What if this wasn’t a breaking point… but a beginning?

Not because things aren’t hard. But because part of you knows—you can’t keep living like this.

Maybe you’ve outgrown a version of yourself that was built on performance, on people-pleasing, on pretending to be fine.

Maybe you’re tired of measuring your worth by your output—or your exhaustion.

And maybe, even if it’s faint, even if it’s scary, there’s a whisper of something inside that says: It doesn’t have to be this way. 

That’s what this series is for. This series, called, What If It Gets to Be Good? is not about productivity hacks or checklists.

It’s about the quiet, powerful work of becoming the version of you who doesn’t just survive… but feels fully alive.

The version of you who leads from clarity.
Who rests without guilt.
Who trusts her voice—even when it goes against the grain.

What if this moment is the start of something better?”
And  this is your invitation to find out what’s possible when you stop performing—and start listening to your body, your values, and the version of you that’s been waiting to be heard.”

Have you ever found yourself thinking: “I don’t even know what I want anymore”?

Not because you lack ambition. Not because you’re apathetic. But because you’ve spent so long scanning for what others need from you—clients, partners, family—that your own wants have been pushed to the background.

So when the question comes up—"what do I want?" —it short-circuits. You either go blank. Or you answer with what sounds acceptable: more balance, less stress, a vacation maybe.

But underneath that is something deeper. Something more human. And much more powerful.

This episode is an invitation to reconnect with that part of you. The one that knows. Even if the knowing is quiet right now.

Welcome to The Lawyer Burnout Solution, the podcast for women attorneys who want to stay in the careers they worked so hard to build—without running themselves into the ground. I’m Heather Mills, and every week, I’ll share the tools, strategies, and mindset shifts you need to reclaim your energy, confidence, and career.

This is the first episode in a special three-part series called: What If It Gets to Be Good?

This isn’t about recovery checklists or stress management hacks. You already know how to manage. This is about what happens after you’ve hit your limit.

After you’ve realized, "I can’t keep doing it this way." After you’ve stopped telling yourself how you're not exhausted.

It’s about what comes next.

What if you didn’t have to earn ease? What if you didn’t have to justify your desire for more? What if your career, your body, your life—didn’t have to feel like one long to-do list?

This is a series about the quiet, revolutionary act of listening to yourself again.

And we begin with desire. When I ask my clients what they want, here’s what often happens:

They pause. They look up. They try to come up with something reasonable. And then they say: “I mean, I’d like a little more space in my day. I’d like to read a book. Go to lunch with a friend. Maybe write again. Or take a Friday off.”

And then comes that internal voice: “That’s not realistic.” “Just be grateful for this job and this paycheck.” “Don’t be so high maintenance.”

What we’re naming here is not indecisiveness. It’s internalized suppression. 

When you spend your life taking pride in being useful, in being responsive, in being reliable, your nervous system stops registering what you want.

And when it does show up? It feels threatening. Because what if you get it wrong? What if someone thinks you’re selfish? What if you want something you can’t have? Wanting starts to feel like a liability. And a lot of that is social conditioning. As women, we are taught from an early age to tune in to what others expect from us—and to tune out what we actually want.

We’re praised for being agreeable, selfless, and easy to work with. We’re warned—sometimes directly, sometimes subtly—not to be too ambitious, too sensitive, too much.

So it makes perfect sense that desire would feel complicated. Even dangerous.

And when that desire does show up? We overfunction instead. You get better at anticipating what everyone else wants—and worse at noticing your own cues. I mean seriously, “how many of us have a PhD in anticipating others’ needs?

That’s not a personal flaw. That’s what happens when your value has been tied to output, perfection, or praise.

I know this pattern intimately. There was a time in my legal career where I would have told you I was thriving. On paper, I had it all. Big cases. Smart colleagues. A reputation for doing good work.

But if you’d asked me what I wanted? I would have blanked. I knew what needed to happen. What the deadline was. What the team needed. What the judge wanted.

But what I wanted? I didn’t trust myself to answer. Because the honest answers felt too inconvenient. Too personal. Too risky.

It took me a long time to realize that wasn’t about ambition. It was a pattern of putting my own voice last—disguised as professionalism.

Desire can feel like a dangerous word if you’re not used to listening to it. People write it off as sexual. 

