Right now, many of our bar takers are feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, despite many weeks of laboring studies, as to whether they have what it really takes to successfully pass their bar exams later this month.
In my own life, self-chatter takes up so much of my thought-time and mental efforts.
Self-doubt, lack of confidence, deep rooted feelings of not fitting in, of not having, the "right stuff," so to speak.
In short, we start to wonder if we really do belong, if we really do measure up, if we somehow didn't just happen to make it through law school but someday, we will be found out to be a fraud, to be faking it all along.
For our bar takers, let me say at the outset that, if you feel gripped by worries and fear, you are not alone, at all.
Most of us, when we took our bar exams, were worried out of our minds.
That's because – to be frank – taking bar exams is really not a natural part of life (and really has no place in the practice of law because it's totally unlike the practice of law with its over-reliance on recall and quick identification and resolution of issues). Who practices law like that? So, it's okay to be concerned, stressed, and worried.
But let me also say that the next few weeks, while important, don't have to be lived out perfectly, as perfectly studious and perfectly performed. Rather, as you prepare for your bar exam later this month, focus on just two tasks.
First, work through lots of essays and multiple-choice problems with the goal of discovering and learning and growing. That means, when you miss things, don't give up. Rather, use those opportunities as springboards to figure out how to get that sort of problem correct next time.
Second, spend time rehearing your lines, like an actor on stage, walking through, talking out, and practicing your study tools, issue spotters, and big picture problem-solving rules. Focus on the major rules. Forget the minor details. People pass based on majoring on the major rules not on those pesky minor details.
But often times we, as human beings, think we have to know it all to pass the bar exam. We don't. You don't. Rather, be confident in taking these next few weeks as opportunities to experience more practice problems and to practice rehearing the rules. That's it. Just two tasks.
That's still a lot – and that's were perspective comes in. I'm in my sixties. Just two years ago, I fractured my back in five places in a car accident, leaving me unable to walk without assistance and without a walker for a number of weeks and into several months. In fact, as I took my first steps, I recall thinking that I would never ever again be able to hike, or walk, or bike. That's because I was so focused on what I couldn't do, at present. At best, with lots of help from both sides and a walker to balance myself too, I could only muster a handful of steps. And painful steps to boot.
Last weekend, my wife and I took two days to trek about a little over thirty miles in the local mountains. In other words, although I wouldn't have believed it two years ago, I'm back on the trail. At the time, two years ago, I never saw any progress, or at least not much at all.
Bar prep is a bit like that. It just doesn't seem like we are progressing much at all, especially because we keep on missing so many issues and questions. But, in the last week, things come together, exponentially so to speak, because we've planted and watered so many seeds of learning and discovering throughout this summer that they all start to bloom, like a beautiful flower bed, all at once.
As we hiked through the mountains this week, headed uphill to a 11,700 foot plateau, I realized that I had actually grown quite a bit, as a hiker, over the past two years, so much so that I actually passed a few people, all much younger that I. Of course, I was going uphill. The hikers I passed were going downhill. But I still take good cheer that I'm hiking on my own trail.
That's all we ask of you and all that you should ask of yourself in the course of these next few weeks of bar prep. Be yourself, walk at your own pace, keep going uphill, step by step. But just like I do often on the trail, feel free to take lots of breaks throughout the day. Those breaks help you see how far you have come uphill and how much you're progressed in your learning. So trust yourself. You can do this, one step at a time. (Scott Johns).
