Is it possible to enjoy bar prep?
It’s one of the dryest things a person can do on this planet. (Don’t let space aliens try this.) But we retain more and pay more attention when things are enjoyable.
The default, typical, boring approach to bar prep involves sitting still like a statue, watching people in suits drone on as you fantasize about throwing yourself out the window (not your computer though…you already paid the laptop exam fees). You might even pause the video and make sure to fill in all the notes.
This is all surprisingly exhausting.
The default way of doing things feels nice because you can’t get anything wrong when you’re just absorbing information. You won’t taste defeat, but you won’t taste victory either.
Instead of playing defense, it’s time to go on offense. You can even enjoy bar prep this way.
Ultimately, you can have fun with anything. It’s a mindset. And if it isn’t fun, you can just enjoy not having fun!
Here’s a visual guide with 6 ways to make steady progress and enjoy bar prep, without the frustration and exhaustion that come with the default approach to studying for the bar exam.
1. Learn by example.
Limit “theory” and seek “application.”
Yes, of course you’ll want to brush up on the law before you try to use it. Have foundational working knowledge.
But learning Spanish and speaking it with a native are two different things. A lion in a zoo can read as much as he wants about being a lion in the wild, but he’ll never get the full experience until he’s released in the wild.
The more you raise the issues and use the rules in context, the more you’ll gain the intuition.
See how the issues and rules play out in real scenarios. An example of how a rule is used is worth a thousand words explaining the rule.
2. Knowing the law means knowing the issues.
Issues are where everything starts. When you know the issues, you can “check” through them so you don’t miss any in your essays.
If you only know the rules, you’ll be lost trying to fit them in randomly, like when you try to force a joke that only makes sense to you and people pretend to chuckle even though they didn’t get it.
If you love the rules so much, why don’t you marry them?! (Now that’s a forced joke.)
3. Test yourself against past bar exam questions.
The ghosts of questions past will guide you. You’ll be haunted by similar questions on the bar exam.
You’re watching some dude drone on at 50% normal speaking speed. Meanwhile, you see other kids play outside while you sit still by the window.
Get out there and practice as if it were the real thing, and then do the real thing as if it were practice. The bar exam tests whether you can resolve issues, not just memorize a bunch of words you can’t remember under pressure.
As the kids say nowadays, “Touch grass.” You can’t learn how to ride a bike by watching tutorials about it.
You might fall and scrape your knees, but at least you’ll know what the wind in your face feels like.
4. Get things wrong.
The realization of the correct issue, rule, or answer after getting it wrong is EXCITING, not discouraging. It’s these “aha” moments that stay with you.
From there, you’ll start to get things right. Defeat is fodder for your victory.
This is how I remembered an issue I missed in an essay the first time:
5. It’s OK if you’re not confident about the bar exam.
“Oh, but my confidence level… I need to be cOnFiDenT”
THIS SHIT IS HARD. It’s natural to feel anxious and overwhelmed. It’s why I have a whole mini-course on organizing your emotions.
Confidence is nice to have. I can give it to you. Nothing wrong with a bit of external motivation.
But too much of it can also be a sign that you don’t know what you don’t know, that you’ve merely become familiar with the materials, or that you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security.
The point is to become competent—and pass.
Two parts to that:
- Become: This is a process. The bar exam isn’t easy, but it’s doable with the right approach for you. You WILL get better with the right approach, like all these bar takers.
- Competent: This isn’t about how you feel. It’s more about how solving similar questions over and over makes them predictable and second nature to you on the bar exam.
Perhaps part of confidence is knowing you don’t need to seek confidence. Competence will lead to confidence as a side effect anyway. You can’t think your way to confidence.
People who end up passing aren’t coming out of the exam smug and “confident.” In fact, many passers are more nervous than those who fail.
This is interesting: According to this Harvard Business Review article,
“Lower self-confidence makes you pay attention to negative feedback and be self-critical . . . To be the very best at anything, you will need to be your harshest critic, and that is almost impossible when your starting point is high self-confidence. Exceptional achievers always experience low levels of confidence and self-confidence, but they train hard and practice continually until they reach an acceptable level of competence. Indeed, success is the best medicine for your insecurities.”
“Lower self-confidence can motivate you to work harder and prepare more: If you are serious about your goals, you will have more incentive to work hard when you lack confidence in your abilities. In fact, low confidence is only demotivating when you are not serious about your goals.“
You’re serious about passing the bar exam. Aren’t you?
“When you see a kid in the park, they’re not looking at a slide and thinking, ‘I have a lot of internal fears about this slide. I don’t want to go down it and look like an imposter slider.’ . . .
They just slide down it and see what happens.”
6. Redo practice questions.
Few people see the value in redoing questions.
This is an underrated strategy that confirms whether you understand the tested concept and makes it less likely for you to forget it. The bar exam tests you within a finite universe. Most of what you’ll see has already been tested.
Repetition of the known universe is how you retain that information for the long term.
There’s also value in taking breaks to help you memorize.
“But I’ll know what the answer is!”
And?
Getting questions right because you’ve seen them before is the WHOLE POINT of “preparation.”
You can at least slam dunk THOSE questions so that you can spend your most valuable resource—attention—on new and tricky questions that the bar examiners come out with every year.
BONUS. Things will get better if you water the bamboo consistently.
It’s often a week or two before the exam when things finally start to click.
So if you’re stressing over not improving much in the first several weeks of studying, your efforts are not wasted. The bamboo shoots up overnight all at once. Keep watering the bamboo.
(This is one of the mental shifts you learn in Mental Engines, my mini-course on organizing your mental and emotional state for the bar exam.)
A gréât reminder that becoming confident is part of the process, and to enjoy that process!