Desire isn’t indulgent. It’s intelligent. It’s your inner compass. Your lawyer brain wants evidence—desire is valid evidence, it just often whispers instead of shouts.

It’s how your nervous system tells you: “There is more life available here.” That could mean more rest. It could mean more creativity. It could mean less pretending. But you can’t access any of that if the only question you’re asking yourself is: "How do I keep up?" What if you asked instead: “What do I long for that I’ve been trained to ignore?”

Because here’s what I believe: ”You don’t need to blow up your life to reconnect with desire. You just have to stop overriding it.

So let’s make this simple. Tonight, or sometime this week: Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Label one side: More of this. The other: Less of this. And just start writing.

More time alone. Less explaining yourself. More movement. Less multitasking. More slow mornings. Less back-to-back meetings. More laughter. Less pretending everything’s fine.

There are no right answers. No strategic goal. This is just about noticing what your body’s been whispering to you. And if you get stuck? That’s okay. Start with: “What am I craving?” Start with: “What am I tired of faking?”

I say this from experience. Years ago, after leaving my job, I did the big Eat, Pray, Love thing. I went to Asia thinking that’s what I needed to figure out what I wanted—some kind of grand clarity in a quiet place far away from all the noise.

And don’t get me wrong—it was beautiful. Amazing. But here’s the truth most people don’t tell you: I still didn’t know how to listen to myself.

Because no amount of new time zones or temple visits can can reconnect you with what your nervous system has learned to shut down.

What I really needed to learn was this: How to tune in to my body. How to hear my own answers without running them through someone else’s approval filter first. How to trust what I knew, even when it didn’t make sense on paper.

And that skill? You don’t need a plane ticket to get there. You can practice that on a couch in your sweatpants. In 5 quiet minutes between meetings. Or right now, with this list.

And for some, even this list might feel hard. Not because they don’t care—but because the signal is buried so deep under years of overfunctioning that it’s hard to hear.

That’s why in my coaching, I use something called Matrix Visualization. It’s a trauma-informed visualization process that helps you access the quiet knowing underneath all the mental noise.

It’s not mindset fluff. It’s a way to work with the parts of your brain and body that already know what you want, but have learned to stay silent.

And it’s been one of the most powerful tools for helping women trust themselves again. Not because someone told them what to want, but because they remembered what was true, from the inside out.

So what does it actually look like when you're connected to your desire?

Maybe you leave the office at 5, on purpose.
Not because everything's done, but because you decide your evening matters too.

You say no without over-explaining.
You take on work that energizes you instead of just padding your résumé.
You finally hear yourself think again—because your nervous system isn’t on high alert 24/7.

You shift into a new role that actually fits.
Or you stay where you are—but on your own terms this time.

But the biggest shift? It’s not what you do. It’s who you are when you stop betraying yourself to make other people comfortable.

You start to feel safe in your body again.
Grounded. Unapologetic. Whole.

You stop making other people’s reactions mean something about your worth.
You stop shrinking yourself to avoid judgment.
You stop chasing gold stars you don’t even want.

Yes, the inner critic still shows up.
But she’s not in charge anymore.

Because now, you have a different voice inside you that’s strong and powerful.
One that says:
I know who I am. I like who I am. I trust who I am.

And that kind of self-trust?
It changes everything.

And let me say this clearly: I don’t live here all the time.
I forget. I fall back into old patterns.
I still over-function, over-apologize, override myself some days.
But now, I know how to come back.

I know how to hear that deeper voice—the one I used to ignore.
And that’s what I want for you.
Not perfection. Just access. Just return.

That’s the kind of freedom we’re talking about.
Not just freedom from burnout—
But freedom to want what you want, and live like you mean it.

She might be quiet right now.
But she’s not gone.

She’s just waiting for you.

If something in this episode resonated with you—if it named something you’ve experienced—I want to invite you to take one intentional step forward: book a free call.

We’ll talk, just the two of us, about where you are right now and what it might look like to find your way back to yourself. No pressure. No big decisions. Just a conversation to explore what’s possible.

You’ll find the link in the show notes.

That’s where we’ll leave it for today. 

However loud or quiet your wants are this week, let yourself notice them—even if it feels unfamiliar or awkward. Change doesn’t start with perfect clarity; it starts with paying attention. 

Thanks for being here—and remember to be kind to yourself this week. I’ll meet you back here soon.