Here’s my number one tip for recovering from the Bar Exam and NOT having your life on hold while you wait for results.
Begin a summer of doing things you’ve never done before.
(If you’re gearing up for next season, eliminate the need to recover by using a personalized study plan)
The in-between time between the exam and results day can be a time where you’re afraid to make a move one way or another.
But that’s because all the moves you’ve been considering are career moves— Or moves contingent on money and a job.
But the 4-8 weeks you have to wait can be the experience of a lifetime.
Make it a point to seek out things you had been afraid to do before—and do them.
If you like the activity (or new relationship) you can continue, even after you become a lawyer.
If you don’t like it, treat it like what happens in Vegas, and leave it behind in the summer/early fall of 2019
(Eliminate the need for “recovery” by doing Bar Prep the right way, with a personalized study plan)
Some ideas:
Work a job you’d never work otherwise and feel free to leave your J.D. off your application. Starbucks stints and missions trips come to mind
Do it just to do it, not expecting a thing.
You can volunteer for something you otherwise wouldn’t have had the time to participate in.
You can finally join the city choir, community theater, local running group, or even go to a speed dating event.
Just go outside your comfort zone and do something you’d never done before.
Why this works.
You’ll expand. You’ll remember you’re a multifaceted human being. You’ll believe the truth, that you’re bigger than this test, more than your career, and beyond any category society could fit you in.
The reason you can get caught up on results is because you’ve made your life all about the Bar Exam for the past two months. So when it’s over (much like when your wedding day finally happens) you have a bit of a hangover. The prolonged and mounting emotional intensity and the sudden halt in the stream of adrenaline, all leave you reeling, fatigued and likely depressed.
You’ll need to re-balance. And one of the ways to do that is to remind yourself there is more to life than your Bar Exam and even your career. You’ve chosen this career but your career doesn’t define you.
If you needed to, you could just as easily choose another career once you decided to get past the feelings of failure for switching tracks. (These feelings of failure are, by the way, completely optional.)
Here’s a huge tip re failure. You won’t feel like a failure over the trajectory of your career or the results of your Bar Exam if your life is about MORE than that.
So, go DO something. Pick your next thing to tackle in any of these realms: personal, familial, love, hobby, travel, or any new interest—and go for it!