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Not all mistakes and not all risks are created equal; we need to be more discerning about how and where we spend mental energy, suggests Matthew Richardson
I struggle a great deal with making mistakes. At times I worry disproportionately about making a mistake, to the point of it being a real hindrance.
To take a recent example – I was sent an extra 1,000 pages of documents the evening before a two-day trial – absurdly late, and far too late to be able to prepare as well as I would usually want to. Then despite having only a very limited amount of time, I spent a number of hours of that time doing little more than worrying I wouldn’t be able to prep the case properly and that it would be a complete disaster. The irony being, of course, that in worrying so much I did little more than reduce even further the time I had.
And for all those times when I notice I’m worrying too much about making mistakes, there are doubtless plenty more times when I’m doing exactly the same, but not even noticing.
My historic rationalisation of this trait was straightforward: label it ‘perfectionism’, pretend to be aware it’s not ideal, but secretly take pride in my perfectionism because really it means I produce work of the highest quality. It’s one of those non-answers to the classic interview question: ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’
However, this is at best incomplete, and at worst harmful, as a way of thinking about making mistakes. A large part of this mindset comes as a result of my legal training – I’ve been taught to think this way, and this must be recognised and accounted for, to mitigate its negative side effects. Our approach to making mistakes is broken and unhealthy, and we need to open our eyes to it.
How can it be an issue to try and avoid making them?
The surface-level response is of course mistakes can be very negative and avoiding mistakes can be a perfectly good and simple goal. I’m not pretending mistakes are just fine and dandy; they can obviously be a big deal.
But on the other hand, in many areas of life mistakes are seen as both an ordinary and an important part of being human, and of improvement. Mistakes aren’t simply ‘bad’ – for example, modern education teaches children that when you lose, you learn. Mistakes are a crucial part of success and they form a pathway to excellence.
In law, by contrast, a mistake is almost universally seen as an entirely negative event. We are taught to avoid mistakes at almost all costs, and to seize upon the mistakes of others.
This is an institutional-level mindset we hammer into people from the start of law school. Of course, sometimes it is useful to ask ourselves: ‘What’s the worst-case scenario, and how do we protect the client and the case against that?’ However, for an experienced lawyer, this laser focus on potential crises can become so automatic that it causes problems. It’s not always helpful to devote our attention to imagining how disastrously wrong everything might go.
Our ‘perfectionism’ can become a destructive mindset. Law’s cultural aversion to mistakes ignores the inevitable, basic reality of being human, namely that we all make mistakes on a regular basis. To deny this is to lose the opportunity to learn, and thus fail to improve. The irony being? We are therefore more likely to make mistakes (and the same ones) in the future.
It’s also exhausting to think in this way all the time. If what I’ve said so far resonates with you, that’s a likely indicator that you’re a conscientious person, and you’re unlikely to actually make a serious mistake even if you don’t observe all of your own actions like a hawk. Indeed, and here comes that ironic point once more, we are perhaps more likely to make mistakes if we exhaust ourselves worrying about every little thing.
The legal system as it has been built can have such small margins for error, on top of which we’ve created such a vicious culture around mistakes, that mistakes carry a disproportionate psychological potency. It’s a harmful approach that’s bad for you and for your clients. And while you may not be able to change this fact about where you work, you can change how you think about it and how you protect yourself.
What we can do is be mindful of what things warrant what level of concern. If a document isn’t critically important, perhaps just proof-reading it once would be enough?
These can be very useful questions to ask.
The most authoritative and reassuring people aren’t those who don’t worry about anything, and they aren’t those who take everything seriously. The most authoritative and reassuring people have the quiet confidence to know which things need to be treated with due care and concern, and which things don’t need worrying about. People who command respect for the value of their time and attention. This quality is something we can model to our clients and in turn, (sometimes, perhaps) they will improve those skills in themselves.
Remember those extra 1,000 pages I received? The hardest thing about that experience was making my peace with the fact that it was impossible to read them all, and finding the bravery to trust my instincts and experience about which of them might really be important.
