The idea of a lifelong career is a bit of a fallacy nowadays. Statistics have shown that people are no longer settling for one multi-decade career anymore. As of today, a person changes jobs at least 10 to 15 times during the length of their career; 6.2 million U.S. workers changed their occupational field just during 2015-2016; 2.3% of people in the legal field (attorneys, lawyers, etc.) changed their careers during 2015-2016.
It shouldn’t come as much surprise that some people decide to no longer work in the occupation of legality, since it is a difficult field to work in. Burnout — the physical, mental, and emotional state where extreme stress will cause people to become overly fatigued — is common among lawyers simply by how demanding the job is: You spend your undergraduate years working as hard as you can, getting internships when possible, then you do the same for graduate school, and then you’re out of school and working full-time, doing your best to build a portfolio and grow as a lawyer, working non-stop to better your practice and receive more clients/trials. It’s an endless job that requires a great deal of work ethic and time.
That’s not to say that people who begin to deal with burnout are failures at their job, far from that. Rather, these people are simply being worn down by a career that often works people far too hard from the very beginning — comparable to the medical field. If you’re one of these people — becoming disinterred in your work because of how taxing it is, you might need a career change. If this seems to be of interest to you, you should utilize the help of executive coaching.
Executive coaching, the methods of professional help both as a life and career coach, is someone that will help evaluate where you are in life and determine what your interest are, what your life skills are, and help guide you towards an approachable career change, particularly by providing advice future career directions. A good executive coach will enact executive coaching so to find the best qualities in candidates, highlighting their strengths within their original career (and life) and applying those elsewhere. In the case of law, executive coaches can properly point out jobs for burned out lawyers, providing the basis for these people to execute midlife career changes with ease and grace.
At its best, an executive coach will provide executive coaching such that it remembers you are human — you’re more than your resume and portfolio. They will work alongside you to figure out what you would like to do for the future, what your skills are inside and outside of the workplace, and what you are willing to do for the future, combining all of these to ensure the betterment of your physical, mental, and emotional health for the future.
Just like with law, executive coaching is all about representing the client, making them the number one concern. In the case of executive coaching, the number one interest is giving you the best future possible.