You’ve decided 2026 is your year. You’ve identified your ONE BIG FOCUS. You’ve blocked out time in your diary. You’re ready to go.
But here’s what usually happens: you go too hard, too fast. You try to overhaul everything at once. You add business development on top of your crushing workload. You say yes to every opportunity.
By week three, you’re exhausted. By week six, you’ve quietly dropped most of your career development. By week twelve, you’re burnt out and back where you started.
Building momentum towards partnership isn’t about working harder or doing more. It’s about doing the right things consistently without burning yourself out. And the secret? Start smaller than feels comfortable.
In this episode, you’ll discover how to pace yourself from day one so you can sustain your career development efforts for the years it takes to make partner.
In this episode you will learn:
- Why “just work harder” is a terrible strategy for partnership progression (and what successful partners do instead)
- The three traps that kill momentum in the first 90 days (and how to avoid each one)
- How to start smaller than feels comfortable (and why this counterintuitive approach actually gets you to partnership faster)
- A real example of someone who won £180k of new work by doing less, not more
If you find this episode useful, don’t forget to like it and then subscribe so you don’t miss another episode.
What help is out there for you to progress your career in the professions?
If you’re thinking, ‘I want to build momentum but I’m genuinely worried about burnout’, our on-demand course “How to Truly Commit to Moving Your Career Forward” addresses exactly this.
The course helps you create a career development plan that’s ambitious but sustainable. You’ll identify your ONE BIG FOCUS, build your Default Diary, and develop habits that keep you performing at your best without running yourself into the ground. It includes practical exercises on saying no, delegation, and creating boundaries that protect your energy.
If you’re unsure where to focus, start with our free Partnership Readiness Assessment. It takes 12 minutes and shows you exactly which key indicators to focus on – helping you prioritize without trying to tackle everything at once.
You can also listen to this episode on Substack and on Apple Podcasts
Hello, and welcome!
You’ve decided 2026 is your year. You’ve identified your ONE BIG FOCUS. You’ve even blocked out time in your diary to work on it. You’re ready to hit the ground running.
But here’s what usually happens next: you go too hard, too fast. You try to overhaul everything at once. You add business development on top of your already crushing workload. You say yes to every networking event, every committee, every opportunity to raise your profile.
By week three, you’re exhausted. By week six, you’ve quietly dropped most of your career development activities. By week twelve, you’re back where you started, except now you’re also burnt out.
If you want to build real momentum towards partnership, you need to think like a marathon runner, not a sprinter. And that means pacing yourself from day one.
This is the How to Make Partner podcast with me, Heather Townsend. The author of Poised for Partnership, and co-author of How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life. In this podcast, I will be highlighting some of the great stuff in our Progress To Partner Academy. New episodes are released weekly, so press subscribe so you never miss a new episode.
Right, let’s talk about how to build sustainable momentum in your first 90 days without running yourself into the ground.
I see this pattern all the time. Someone gets serious about making partner. They read books, listen to podcasts, maybe even hire a coach. They’re fired up and ready to transform their career.
So they decide they’re going to do everything at once. They’ll attend three networking events a week. They’ll start writing thought leadership articles. They’ll volunteer for the diversity committee and the social committee. They’ll rebuild their LinkedIn profile. They’ll call every past client. They’ll start delegating everything.
And for about two weeks, they keep all these plates spinning. Then one plate drops. Then another. Then the whole lot crashes down and they go back to just doing client work because at least that’s manageable.
This isn’t a failure of commitment. It’s a failure of strategy. You can’t add 15 hours of new activities to an already full week without something breaking. And usually, what breaks is you.
The myth of “just work harder”
In professional services, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the answer to every problem is working harder. Client needs something urgent? Work harder. Want to make partner? Work harder. Struggling to fit everything in? Work harder.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: you can’t work your way to partnership by simply adding more hours. If you’re already working 50, 60, 70 hour weeks, adding another 10 hours for business development doesn’t make you partnership material. It makes you a candidate for burnout.
The professionals who successfully make partner don’t work more hours than everyone else. They work differently. They’re ruthlessly selective about what they spend their time on. They delegate systematically. They say no to things that don’t serve their partnership case, even when those things feel urgent.
Making partner isn’t about doing everything. It’s about doing the right things consistently. And you can only do that if you’ve got the energy and headspace to think strategically about your career.
The three traps in your first 90 days
There are three traps that kill momentum in the first 90 days. Let me walk you through them.
Trap one: trying to fix everything at once. You’ve identified ten things you need to improve to make partner. So you decide you’re going to tackle all ten simultaneously. This is like trying to juggle ten balls when you’ve never juggled before. You’ll drop them all.
Instead, pick one thing. Your ONE BIG FOCUS for the next 90 days. Maybe it’s winning new work. Maybe it’s building your profile. Maybe it’s freeing up time through delegation. Whatever it is, focus on that one thing and let everything else wait. You can tackle the next thing in the following 90 days.
Trap two: not protecting your new habits. You’ve blocked out Tuesday afternoons for business development. Brilliant. Then a partner asks if you’re free Tuesday afternoon for a client meeting. You say yes because you don’t want to look uncommitted. And just like that, your business development time is gone.
