After 3-5 years of law school you plan to take the Bar as soon as possible and move on with your life already.
But sometimes it just doesn't happen that way.
You can fall ill. You can suffer a life loss in your family. Or you can simply be overcome with nerves and unable to face the day. Whatever the reason, you are presently considering postponing, rescheduling or deferring the Bar Exam and you want some confirmation that this is the right path to take.
A Tale of Two Men
What makes the difference between the man who took the Bar exam just days after his daughter's passing and the man who postponed his Bar exam because his cat died a few weeks prior? The meaning of events is in the way you frame them. The one man viewed his daughter's passing as inspiration and confirmation to move forward and finish his Bar Exam marathon. He honored her life through his actions. The latter man interpreted his cat's death as a sign that "once again" nothing "ever" works out for him, he should slow down, rethink things, "maybe now's not the time".
If you have a goal (becoming an attorney) and your plan is set firmly in your mind (passing the Bar) and you have broken your plan into action steps (taking a study course or using your own review plan, keeping a life balanced with self-care, study and work if needed) you can now begin monitoring your progress to your goal by observing the completion of your action steps.
Are you faltering on your action steps? If you're at the point of rescheduling your Bar Exam it's a certainty that you faltered on your action steps long before you reached this point--or that you never had a plan to begin with.
To save yourself from another rescheduled exam, let's examine where you stopped yourself, or faltered on your plan and why. To do this I introduce the word "resistance".
Resistance is the circumstance that makes your path to your goal bumpy. Resistance may even seem to block your path. For example, you've signed up for an on-line course but your log-in credentials don't work, customer service isn't getting back to you right away and your anxiety and frustration is mounting.
Many, without sufficient motivation and coping skills will take it as a sign that this is the wrong course for them and go back 5 steps in their plan to start looking for a new program all over again. "I'm not meant to be here" they explain. And continue to procrastinate and self-sabotage. Why "self-sabotage"? Well, the longer they take to get started, the less learning and practice time they have and soon they are taking the Bar Exam unprepared--or rescheduling their exam date.
Another example I have seen way too often is making a relationship change, especially getting engaged or married, anytime between your 3L year and taking the Bar Exam. Some people can handle being pulled in multiple directions. But for some Bar Exam takers even someone else getting married can distract the examinee from their Bar studies. So forget the Bar taker her(him)self getting married.
The distracting effect of planning a wedding and getting married is not limited to the Bar Exam taker who plays the planning role. This goes for both partners. I have observed husbands-to-be getting severely distracted, not by wedding preparations, but by the very necessary series of thoughts that come when you are about to make a huge life change like getting married. So generally he fails the Exam and, despite repeated attempts, won't pass the Exam until his life has finally settled down. That's how I have personally seen it happen. This is self-created resistance. There's no judgment here.
Resistance is a mechanism that helps us maintain the status quo and forces us to be sure we're ready to break through to a new level of existence, in this example, becoming a lawyer.
🕮 It's counter-intuitive but when you are facing resistance you must stop and ask yourself why you would not want to accomplish your goal. "Why would I not want to pass the /part-ii-postponing-the-bar-examBar?" Think about it--despite your resistance to entertaining this question. Because your mind is a goal achieving machine, it will work very hard to serve your deeper purpose. So if, for whatever reason (likely unconscious), you don't want to pass the Bar, or passing the Bar would put you in a compromising situation (real or imagined), your mind will work to keep you from passing the Bar.
For a real life story on how sneakily resistance may be stopping you from putting your best foot forward, click here to read part two.