That allowed me to devote the majority of my remaining time to the small percentage of the new pages relevant to the strategy I had in place, with the result that the following day at court went well. That makes it sound like I didn’t make a mistake at all – but I did. My mistake was wasting precious time and energy worrying unnecessarily. Thankfully it didn’t impact my client on that occasion, but it did impact my ability to get a good night’s sleep.
‘The difference between I am a screwup and I screwed up may look small, but in fact it’s huge. Many of us will spend our entire lives trying to slog through the shame swampland to get to a place where we can give ourselves permission to both be imperfect and to believe we are enough.’ Brené Brown
In the face of fear of mistakes, be brave in taking an approach premised in having faith in yourself. You’ve probably not made some massive phantom error that’s undiscovered, and if you have, then you can handle it when it comes, and that time spent over-focused on mistakes is time that could be put to better use.
And framing all the worrying as perfectionism? I think actually it’s a version of imposter syndrome, a way of mischaracterising insecurity as something non-threatening and a way to avoid doing the really hard thing, which is to work smarter, not harder. In an environment where working hard and being busy are fetishised, that’s a true challenge.
The psychological weight of the perceived consequences of making mistakes is such a massive burden. But not all mistakes and not all risks are created equal; we need to be more discerning about how and where we spend mental energy. This way, we make a more manageable and realistic working life for ourselves and provide a better service to our clients.
This article is adapted from a longer-form article on Matthew’s website.
The Mental Health & Wellbeing at the Bar website is full of useful resources and sources of support for barristers’ psychological health. There is also a 24/7 confidential helpline (tel: 0800 169 2040) for self-employed barristers with a practising certificate as well as members of the IBC and LPMA.
LawCare offers peer-to-peer support for anyone in or associated with the legal community. Call: 0800 279 6888 or visit www.lawcare.org.uk. The Samaritans can be contacted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on tel: 116 123, www.samaritans.org or email: jo@samaritans.org. International helplines can be found at: befrienders.org
See also, ‘The imperfections of perfectionism’, Nikki Alderson, Counsel November 2019.
Matthew Richardson is a family barrister specialising in financial remedies, and an all-issues family mediator, based at Coram Chambers, London. You can read more from him at his website: richardsonmj.com
I struggle a great deal with making mistakes. At times I worry disproportionately about making a mistake, to the point of it being a real hindrance.
To take a recent example – I was sent an extra 1,000 pages of documents the evening before a two-day trial – absurdly late, and far too late to be able to prepare as well as I would usually want to. Then despite having only a very limited amount of time, I spent a number of hours of that time doing little more than worrying I wouldn’t be able to prep the case properly and that it would be a complete disaster. The irony being, of course, that in worrying so much I did little more than reduce even further the time I had.
And for all those times when I notice I’m worrying too much about making mistakes, there are doubtless plenty more times when I’m doing exactly the same, but not even noticing.
My historic rationalisation of this trait was straightforward: label it ‘perfectionism’, pretend to be aware it’s not ideal, but secretly take pride in my perfectionism because really it means I produce work of the highest quality. It’s one of those non-answers to the classic interview question: ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’
However, this is at best incomplete, and at worst harmful, as a way of thinking about making mistakes. A large part of this mindset comes as a result of my legal training – I’ve been taught to think this way, and this must be recognised and accounted for, to mitigate its negative side effects. Our approach to making mistakes is broken and unhealthy, and we need to open our eyes to it.
How can it be an issue to try and avoid making them?
The surface-level response is of course mistakes can be very negative and avoiding mistakes can be a perfectly good and simple goal. I’m not pretending mistakes are just fine and dandy; they can obviously be a big deal.
But on the other hand, in many areas of life mistakes are seen as both an ordinary and an important part of being human, and of improvement. Mistakes aren’t simply ‘bad’ – for example, modern education teaches children that when you lose, you learn. Mistakes are a crucial part of success and they form a pathway to excellence.
In law, by contrast, a mistake is almost universally seen as an entirely negative event. We are taught to avoid mistakes at almost all costs, and to seize upon the mistakes of others.
