Big Plays - Small Steps

It's just a week and a half before the February 2022 bar exam.  For some of our bar takers, probably most, they are not sure, despite weeks of laboring studies, that they are ready, at all.  That's completely understandable, even natural.  So I have thought experiment.

I recently heard a speaker say that no one on the football field knows whether the next play will be the big one - the proverbial game changer.  Rather, each player lines up and gives it the utmost best, no knowing whether the next play will be the big one.

You see, big plays start just like small plays, step by step, push by push, and motion by motion.

I think it's a bit like that with the bar exam.  

For those of you taking the Feb bar exam, don't give up, on yourself, on your learning, and on your purpose.

Regardless of how you feel, step up each day, with courage, conviction, and curiosity, making it your aim to "move the ball forward" a little bit more, with each opportunity you take to practice another essay or a batch of multiple-choice questions. Stick with it.  And, when you fumble something, don't consider that as a step backward but rather as an opportunity to learn something that you didn't understand a few moments prior to that problem.  Keep growing; keep learning; keep on at it.

In short, don't stop learning.  Far too many people, I fear, with a week to go before the bar exam, start to huddle in the locker room so to speak, taking exams to see if they have a passing score yet.  

But your scores today do not determine your destiny tomorrow, unless you let them. So don't take practice questions as opportunities to test yourself, to prove yourself, but rather to learn.  Otherwise, in essence, you are giving up a week before the bar exam.  You are still in the game, the game of learning. Learn big. Live big, as if every opportunity is an opportunity to grow and learn, because it is.  You never know which question on your bar exam is going to be the game changer but, by preparing through lots of practicing with the purpose of learning, you're well-prepared to take the little steps that will be the game changer for you. Best of luck on your bar exam!  (Scott Johns).