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Beyond Perfect Performance: Lessons from Sonya Looney

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In this episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren explores the intricate relationship between perfectionism and meaningful work with Sonya Looney, a unique voice at the intersection of elite performance and well-being. As a World Champion mountain biker with two decades of endurance racing experience, NBC-HWC-certified mental performance coach, and researcher, Looney brings both scientific rigor and lived experience to the conversation. Her unique combination of athletic achievement, coaching expertise, and interdisciplinary education allows her to offer distinctive insights into resilience, healthy striving, and the complex dynamics of perfectionism in high-performance settings.

Understanding Perfectionism in High Achievement

Looney introduces perfectionism through the multi-dimensional model developed by Flett and Hewitt, which identifies three key dimensions:

"We're perfectionistic in three ways: We have very high standards for ourselves, we have very high standards for other people, or we expect to meet other people's standards, society's standards, someone else's standards."

This framework helps explain why many high achievers struggle to find satisfaction in their accomplishments, often experiencing what Looney describes as "excessive striving, self-validation through goals, and difficulty in realizing a sense of accomplishment."

The Paradox of Performance and Purpose

One of the most striking insights from the episode is how perfectionism can actually undermine the meaningful aspects of work.

Through her personal journey as an elite athlete, Looney discovered that her most fulfilling moments weren't tied to race victories or performance metrics, but rather to the impact she had on others.

"If I win a race, I don't really care anymore. It's more how can I use this experience? How can I use my bike racing as a laboratory to help other people unlock their potential and find fulfillment in the process?"

From Personal Achievement to Social Impact

Looney's research reveals a shift in how we might approach goal-setting and achievement.

She introduces the concept of "meaningful other-ish goals," building on Adam Grant and Reb Rebele's work on "other-ish" behavior, where personal achievement becomes a vehicle for broader social impact.

Understanding Other-ish Goals
  • Combine personal achievement with social contribution
  • Focus on collective impact rather than individual success
  • Allow for both personal growth and community benefit
  • Emphasize immeasurable impacts over quantifiable metrics

The Challenge of Immeasurable Impact

A paradox emerges in Looney's work: the most meaningful accomplishments are often the ones we can't measure. As she notes:

"Maybe the immeasurability of it is actually helping perfectionists because they can't compare it to something. It's just a feeling and it's immeasurable."

This insight challenges traditional approaches to performance evaluation and success metrics, suggesting that our most significant contributions might exist beyond conventional measurement frameworks.

Practical Applications for Perfectionists

Looney offers several strategies for high achievers struggling with perfectionist tendencies:

  1. Balance your ‘goal portfolio’ between personal achievement and social impact

  1. Practice intentional savoring of accomplishments, especially focusing on impact on others

  2. Recognize that negative emotions can coexist with meaningful achievement

  3. Consider reducing measurement frequency of performance metrics

Resources for Further Exploration

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Beyond the Billable Hour: Lessons from Anne Brafford [Part One & Two]

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In this two-part episode of Meaningful Work Matters, host Andrew Soren explores the complex intersection of meaningful work, identity, and the legal profession with Dr. Anne Brafford. A former Big Law equity partner turned well-being consultant and researcher, Brafford brings unique insights from both her personal journey and her academic research into how lawyers find - or struggle to find - meaning in their work.

Brafford is the owner of Aspire, an education and consulting firm for the legal profession, and a founder of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. Her work focuses on the intersection of inclusion, engagement, and well-being in legal workplaces, informed by both her practical experience as a former equity partner at one of the nation's largest law firms and her academic credentials - a PhD in positive organizational psychology from Claremont Graduate University and a Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania.

A Journey from Dream to Reality

Brafford's relationship with law began early - at age 11, she already knew she wanted to be a lawyer. As a first-generation college student who went on to achieve her childhood dream, becoming not just a lawyer but an equity partner at a prestigious firm, her story exemplifies both the allure and complexity of pursuing meaningful work in the legal profession.

What drew her specifically to employment law was its inherent connection to human psychology and problem-solving - themes that would later influence her transition into well-being research and consulting.

However, after achieving the pinnacle of success in Big Law, Brafford found herself grappling with questions about meaning and purpose: "After the achievement ran out… then there wasn't much left as far as meaningfulness went."

The Moral Dimension of Legal Practice

Brafford shares a powerful story about her mentor Carol, who demonstrated how lawyers could provide both legal and moral guidance to clients.

In an environment where law is often approached as amoral, Carol stood out by consistently incorporating ethical considerations alongside legal risk assessments.

Moral Leadership in Practice
  • Going beyond legal risk assessment to consider ethical implications
  • Acknowledging the human impact of business decisions
  • Building trust through consistent demonstration of care for broader interests
  • Creating space for moral reflection in client conversations

"My mentor would get involved in very tricky employment issues, like discharge issues always have a lot of moral weight to them," Brafford explains. "You're taking a person's livelihood away from them. But sometimes our clients forget that.