If you want your first 90 days to work, you need to protect your career development time as fiercely as you’d protect time with your biggest client. Because you are your biggest client. When someone asks for that time, you say “I’ve got something in the diary, but I could do Wednesday morning instead?”
Trap three: not giving yourself permission to rest. In the articles I’ve written about managing stress and avoiding burnout, I talk about the four foundational habits: sleep, movement, nutritious food, and recharge time. When you’re pushing hard on your career progression, these are the first things to go. You skip lunch to squeeze in another call. You work late instead of going for a walk. You sacrifice sleep to get through your to-do list.
But here’s what happens: without proper rest and recovery, your brain doesn’t work properly. You make poor decisions. You miss opportunities. You come across as tired and stressed rather than energetic and partner-ready. Burnout doesn’t make you look committed; it makes you look like someone who can’t manage their workload.
What actually works in the first 90 days
So what should you do instead?
First, start smaller than feels comfortable. If you think you can manage five hours a week on business development, start with two. If you think you can attend two networking events a month, start with one. Build the habit first. You can always increase the intensity later. But if you start too big and burn out, you’re back to zero.
Second, build in review time. In Chapter 3 of Poised for Partnership, I talk about setting aside time each month to review your progress. Not just to see what you’ve achieved, but to honestly assess whether your plan is sustainable. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed three weeks in, your plan is too ambitious. Scale it back now before you crash.
Third, ruthlessly delegate or drop anything that doesn’t serve your ONE BIG FOCUS. Remember, you’ve only got capacity for one big push right now. Everything else needs to either be delegated to someone else, done at a lower standard, or dropped entirely. And yes, that might mean disappointing people. But disappointing people by saying no is better than disappointing them by burning out and letting them down completely.
Here’s what this looks like in practice
Let me give you an example. I worked with a senior associate who decided her ONE BIG FOCUS was winning £150k of new work in 90 days. She was fired up and ready to go. Her initial plan? Call 50 past clients, attend 8 networking events, write 6 articles, and completely rebuild her LinkedIn presence. All whilst maintaining her usual 60-hour workweek.
I asked her: “How long do you think you can sustain that pace?” She admitted: “Probably about three weeks.”
So we scaled it back. Way back. She committed to calling just 10 past clients – two per week for five weeks. She picked one networking event for the whole quarter. She wrote one article. That’s it.
She felt like she was being lazy. Like she wasn’t pushing hard enough. But here’s what happened: she actually did all of it. She made all ten calls. She went to the networking event. She wrote and published the article. And from those ten calls, she identified three genuine opportunities. By the end of 90 days, she’d won £180k of new work.
If she’d stuck with her original plan, she’d have made about three calls, skipped most of the networking events because she was too tired, and never finished the articles. She’d have won nothing and felt terrible about herself.
Start smaller than feels comfortable. You’re building a habit that needs to last years, not weeks.
The goal of your first 90 days isn’t to transform overnight. It’s to build sustainable habits that you can maintain for the next two, three, four years until you make partner. If your plan makes you feel exhausted just thinking about it, it’s too ambitious.
Now, if you’re thinking, “I want to build momentum but I’m genuinely worried about burnout,” our on-demand course “How to Truly Commit to Moving Your Career Forward” addresses exactly this. It helps you create a career development plan that’s ambitious but sustainable, with built-in systems to protect your wellbeing whilst you’re pushing for partnership.
The course helps you identify your ONE BIG FOCUS, build your Default Diary to create protected time, and critically, develop the habits that will keep you performing at your best without running yourself into the ground. It includes exercises on saying no, delegation, and creating boundaries that protect your energy.
If you’re unsure where to focus your efforts, start with our free Partnership Readiness Assessment. It takes about 12 minutes and gives you an instant report showing exactly which key indicators you need to focus on. This will help you identify your ONE BIG FOCUS without trying to tackle everything at once.
I’ve popped a link to the Partnership Readiness Assessment and our Progress To Partner Academy directly in the show notes for this episode. Also in the show notes, you’ll find links to my books – Poised for Partnership and How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life – so you can easily find them on Amazon. And as a thank you for listening, there’s also a link for a 10% discount on annual membership for our Progress To Partner Academy using the code PODCAST10.
That’s all for this episode of the How to Make Partner podcast.
What’s your action for this week?
Look at your current plan for the next 90 days. Be brutally honest: is it sustainable? If you’re already feeling overwhelmed and you’re only in week two, scale it back now. Cut your plan in half. Build the habit first. You can always increase intensity later, but you can’t recover from burnout quickly.
If you have enjoyed this episode please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or give us a comment on Substack. This helps us get the word out to others who may need this advice too. Remember to hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s episode.
Thanks for listening!
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Links
Complete my FREE Partnership Readiness Assessment – to see where you have gaps in your own development – you’ll get a personalised report with actions for what progress your career forward
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Join Progress To Partner Academy and use the code PODCAST10 to get 10% off 12 months of premium annual membership.
Buy your hard copy of Poised for Partnership or buy the Ebook here
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