Alumni Connections

Career Corner

Living the Life You Love: A Q&A with Tama J. Kieves, HLS '85

Question: I'm not really happy with my current job but don't know what I want to do instead. What advice do you have?

Answer: First, this is what I want you to know. You are bright and strong and capable of anything. I’d like you to consider this question that came to me when I wrote my first book, This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love: “If you’re this successful doing work you don’t love, what could you do with work you do love? ”

Please know that your current mood is not indicative of your potential or future. That’s because it’s hard to feel passionate about anything when you’re miserable. You may start thinking you have no interests or energy. But you may just be beaten down with current circumstances. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a calling with your name on it. It could just mean you’re tired.

Before I talk about how to find out what else you can do instead, let’s take a moment to look at what you might do to tweak or refine your current situation.

Can you love your current job?

Is there something in your job you really dislike? What if these parts were gone? What do you love about your job? What elements still fuel you? If you could design the perfect situation within your law firm or business what would it be? Who might you need to talk to? Or is it a balance issue? Sometimes it’s not the job that’s killing us; it’s the way we do the job. For example, if you devoted more time to your family or to going away to your cabin, or to playing tennis on the weekend, would this be the nourishment you’re missing?

I have a client who works for a small prestigious law firm and cannot leave her position. She longs to write fiction though. Instead of leaving her job, she just decided not to let it monopolize her. She decided to put her writing first in line. She gets up before dawn and writes before she steps into her lawyer self. “I give it my best mental energy, before I’m sucked into work,” she says. “And when the boss upsets me, I use that material in the novel. It’s great therapy.” I’ve watched her attitude, her life, and even her career blossom as a result.

But sometimes it isn’t a balance issue or a small adjustment that’s required. Sometimes we’re talking career overhaul. There are many ways to stimulate your thoughts about careers. You can read the want ads, talk to other lawyers, or sift through career change books. But I’d love you to use your career discontent as a creative opportunity to go even deeper with your search. The renowned psychologist Abram Maslow, said “All that we can be, we must be.” There is this imperative within us. Consider this time in your life as your launch pad.

How do you know what you want to do?

Here are some steps that worked for me—and have worked for many of my clients:

Take time out: As a career coach, I hear this often: “I have lots of ideas, but I’m not sure what to do.” Here’s the deal: Your mind may be swarming with ideas. But you only have a few crystal clear choices when you listen to your heart or your gut. When you connect with your feelings or instincts, everything falls away but the truth. But you can’t know what you want when you’re overwhelmed or numb.

The first step in any career search is getting time and space away from your current career. In This Time I Dance, I wrote about how “It takes an intermission to give birth to a mission.” Like many lawyers I was overworked and under the gun all the time. I lived on adrenaline, not inspiration. I couldn’t work my crazy hours and dive for pearls of wisdom at the same time. I needed time away.

It may be the same for you. You might need to take a vacation, work fewer hours, take back your weekends, or even leave your job before you know what you want to do. You need free, unscheduled time for reflection, time that helps you re-connect to your core self. You might try taking a walk (without listening to the news), meditating or going to religious services, or talking to a good friend or a great therapist or coach. Begin the journey of self-inquiry, of getting to know what you feel, think, and desire. For many of us, this feels frustrating. We just want an answer! But first we must do the research. We re-search ourselves to find out who we are today and what we really want.

Give yourself permission to explore: Sometimes we don’t know what we want, because we don’t allow ourselves to know. We deny the desires that threaten to rock our boats or sink them. I was terrified to admit to myself that I wanted to be a writer. It sounded like a one-way ticket to poverty. Here’s the secret to immediate clarity. Give yourself permission to want anything. It’s just information. You don’t have to reject it or leap on it right away.

Want to find out what really excites you? Then ramp up your commitment to fun. Yes, fun. It’s the most productive thing you can do on your career journey. Explore the projects, passions, causes, and dreams you may have put aside. Ignore that knee-jerk temptation to “get realistic.” “Practicality” doesn’t belong in the brainstorming “pull-all-of-the-possibilities-out-of-the-hat” stage. Most people don’t know what they love, because they never ask themselves “What do I love?” They ask themselves, “What do I love that will make money?” “What do I love that I have credentials for?” “What do I love that I’m not too old for?”

As I wrote in This Time I Dance, “You won’t find the secret notes to a saxophone life with a bookkeeping mind.” You are looking for where you have natural drive and inexplicable joy or interest. For the moment, turn off that legal brain that looks for liabilities and evaluates risks. (Don’t worry—you can always turn it back on!) It’s so easy to think about something you’d like to do and immediately analyze all that can go wrong with it. Instead, allow yourself to imagine the other side of the coin. Imagine that you have more talents and resources than you realize. Imagine that you could succeed at anything you dared.

Once you have ideas about things you might like to do, I encourage you to experiment with them. Read about your interest, take a class or volunteer. Feed your desires and they will build momentum. Give yourself permission to try different things and to take your time. You may have different career expressions within the law or outside the law or both. Don’t rein yourself in or define yourself too soon. I know it’s uncomfortable not to have a tidy label. But it’s even more uncomfortable to work day in and day out in a career that doesn’t fit you.

And remember that we Harvard Law School alumni have tremendous potential. We threw those crimson caps into the sky and they landed with a secret obligation. We who have higher educations are called to go higher in our lives, use our rich gifts, think for ourselves, taste every opportunity, redefine this world, and create new pathways, paradigms and possibilities for others. May you go beyond your fears and doubts and choose to honor your brilliance. May you give yourself everything you need—and shower our world with your gifts.

Tama J. Kieves, HLS ‘85, left her law practice with a large corporate firm to write and to encourage others to live fulfilling, meaningful lives. She is a speaker, career coach and author of This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love (How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All) (Tarcher/Penguin). She is also on the faculty of the Omega Institute and the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health and teaches at the Canyon Ranch resort. Information about Tama’s workshops, coaching, and e-newsletter is available on her website www.AwakeningArtistry.com.