This is an institutional-level mindset we hammer into people from the start of law school. Of course, sometimes it is useful to ask ourselves: ‘What’s the worst-case scenario, and how do we protect the client and the case against that?’ However, for an experienced lawyer, this laser focus on potential crises can become so automatic that it causes problems. It’s not always helpful to devote our attention to imagining how disastrously wrong everything might go.
Our ‘perfectionism’ can become a destructive mindset. Law’s cultural aversion to mistakes ignores the inevitable, basic reality of being human, namely that we all make mistakes on a regular basis. To deny this is to lose the opportunity to learn, and thus fail to improve. The irony being? We are therefore more likely to make mistakes (and the same ones) in the future.
It’s also exhausting to think in this way all the time. If what I’ve said so far resonates with you, that’s a likely indicator that you’re a conscientious person, and you’re unlikely to actually make a serious mistake even if you don’t observe all of your own actions like a hawk. Indeed, and here comes that ironic point once more, we are perhaps more likely to make mistakes if we exhaust ourselves worrying about every little thing.
The legal system as it has been built can have such small margins for error, on top of which we’ve created such a vicious culture around mistakes, that mistakes carry a disproportionate psychological potency. It’s a harmful approach that’s bad for you and for your clients. And while you may not be able to change this fact about where you work, you can change how you think about it and how you protect yourself.
What we can do is be mindful of what things warrant what level of concern. If a document isn’t critically important, perhaps just proof-reading it once would be enough?
These can be very useful questions to ask.
The most authoritative and reassuring people aren’t those who don’t worry about anything, and they aren’t those who take everything seriously. The most authoritative and reassuring people have the quiet confidence to know which things need to be treated with due care and concern, and which things don’t need worrying about. People who command respect for the value of their time and attention. This quality is something we can model to our clients and in turn, (sometimes, perhaps) they will improve those skills in themselves.
Remember those extra 1,000 pages I received? The hardest thing about that experience was making my peace with the fact that it was impossible to read them all, and finding the bravery to trust my instincts and experience about which of them might really be important.
That allowed me to devote the majority of my remaining time to the small percentage of the new pages relevant to the strategy I had in place, with the result that the following day at court went well. That makes it sound like I didn’t make a mistake at all – but I did. My mistake was wasting precious time and energy worrying unnecessarily. Thankfully it didn’t impact my client on that occasion, but it did impact my ability to get a good night’s sleep.
‘The difference between I am a screwup and I screwed up may look small, but in fact it’s huge. Many of us will spend our entire lives trying to slog through the shame swampland to get to a place where we can give ourselves permission to both be imperfect and to believe we are enough.’ Brené Brown
In the face of fear of mistakes, be brave in taking an approach premised in having faith in yourself. You’ve probably not made some massive phantom error that’s undiscovered, and if you have, then you can handle it when it comes, and that time spent over-focused on mistakes is time that could be put to better use.
And framing all the worrying as perfectionism? I think actually it’s a version of imposter syndrome, a way of mischaracterising insecurity as something non-threatening and a way to avoid doing the really hard thing, which is to work smarter, not harder. In an environment where working hard and being busy are fetishised, that’s a true challenge.
The psychological weight of the perceived consequences of making mistakes is such a massive burden. But not all mistakes and not all risks are created equal; we need to be more discerning about how and where we spend mental energy. This way, we make a more manageable and realistic working life for ourselves and provide a better service to our clients.
This article is adapted from a longer-form article on Matthew’s website.
The Mental Health & Wellbeing at the Bar website is full of useful resources and sources of support for barristers’ psychological health. There is also a 24/7 confidential helpline (tel: 0800 169 2040) for self-employed barristers with a practising certificate as well as members of the IBC and LPMA.
LawCare offers peer-to-peer support for anyone in or associated with the legal community. Call: 0800 279 6888 or visit www.lawcare.org.uk. The Samaritans can be contacted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on tel: 116 123, www.samaritans.org or email: jo@samaritans.org. International helplines can be found at: befrienders.org
See also, ‘The imperfections of perfectionism’, Nikki Alderson, Counsel November 2019.
Not all mistakes and not all risks are created equal; we need to be more discerning about how and where we spend mental energy, suggests Matthew Richardson
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