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How To Improve Your Bar Exam Mindset

A negative mindset is an actual reason that students have failed the bar exam, so it's time to get positive.

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You might not know it yet, but we need to talk about your bar exam mindset. Your bar exam mindset includes your thoughts and feelings about yourself and the bar exam. Before we dive into specific tips on how to improve your mindset, let’s address why mindset even matters when it comes to the bar exam. Why do your confidence and stress levels have an impact on everything when it comes to the bar exam? Well, stress can be pretty distracting, right? Have you ever sat down to study, but were distracted by a fight that you had with your significant other or the bills that needed to be paid? That is stress impacting your ability to focus.

The same thing happens with low self-esteem and confidence. Instead of studying, you spend all your time thinking about how you “can’t do it.” Which is in direct opposition to sitting down for 10 to 12 hours per day trying your absolute hardest to do it. If you really don’t think you can pass the bar exam, then it’s really hard to sit down and spend all of your time and energy trying to pass it. These things also lead to burnout, which is when you get to a point that you’re so exhausted and so overwhelmed that you can’t retain anything in your brain. So, all of this matters because if you’re spending all your time and energy on your negative thoughts and managing your stress, you are not spending that time and energy effectively preparing for the bar exam.

So now that you agree that mindset is critical to bar exam success, I am ready to share the 3Rs to improve your mindset and to manage your stress during bar prep. Legal disclaimer: I am not a therapist or any other sort of licensed mental health professional. These are just three steps that I have used in my personal life and have used with countless students to help them calm down when they’re feeling overwhelmed. These steps have proven to help move on from these overwhelming feelings and productively study.

The first of the three Rs is Recognize. This means to recognize that you are experiencing stress or a negative mindset. In order to recognize, you should think about how stress manifests in your body.  Do you get an upset stomach? Do you may get a headache? Do your palms may get sweaty? Do you have trouble sleeping or eating?. Or you may sleep or eat too much? What are those little things that you might not pick up on right away but are always present when you’re stressed?

A great way to figure this out is to look backwards. It can be difficult to figure out what’s going on in the moment. So, a good thing to do is reflect on how high stress situations have manifested in your body in the past. These physical cues are a great first clue that you are experiencing stress and that it may be impacting your ability to study.

The second R is to Relax or calm down. There are a ton of different ways you can do this, such as yoga, meditation, exercise, or just going for a walk. I only run if someone is chasing me, so I’m certainly not suggesting that you have go to the gym or create this super fit lifestyle. But just getting outside can work wonders.

You probably already have a pretty good idea of what things help you relax. But once you’ve identified that your body is under stress, it’s important that you implement a relaxation tool so you can bring it back down. Think about what kind of things helped you in the past to relax and calm down when you’ve been upset and make them your go-to activities. There are also a lot of great apps out there that might have some helpful tools for you.

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It is not enough just to recognize and relax because then you’re susceptible to dwelling on the same thing that had you stressed out in the first place. Once you go through the Recognize and Relax steps, you can move on to the third R, which is to Reroute and problem solve. Rerouting is when you actually figure out what caused the stress in the first place. That usually comes with identifying some kind of negative thinking pattern. Think about when you have told yourself, “I can’t do this,” “I’m not good enough,” ”I’m not smart enough,” or my personal favorite, “I’m bad at multiple choice questions.” Then, try to determine what was going on in your head that made this stress build up in your mind.  Once you figure out what that is, you can reroute it. You can problem-solve it. So, come up with ways to get around that. It could be re-framing that negative thought into a positive affirmation. It could be journaling about the feelings. Figure out what will help you say, “I see that this is a problem and I’m not just going to push it aside and pretend it doesn’t exist.” Then, tell yourself, “I’m going to address it head-on so it doesn’t keep manifesting and distracting me.”

I hope you now understand just how crucial having a positive mindset is and found these tips on how to improve your mindset helpful. A negative mindset is an actual reason that students have failed the bar exam, and it’s something that not many people are paying attention to. Be sure to implement the 3Rs into your successful bar prep strategy.

Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.

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