

Especially if you value being a hard worker. (Which most of us do - or at least think we do, given our socialization that has us tying our self-worth to how much we get done.) The tendency to slip into overwork is high.

Do you know the difference between working hard and overworking for you personally?

Because your cues (the ones that should alert you to check in with yourself) aren’t necessarily the same as mine. And your definitions may change in different seasons of your life.

Our gut instinct is to base that decision on how much we are working. The number of hours. And that can be a factor, but I don’t think it’s usually a determining one on its own.

Because sometimes a 50-hour week feels totally manageable. Sometimes a 30-hour week feels completely unmanageable.

So what is it for you that differentiates the two?

Some questions to help you reflect:

Think about a time recently when your week was hectic, but you didn’t feel a lot of overwhelm, anxiety, or exhaustion.

Think about a time recently when your week was really hectic, and you did feel a lot of overwhelm, anxiety, or exhaustion.

What was the difference?

Was it how much you worked?
Was it how much you were doing outside of work on top of the workload?
Was it the number of events you had scheduled in addition to the work?
Was it the difference between making sure you got enough sleep and not paying attention to your sleep?
Was it that you made sure to get your workouts in one time but didn’t the other time?
Was it the difference in the kind of work you were doing or who you were working with?
Was it the kinds of emotions you felt and how often you felt them?
Was it the way you were thinking about the work and yourself?

If you can’t pinpoint the difference, next time you have a busy week, start to create some awareness.

How did it feel?
Were you working hard or were you overworking?
How do you know?
What worked?
What didn’t?
Do you want to do anything differently moving forward?