3 Things to Stop Telling Yourself Before the Bar Exam

Have you reached success in other parts of your life? School, relationships, a new hobby, an extracurricular your mom forced you to do in middle school?

Why not the bar?

As you try to push through this final stretch, you might have some doubts, frustrations, and a general sense of uncertainty. You can’t wait to abandon the bar like a New Year’s resolution and just be done with it!

“That’s normal. I can’t help it.”

The future is full of hope, however, because you don’t need to be extraordinary to pass the bar (although I’ll try to get you there). You can be “normal” and still become an attorney. It’s just a matter of when.

But what you can’t do is self-sabotage. You can help it if you choose to.

Here are three things you should stop telling yourself (one week before the bar exam, two weeks before, anytime you’re doubting yourself during preparation):

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The Courage to Enjoy Your Mistakes Now

Our first date ended with her car getting towed.

She was the type of person to schedule her showers by the minute because of her absurd rotation schedule in med school. Yet she had taken three hours out of her life to meet me again for a second date.

I wanted to hold her hand so bad. A perfect pretext to see how she felt about me… that I ruined because I lacked three seconds of courage.

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One Non-negotiable Study Strategy for the Bar Exam

“I’m taking the bar exam in a few months. Where do I start? What should I know?”

They say hindsight is 20/20. Let’s look ahead instead of thinking backward.

Here’s how to get 20/20 FORESIGHT: Study your predecessors, especially the ones who took the bar more than once.

Luckily for you, I already asked your fellow students for help. Here’s what they had to say after coming out of the trenches:

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Passing Is Inevitable

As the exam gets closer, just remember that you are capable of passing the bar.

You may pass this time, or you may not. Let’s trust our preparation, be arrogant, and do our best anyway. Our best now is enough even if our future best will be better.

But if you can graduate from law school, you do have it in you to make this your last time.

Like Kathleen who was a mother in her late 40s who graduated from a barely accredited law school.

Like Steph who was in prison for 32 years (who told me that checking for bar results was more stressful than checking on parole status).

Like Naoki and Ferdinand who never even went to an American law school.

Like Sam and James and other foreign-trained attorneys.

Even if you fail the bar, it’s not going anywhere. It’s going to stay in the same spot, while you keep getting closer and closer like a predator moving in on a prey. Therefore, passing is inevitable.

It doesn’t matter where you start. This is an acquirable skill. You can always get better. It’s always a work in progress.

You will get to a state of being where the exam is over (possibly for good).

On the upside, it won’t be as bad as the months of waiting in anxiety and ennui you’ll have to go through. But you can worry about that later.