Five Ways to Put the Mojo Back in Your Practice
Could your practice use a little Mojo?
You know, that feeling of being on your game. On fire. In the zone.
You’re Stephen Curry and you can’t miss. You’re Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games. You’re Perry Mason or Ally McBeal or Alicia Florrick or any of a dozen other larger-than-life fictional lawyers.
The idea of Mojo can be traced back to folklore and a belief in spells and physical talismans. Sometimes magical objects were kept in a tiny bag with a string to be worn around the neck. It protected the wearer and imparted special powers.
Good things happen when you’ve got your Mojo. Think back to a time when you had yours.
Maybe it was in the courtroom, when you connected to a jury in a way that was electric. Or perhaps in the privacy of your office, when you sat down to write a brief and the words flowed like honey. Or you might have to travel farther back in memory, to when you entered law school or landed your first job.
In those glittering moments, your Mojo was working. You knew it. You felt it. You were cooking with gas.
The problem is that for every Mojo moment we have a dozen Meh moments. Not only is our Mojo not cooking, we can’t even get the stove turned on.
Get Your Mojo Rising
The good news is you can get your Mojo back with relative ease. It’s there for the taking and it’s absolutely free.
Here are five places to find your Mojo:
- In silence. Lawyers tend to lead with our brains. We believe we can think our way out of anything. We think and think and think. But Mojo does not come from the brain. It comes from someplace deeper within that can’t be found on a chart or x-ray. Coax it out with silence. Yoga, meditation, prayer, a morning walk, a quiet sunset. These are good places to start.
- In your sleep. Exhaustion saps our Mojo. We barely have enough energy to get dressed, much less sparkle. Revive your Mojo with adequate sleep, relaxation breaks during the day – and hey, how about an afternoon nap?
- Under the sofa. Our lives fall into ruts and our Mojo withers. Change your perspective by redecorating your office, moving your desk, opening the window. What is under that sofa, anyway? Get on the floor and take a look. No telling what you might find.
- In the past. Read “To Kill a Mockingbird” again. Watch “Philadelphia.” Go back to the days when you dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Remember when you yearned to do good, when you wanted to make a difference. You are still that person – only older and wiser, which makes you even more capable of doing awesome things.
- Across the hall. Find a lawyer you admire. One who has a spring in their step and a zest for what they do. Go talk to them. Invite them to lunch. Mojo is contagious. It rubs off on those we come into contact with.
Practicing law is not for the faint-hearted. You need all the help you can get. Recapturing your Mojo can take you to a higher level – wearing a gris-gris bag is optional.
Jay Reeves a/k/a The Risk Man practiced law in North Carolina and South Carolina. He is a former Legal Editor at Lawyers Weekly and Risk Manager at Lawyers Mutual. Contact him at jay.reeves@ymail.com