This approach manifested in practical ways, such as advising clients not just on legal risk but on moral implications - like the impact of terminating an employee just before their pension vested. Carol's example gave Brafford "permission and courage to develop more of that moral sensibility" in her own practice.

Identity and Gender in Legal Practice

Brafford's research illuminates patterns in how gender shapes career motivations and experiences in law. While law schools have maintained gender parity for decades with roughly 50% female enrollment, only 20-30% of law firm partners are women. This dramatic drop-off points to deeper systemic issues around how different identities experience and pursue meaningful work.

Her research reveals that women lawyers consistently cite meaningful work as a primary motivator for their careers, while men more frequently emphasize financial success and provider roles. These differences reflect broader societal patterns and expectations that shape how men and women approach their professional lives.

"When work gets hard, men can find more value in their provider role of this is hard, but I'm doing this for my family," Brafford notes. "Women who have not been socialized into that role... when it gets hard and meaningfulness is being drained, there's a bigger question of why am I doing this?"

Positive Changes in Legal Organizations

The conversation reveals encouraging developments in how law firms are evolving to create more meaningful work environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with broader societal movements, has catalyzed significant cultural shifts. Law firms are increasingly taking public stances on important social issues and articulating clear organizational values - a dramatic departure from their traditionally neutral positioning.

Brafford highlights one particularly innovative example: a law firm's groundbreaking parental leave policy that challenges traditional hierarchies by offering expanded leave options that apply equally to all employees - not just lawyers. This approach recognizes that meaningful work environments must address both the professional and personal needs of their people.

In part two of our conversation with Dr. Anne Brafford, she delves into Self-Determination Theory (SDT) - a framework for understanding human motivation and flourishing that has profound implications for creating meaningful work environments.

Understanding Self-Determination Theory

At its core, Self-Determination Theory proposes that people share three basic psychological needs essential for optimal functioning and motivation: relatedness, competence, and autonomy.

As Brafford explains:

"We either need to figure out how to satisfy these needs ourselves, or even more so, our context needs to help support those needs."

Relatedness encompasses both close interpersonal relationships and a sense of belonging within significant groups or communities.

Competence reflects the need to feel effective and see that actions impact the environment.

The third need, autonomy, is often misunderstood. "Under self determination theory, autonomy isn't about independence," Brafford clarifies. "It's more about volition and authenticity - do I feel like I'm doing this because I'm being compelled, or do I feel that I am self-authoring, doing it because I am choosing to and because it aligns with my values and identities?"

The Quality of Motivation

Beyond identifying these core needs, SDT revolutionized our understanding of motivation by moving away from simple "on/off" models. Instead, motivation exists on a continuum of quality, ranging from amotivation (complete lack of motivation) through various forms of external motivation to fully autonomous motivation.

"What the theory proposes is that when our needs are satisfied in our context, we are more likely to be autonomously motivated in that context," Brafford explains.

This quality spectrum includes:

  • Amotivation: No motivation or connection to the task at hand

  • External motivation: Acting due to force or external rewards

  • Introjected motivation: Partially internalized but driven by guilt or ego

  • Identified motivation: Actions aligned with personal values

  • Integrated motivation: Full alignment across all aspects of identity

  • Intrinsic motivation: Acting from pure enjoyment or interest

Creating Conditions for Meaningful Work

The research shows remarkable connections between autonomous motivation and meaningful work. "What the research has found is that autonomous motivation is really strongly related to meaningful work - like 0.83 in one study," notes Brafford. "You're just not going to get meaningfulness at work unless you have autonomous motivation."

This insight has profound implications for leadership. Rather than relying on command-and-control, effective leaders focus on understanding what matters to their people and helping create conditions where they can connect their work to their values.

Supporting Psychological Needs in Practice

For organizations and leaders looking to foster meaningful work environments, Brafford emphasizes several key practices:

  1. Get to know people as individuals - understand their values, interests, and priorities

  2. Help frame the significance of work in ways that connect to what matters to them

  3. Structure work to support feelings of competence and growth

  4. Create opportunities for high-quality relationships and belonging

  5. Allow appropriate autonomy in how work gets done

Individual Agency in Need Satisfaction

While organizational support is crucial, Brafford also highlights the importance of individual "needs crafting" - proactively shaping our work to better meet psychological needs. This requires self-awareness and mindfulness about values and needs, along with the psychological flexibility to pursue them effectively in the moment.

Looking Ahead

The implications of Self-Determination Theory extend far beyond individual workplace satisfaction.

When organizations create environments that support basic psychological needs, they see improvements in engagement, wellbeing, performance, and retention. This science-based approach offers practical pathways to make work more meaningful for everyone involved.

Resources for Further Exploration