Moving mountains

In this edition, Elizabeth Rimmer talks about how, by taking small steps, we can transform the way we work in the legal sector and better protect mental health.

We had an all staff in person planning day yesterday, where we checked in on our current strategy and thought about what we want to see in our 2024 impact report and then worked backwards from that to determine what we need to do to get there. The usual sort of stuff but for it was us particularly galvanising as we are a fully remote organisation, so being in the room together is always an added bonus. Our thinking was stimulated by a HUGE box of Lindt chocolates (I am talking well over 150 delightful?spheres) sent to us by our friends at the Conveyancing Foundation . You will be pleased to hear we didn’t eat all of them, and our families were all thrilled with the bounty brought back from London.

We talked about the challenges we face, both as an organisation and a sector to support those struggling with day-to-day life in the law and how we can build the movement to change the way we work in law to protect mental health. And most importantly we talked about the positive and practical steps that can be taken.

One of my colleagues reminded us of the story about how you can move a mountain (i.e. to tackle what seems impossible or too difficult to contemplate) by breaking it down into small pieces and moving it one spade of earth at a time.?Which got me thinking and Googling. The analogy comes from Confucius who said "the man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones". This?profound wisdom from over 2500 years ago reminds us that the path to success often seems daunting and overwhelming, but even the most gigantic of tasks can be achieved through gradual and persistent effort, taking small, consistent steps in the right direction.

One of the key messages from Confucius's proverb is the power of persistence; we may be tempted to give up on our goals because they seem insurmountable but staying the course and chipping away at objectives little by little, day by day will help us get there. It also reminds us of the importance of setting realistic and achievable goals; by breaking the mountain down into smaller, manageable tasks it makes the overall goal less intimating and provides a way forward.?And importantly it reinforces that what we are striving for is a journey not a destination. Our views and feelings about the mountain will change along the way.

We often procrastinate about getting going on transformational journeys, coming up with lots of reasons to put off getting started. But it’s about starting where you can, in the words of CS Lewis?"you can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending."?I love this quote as it says to us that wherever we find ourselves on the mountain, we will move it if we are looking for the next stone we are going to carry away.

So where do we begin?

How do we choose which stones to carry away?? How can we really change the way we work in law to protect mental health? The mountain can seem impossible to move.

As individuals working or training in the sector, we can each carry away the stones of stigma, share our experiences, talk about mental health, and get involved in our organisation’s mental health networks or initiatives. Each single act of storytelling, awareness raising or advocacy contributes to moving the mountain. And you may never know the impact of your voice - you may give someone the confidence to seek help, provide them with the comfort of feeling less alone, or enable them to speak up too. You don’t have to be loudest, or the strongest, or the most confident to have influence.

Intentional leadership can move mountains

As organisations we can carry away some of those larger stones by showing visible commitment at the top, ensuring words are backed up by actions and setting goals that are transparent and can be measured. We can build collaboration within our organisations so that ways of working that protect mental health become a shared priority for everyone. Just because we think working in the legal sector equals stress, long hours and high pressure, it doesn’t have to be this way.?But leaders don’t move mountains on their own, what they do is create the conditions and provide the resources to inspire people to see and act on their potential to carry away those stones.??

In the end moving a mountain is about choosing to move yourself from where you are to where you want to be; working out what matters to you. So, if a healthy sustainable legal sector matters to you, pick up a stone and carry it away (because each of us can) and watch the mountain crumble before you.

By Elizabeth Rimmer, CEO of LawCare.

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