Appealing to Skeptics

Hi Friend,

Last week, I had the privilege of returning to my alma mater, Yale Law School, to deliver a workshop on positive psychology.  At the beginning of the program I told the students that I wish someone had forced me to attend a program like this when I was in their seat. 

The reason I said forced is because even if something like this had been offered at the time (which it definitely was not!) there is no way I would have gone.  

You see, contrary to what these pictures might suggest (we all know photos can be deceiving), back then, I didn’t really care about my health or happiness.  I just wanted to succeed.  

And at the time, I viewed self-care and “success” as being mutually exclusive.  It seemed like basic math – any time I spent fostering feelings of joy, meaning, or connection was time NOT spent studying for fed courts.  And with “my future” on the line, that simply was not a tradeoff I was willing to make. 

*Note: I put “success” in quotes because my conception of success at the time is a far cry from how I define that term today.

It’s no surprise then that fast forwarding to 5 years later, when I was getting certified in positive psychology (something I discovered while googling “How to be happy?” after finally reaching my breaking point), I was faced with a conundrum.  

The things I’d learned in my certification program had completely blown my mind.  And as the only lawyer in the program, I’d grown convinced that all lawyers and law students need to learn this.

But how to get them in the room?  What would it have taken to get law-school Jordana to pay attention before she reached her breaking point?

I finally found my “hook” in our unit on passion. 

According to Bob Vallerand, a leading scholar in motivational processes and optimal functioning, there are two distinct types of passion—“harmonious” and “obsessive”—which have markedly different implications for long-term performance. 

In both cases, the person invests substantial time and energy in the object of their passion. (So far, so good.  I certainly knew tons of lawyers who fit that bill.)

But the harmoniously passionate person maintains a sense of control over their relationship to their passion, meaning that they know when and how to disengage from it when appropriate, which enables them to keep it in harmony with the other areas of their life.

On the other hand, the obsessively passionate person experiences an uncontrollable urge to pursue the object of their passion relentlessly – even when doing so becomes harmful or creates conflict with other important domains of their life (for instance, me limiting social interactions to a painfully bare minimum, completely neglecting my physical health, and working away bleary-eyed into the evening, well beyond the point of diminishing returns, including - I’m embarrassed to admit - after returning home from my law school prom pictured above).

Critically, the research shows that while harmonious and obsessively passionate people perform roughly equivalently in the short term, harmoniously passionate people perform far better over time because they are less susceptible to emotional exhaustion and burnout (see, e.g., me hitting the aforementioned breaking point).

This makes a ton of sense when you think about passion in the context of sports.  Harmoniously passionate athletes understand the need to pace themselves.  They make space for things that nourish them, and they take time off to heal when they get injured so they can fully recover.  By contrast, obsessively passionate athletes train themselves into the ground, pushing through injuries and exhaustion until they’re no longer able to compete at all. 

Importantly, I learned, the emerging body of research on burnout shows that overworking ourselves MENTALLY – and consistently denying ourselves the rest, nourishment, and social connection our bodies need to function optimally – can be just as damaging as PHYSICAL over-training.

Eureka! Finally THIS was something that even my most fiercely driven, high-achieving colleagues — something that even raging over-achiever law-school-Jordana —could latch onto.  Because to ignore it would mean sacrificing their professional performance, in addition to their health and happiness.

So today, friend, I encourage you to consider which of these categories of passion you fall into. 

If it’s of the obsessive variety – and/or if you’ve been thinking to yourself, Jordana, I’ve got so much important work to do, I don’t have TIME to be reading this lengthy blog post, much less doing any of the things you suggest – I urge you to stick with me (indeed, I encourage you to subscribe here!), as your current burning-the-candle-at-both-ends approach will almost certainly do you more harm than good.

And if you’re still struggling to figure out what your passion is in the first place, rest assured that you are not alone (for the longest time, I didn’t have enough brain space for interests, much less passion) and fret not, because I’ve got plenty coming your way, too :)

With love,

Jordana