How well do you know yourself? Truly?
Is your self-knowledge built on what others have told you about yourself? OR have you dedicated meaningful time to the science of self-study
Have you ever met that person who is a superhero at doing something and doesn’t even realize how good they are?
They do it SO easily that people around them overlook how much expertise it takes--until they try to do it themselves.
If you haven’t experienced it yourself just wait, there are tons of people willing to take advantage of your legal knowledge and expertise as an attorney, while expecting to pay only pennies, because you make it look so easy.
Yes. Think of that.
Now, think back to that person who easily pulls something off. How did they get to be that good?
While you are in law school, and hopefully during years 0-2 of your attorney career, someone else is responsible for your path to mastery. Yes, you must work. But you don’t have to lay out your own steps, you just follow their proven recipe.
However, if you want to succeed on something like the bar exam, on your own terms, you must take the reins back and drive your own mastery.
Knowing how *you* work will make success obtainable no matter what you tackle.
This skill is religiously taught at the beginning of my goal achiever’s curriculum. In fact, the topic of self-mastery for success is the foundation of my work. (Enjoy a sample of our self-mastery tools that help you automate your life success here).
Any athlete knows that good physical performance is going to come from prep and mindset as much as actual performance. They will visualize themselves performing expertly.
They will sip lots of water throughout the day to prep their organs and lubricate their muscles. Some athletes believe in carb-loading before their event.
They have found a preparation method that leads to predictable high performance for them.
The same applies to the student who books every law class, the politician who predictably gets enough votes for her bill or the attorney who gets promoted very quickly through the ranks.
Each of these people mapped out a success routine for themselves, something that when completed predictably leads to success. Despite its simplicity, only a few implement this, which is why it seems like super successful people have some sort of magic potion that is unavailable to you. This type of success is available to everyone willing to put on a scientist’s thinking cap for a few minutes a day.
Use the below to learn how to study yourself. Then apply that knowledge to your personal success recipe (proven to work for you). Soon you’ll see how success is predictable on anything--even the bar.
(Remember to include mindset into any preparation method you come up with. Otherwise, your prep method won’t amount to anything more than a superstitious rain dance.)
Observe past instances of easy success and your current WINS! This step can be difficult if you haven’t made a practice of noticing and celebrating your accomplishments on a daily basis. When I first started with this work of self-mastery it seemed a waste of time to focus on what went right. I needed to focus on fixing what went wrong? Correct?
But once I mastered this skill of acknowledging and dissecting what went right, less things went wrong. So this step is not an ego fluffing step but a necessary pre-step to your fine-tuned goal achievement formula. Start today to write a list acknowledging everything you did well and everything that you actually checked off your to-do list, etc. Go ahead, grab your journal and make a T-chart now. The first column will be your WINS
2. Observe why those things went well. What did you do? How did you do it? Put this in the column next to the WINS! This column will be titled HOW? After you’ve compiled about 50 or so WINS along with HOWS, observe the theme. Find the one or two things that commonly crop up as the reasons behind your accomplishments.
3. Purposely incorporate what you’ve just learned. Now that you’ve identified how you accomplished past wins, you can make a point of incorporating that from the start of your next assignment. If you continue with this list building of WINS and HOWS through the months and years, you will grow your toolbox of winning moves. As you focus on winning moves you will crowd out wrong moves. In doing so you’ll gradually do less things wrong and get more things done.. (Of course making mistakes never goes away, not as long as you’re continuously reaching for ever higher achievements). Nevertheless, whenever you set a new goal, your learning curve becomes easier as a result of following your personal success recipe.
Take some time to implement these steps right now. Reading alone never changes lives.. Success comes through implementation. Happy goal achieving!