Mindset/Psychology Archives | Make This Your Last Time

May 10, 2026May 10, 2026 - 40 Comments

Should You “Trust the Process”? You’re the Dean of Your Own Bar Exam Studies

Here’s something that people who pass the bar exam never say:

“All I had to do was listen to all the bar course lectures and take a lot of notes. Just complete the course and you’ll pass!”

Sometimes we think “doing whatever it takes” to pass the bar exam means exhausting yourself and throwing 1000 hours and even more dollars into a black hole. (But it doesn’t have to be expensive.)

Or following some unsustainable cookie-cutter schedule that doesn’t care if you have a job or a family. Good luck if you fall behind by one day.

Or letting a perfectly fine morning slip through by religiously sitting through 4 hours of droning lectures. Worse, pausing lectures to fill in all the notes.

Then not even remembering 99% of it.

Rewinding the video for the 5th time because you can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire

I remember those days. All of those things above are things I stopped doing on my second attempt at preparing for the bar exam.

May 9, 2026May 9, 2026 - 16 Comments

Bar Prep Is Overwhelming: How to Make Independent Choices for Yourself

You have questions about the bar exam. How to study. When to study. Whether you’re on the right track. Picking the right bar prep supplements out of all the resources out there.

"Yes, it is very overwhelming and the amount of resources out there to help are also overwhelming lol"

Here’s how questions go on social media:

“What’s the best program/tutor/outline?”

It makes me wonder: Do you just want to be told with certainty, or do you actually want the objective best?

If you crowdsource the answer, by definition, you won’t know which one is “best” because you’ll get different answers based on everyone’s own experience.

In fact, the more options you have, the more hesitant you get. There are pros and cons to every option.

How would you even trust what’s best until you try it yourself?

There are no secrets, and there are a million ways to pass. It’s always been up to you.

Sounds scary but also freeing, right? You have it in you already.

Sure, sometimes you want to vent and get some support from others. See what other people are doing.

But bar prep is personal. I want to encourage you to listen to yourself a little more instead of blindly being influenced by what someone else says you “need” to do (not just with bar prep but with everything else in life).

That’s where the danger lies. Everyone has an opinion (and sometimes a tutoring service). Is that comment even a real opinion or just an ad? Are you reading something thrown up by AI and not respectful of your attention?

You shop around the astroturf and end up where you started.

May 3, 2026May 12, 2026 - 11 Comments

Why You Feel Exhausted Studying for the Bar Exam

Let me guess. Is this your idea of bar prep?

Listen to lectures while sitting still like a statue
Pause to take notes and fill in the blanks (doubling the time it takes to finish the lectures)
Re-read giant outlines you highlighted last week (osmosis didn’t work) before falling asleep with the lights on

It’s like you’re experiencing the most annoying part about traveling—sitting for hours next to someone who takes up the armrest even though they got the window seat.

And repeating this every day. Is this what Limbo is like?

You’re drained and demoralized because you’re trying to “study” but aren’t feeling a sense of progress as words and days pass by you.

But why are you trying to do this the hard way?

April 23, 2026May 9, 2026 - 1 Comment

Do I Really Need a $3,000 Bar Prep Course? Is Self-Study Enough to Pass the Bar Exam? What the Data Shows

You’re staring at your bar exam registration deadline trying to come up with a game plan.

Your inbox is full of emails from Barbri, Themis, and Kaplan. “Sign up for our course to pass. Hurry!!!”

Then you see the price tag.

Is this mandatory? Or just a sales pitch?

What typically happens is that prospective bar takers default toward courses on auto-pilot after exposure to three years of marketing.

Understandable! You’re not sure where to even start, and law schools will farm you out to big courses. They’re not going to go out of their way to teach you. (What are they, some kind of charity?)

And it’s exciting when the first video starts playing. Time to buckle down and dive in! Yeah!! Whether you’ll end up lost and frustrated anyway in 5 weeks is another matter.

The bar exam sounds scary, and that’s exactly what they’re banking on. We’re drawn to what feels “safe” and familiar even if it may not the best thing for us. But if you think about it, there’s no real reason you must take a course or be in that situationship.

Courses are a luxury supplement when it comes to bar review. Remember that, and treat them as such.

❌ “Should I use Barbri or Themis?”
✅ “Should I use Barbri or Themis at all?”

❌ “What’s the nicest, ‘best’ option?”
✅ “Where in this bar prep process am I going to feel stuck, and what can I use to make that part go smoother?”

The first question is like sorting by business class when shopping for plane tickets. Maybe this is actually how you want to travel, especially if it’s long distance or an important trip (or someone’s paying for it).

There are legitimate reasons some folks should buy a course. Not everyone should DIY this.

But maybe you weren’t even aware of other options that also get you to point B more cost-efficiently (and more effectively while wasting less time). The first time I took the bar, I didn’t know there were paths other than the default one given to me. I even got excited because “everything I needed to know was in that box of books”!

Lots of people pass with a course. Lots of people pass without one. It’s not the course that determines your success.

I’m going to show you the evidence and perspectives you may not have considered so that you can decide for yourself whether you should take a course or self-study.

February 17, 2026February 17, 2026 - 4 Comments

Tired of Bar Prep? Guarantee Motivation to Beat the Bar Exam with These 5 Reminders

How often do you see motivationals like this?

You’re doing totally fine!!!
You’re going to pass!!! BELIEVE IT!
My all-time favorite: YOU GOT THIS!!!!! (“I needed to hear this today!”)

But what do you do to pick yourself back up in your most defeated moments when you don’t believe you got this?

I wanted to pass the bar exam.

So instead of actually preparing for it, I made an image of a bar license card with my name on it using Microsoft Paint. You know, for visualization and manifestation like random people suggested online.

I’m not even kidding. Look and cringe: